On 7 May 2025, the Finnish Police issued a warning concerning the international, extremely violent The Com network, which manipulates and blackmails children into producing highly harmful content. There are already indications that its activity is reaching Finland and other Nordic countries as well.
Protect Children organization and Canadian Police have created a guide for identifying the activities of violent online communities and promoting the safety of children and young people online. Download the guide in English, in Swedish or in Finnish here.
At School of Gaming, we take this extremely seriously. During the summer we started taking the following steps to make concrete safety-driven changes in our operations:
- We will discontinue the use of Discord during 2025, as it no longer provides a sufficiently safe environment for children.
- We are launching our own private community platform on web and mobile, accessible only to our members, ensuring a safe, controlled, and transparent digital environment.
- We start free weekly Minecraft demo sessions where parents and children can safely try guided gaming and ask questions from our professionals regarding gaming, screen time and online safety, among other things.
Safe and guided gaming is the key to fighting back against online threats like these. When children play in a supervised, positive environment, they learn the very skills that protect them online. By building genuine friendships, collaborating in trusted groups, recognizing boundaries, they build the courage and confidence to say no to harmful influences and skills to detect and avoid manipulation and disinformation online.
At School of Gaming, our mission is to turn screen time into quality time. And to protect children from the darker sides of the internet.