Best Parental Control

Filed under: Internet Safety Tips, Social Networking, Articles of Interest, Sexting

After watching MTV’s “When Privates Go Public”, I was reminded of my own high school career. I didn’t have the technology that is currently available, but I saw myself in the students that were featured. The girl was naive and thought her boyfriend would never betray her trust. I was reminded how my trust was betrayed by my first love. The second student was frustrated and did something without thinking. I was reminded that I am really glad that there isn’t documentation of things I did without thinking when I was a teen. As I listened to their stories, I was touched not by their story as much as how easy it is happening to youth who you would never expect.

The two stories featured were a young girl who sent a topless picture of herself and a boy who forwarded a picture of his girlfriend from his cell phone. She ended up having her picture sent to everyone in not only her school, but other schools as well. He was convicted as a sex offender and is facing those consequences (including not being able to get a job or even live with his father because of the proximity to a school). Neither person was anyone I would think would even think of doing anything like this. Both described that ‘they didn’t think’ anything bad would happen and certainly would never have done it had they thought about consequences. I could see myself in both of these young people.

The entire episode is available online. I re-encourage you to watch it with young people in your life. It is an important topic that might lead to helping them think about consequences.

Once you watch it, post your thoughts about the documentary in the comments. Do you see yourself, or your kids, in those featured?

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Posted in Parental Control News No Comments Tags: a thin line, AThinLine, mtv, online parenting, OnlineParenting, social networking, SocialNetworking, when privates go public, WhenPrivatesGoPublic

Filed under: Internet Safety Tips, Social Networking, TV & Video, Sexting

We’ve been told that 3 in 10 teens have been involved in some type of naked texting. Of those, one in five report that they have passed the images along to someone else. Since these young people are primarily defined as minors, this makes a hot story for all kinds of venues.

In the last few months the topic of sexting seems like it is everywhere. We talk about it here on SafetyClicks a lot, but the same concerns we discuss are in the main stream as well. A recent episode of The Deep End, a new ABC show about a law firm, one of the clients was a teen facing charges distribution of child pornography for a picture taken of his girlfriend. The teen being charged with child pornography for sending a nude picture of their girl/boyfriend is not all that uncommon since the laws are not prepared for this kind of behavior.

If you want to watch the episode of ‘The Deep End’, you can watch the full episode online. On the show everything works out thanks to the savvy lawyers – do you think you would have the same luck?

What do you think about the topic of sexting showing up so much in pop culture?

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Posted in Parental Control News No Comments Tags: sexting, social networking, SocialNetworking, the deep end, TheDeepEnd

Net filters to hit social networks

March 1, 2010

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he would consider introducing an internet ombudsman after Facebook tributes to two dead children were defaced with pornography.

Rudd said he would look into an idea put forward by Independent Senator Nick Xenophon to appoint an official who would be responsible for taking complaints and action against such material.

‘We actually need to do everything we can to combat cyber crime,’ Rudd said.

‘The role of cyber crime and internet bullying on children is, frankly, frightening and we need to be deploying all practical measures.’

Memorial pages on the social networking site for eight-year-old Trinity Bates and Elliott Fletcher, 12, who were allegedly murdered in separate incidents this month, have been vandalised with offensive material.

Rudd said responsible governments were obliged to act to protect children.

‘And this is where we get into this really stupid debate with what I’d describe as extreme civil libertarianism, which says any such move in that direction means the imposition of Soviet Communism a la 1980,’ Rudd said.

‘Look, it’s not like that. It’s not perfect, but we need to reduce the problem.’

Rudd also defended the government’s proposed internet filter, which is designed to block child pornography, terrorist material and other extreme and offensive information, saying it was in line with how movies and videos were censored.

He said the filtering, which will be carried out by Internet service providers, slowed the speed of web-surfing but only to ‘the equivalent to 1/70th of the blink of an eye.’

‘It’s not perfect, but let me tell you I will not stand idly by and allow this sort of muck to be put online without making an effort to reduce it, given the enormous impact it has on the safety of children,’ Rudd said.

The move has proved controversial among internet user groups as well as web giants Google and Yahoo!, and prompted activists to launch an attack shutting down government sites earlier this month.

Posted in Parental Control News No Comments Tags: Australia, blocking and filtering, censorship, Child Protection, social networking

Filed under: Internet Lingo, Social Networking, TV & Video, Articles of Interest

The PBS’s series “Frontline” recently aired an episode called “Digital Nation”. It talked about how much the current generation has transformed the world through technology. It was done by the same people who did Growing Up Online, so I was intrigued.

The program started by talking about how effective (or not) people are at multi-tasking. I was in full agreement. I kept thinking how crazy the people were who said “they can read email, pay attention to a lecture, and search the web at the same time.” Then I had to laugh at myself. I was watching this documentary with my laptop open checking mail and starting to write this post.

After I put my laptop away and started paying closer attention to the message, I was really impressed with the information.

They said that there are two categories of people in the digital arena, digital natives and digital immigrants. Among the natives, there was a deep look at the possibility of Internet addiction and the observation that multi-tasking is rampant and unproductive, the social aspect (looking mainly into massively multi-player online role playing games such as World of Warcraft), and how this technology has transformed warfare.

Regarding which camp I fall into – I think I fall squarely into the immigrant category. I have worked very hard to learn about different kids of technology, but it is not easy for me. I often end up asking people (generally young people) who are natives for help. Do you think you fit into the digital native category, or the immigrant? If you are a native, do you share your knowledge? If you are an immigrant, do you seek to learn more? How?

It is playing on PBS periodically, so I’d recommend watching it. Check your local listings for when it will be on in your area.

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Posted in Parental Control News No Comments Tags: digital nation, DigitalNation, frontline, parenting tips, ParentingTips, social networking, SocialNetworking

EU – European Commission calls on social networking companies to improve child safety policies: (RAPID)
50% of European teenagers give out personal information on the web – according to an EU study – which can remain online forever and can be seen by anybody. Today, Safer Internet Day, the European Commission is passing a message to teenagers: ‘Think before you post!’ It welcomed actions to protect children using social networking websites taken by the 20 companies who signed the Safer Social Networking Principles last year. Most of these companies have empowered minors to tackle online risks by making it easier to change privacy settings, block users or delete unwanted comments and content. Yet more needs to be done to protect children online, the Commission says. Less than half of social networking companies (40%) make profiles of under-18 users visible only to their friends by default and only one third replied to user reports asking for help. See Think before you post! How to make social networking sites safer for children and teenagers? speech by Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission responsible for Information Society and Media, Safer Internet Day Strasbourg, 9 February 2010. See also European Commission assesses social networking sites’ approach to safety of under 18s and video clip.

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

Posted in Parental Control News No Comments Tags: child pornography, EU, networking principles, social networking, social networking sites