Most students have sites
Have you seen them?
You should!!! they spend a great deal of time on them and they give predators
way too much info... read about it!!
Social Networking
Sites
MARC Parent Handout pdf file
Internet Links
These protective measures include:
* If you have children and you do not need to have a webcam, do not have
one on your computer.
* If you have a computer with a webcam, keep it in a common room, not in a
child's bedroom.
* Teach your children to use webcams only to communicate with people they
know.
* When you are not using your webcam, put the lens cap on or unplug it.
* Make sure children understand that what they do on a webcam is not
necessarily private. Teach them to never do anything in front of a webcam that
they wouldn't want the entire world to see.
* Don't post your webcam URL on the Web.
* Teach children about the dangers of posting personal information and
pictures online.
* Teach children to not respond to instant messages or emails from strangers.
The Dangers of Webcams
MySpace.com is a wildly popular Web site where teens can find each other, and
sometimes find trouble. You may never have heard of the site, but most kids
have. Dateline�s Rob Stafford reports on why parents must mind MySpace.
Dateline special report
MySpace safety net catches criticism
Warnings are inadequate, say experts
By ROB MARGETTA
Standard-Times staff writer
NEW BEDFORD � Warnings about online predators that can now be seen on
MySpace.com are a good step forward, but most likely won't make young Internet
users any safer, local experts said yesterday.
"Kids aren't there to view the ads, especially ads that are educational," said
Deputy Sheriff Linda Pacheco, who has served as an Internet safety outreach
officer for the Bristol County Sheriff's Department.
MySpace, a "social networking" site, has become incredibly popular, boasting
more than 40 million users who have logged on to create their own personal Web
pages.
But the site has also become notorious in Internet safety circles due to the
number of teenagers posting personal details easily accessible to sexual
predators and photos showing them using drugs or striking racy poses.
Southern New England has seen its share of MySpace problems. In March, three
teenaged girls who attend Lincoln High School in Rhode Island were charged
with child pornography for posting explicit photos of themselves on the site.
Jacob Robida, the 18-year-old from New Bedford who attacked patrons at a North
End gay bar with a hatchet and a gun in February, maintained a MySpace site
decorated with pictures of demons and racist messages.
MySpace has been banned in many schools and hundreds of parents have pulled
the plug on their teenagers' pages. As part of an effort to change the site's
image, the Rupert Murdoch-controlled NewsCorp, which purchased it in July, the
site began running public service advertisements Monday.
The ads, which run as banners at the top of MySpace users' pages, say "One of
five kids online is sexually solicited. Online predators know what they're
doing. Do you? Don't believe the type."
Clicking on the ads takes users to a site run by the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children.
Hemanshu Nigam, who has served as Microsoft's director of consumer security
and prosecuted child pornography cases for the Justice Department, will also
join MySpace as its first chief security officer.
Michael O'Brien, the principal of students at Bishop Stang High School, has
had plenty of dealings with MySpace. He and other Stang officials have banned
it and other personal sites from school computers and regularly comb through
student MySpace pages looking for inappropriate content. On about a dozen
occasions, he's had to contact students' parents to tell them about problem pages.
Mr. O'Brien said he's not convinced the ads will have any effect on young users.
"It's great that they're doing it," he said. "I just don't think that the
children would listen to that."
Deputy Pacheco called the ads "a step in the right direction," but said what
she really wants to see is MySpace pulling all inappropriate content and to
require users to be older than its minimum age of 14.
But John Palfrey, a Harvard law professor and executive director of the
Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said the ads might make a difference.
"I think it is a good idea and I think it will have an effect," he said.
The advantage the MySpace ad campaign has is context, he said. Telling a child
about the Internet's dangers is one thing. Having the child actually read
about those dangers on his or her own site is another.
"Young people in particular are posting information that they wouldn't if they
knew how accessible it is," he said.
He and Deputy Pacheco agreed, however, that parental involvement is the best
way to keep kids safe online. Both have recommended keeping computers in
common rooms and talking to children about Internet usage.
But that's not happening in many homes, Deputy Pacheco said.
Last night, she gave an informational talk at New Bedford High School.
Fewer than two dozen parents and students sat in the mostly empty Philip
Bronspiegel Memorial Auditorium, even though New Bedford High has more than
3,000 students, 700 of whom have MySpace pages.
If the deputy had her way, every single student would have had a parent there.
"It shows you that there's a huge problem with parental involvement," she said.
Reports from The Associated Press were used in this story.
Contact Rob Margetta at
rmargetta@s-t.com
In the News
Cyber bullying Guide for parents
San Francisco Chronicle
Safe spots for kids to surf the Web
Child-friendly sites wipe out porn, predators
- Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, April 17, 2006
Click to ViewClick to ViewClick to View
Kids who google with abandon and publish intimate details of their lives on
MySpace have become a major worry for parents in the Information Age.
[Podcast: Benjamin Pimentel interviews Industrious Kid's Jeanette Symons on
safer surfing]
Concern over children being targeted by predators at online social networking
sites or being able to access porn and other inappropriate materials through
search engines has led to a demand for new laws and for more-secure,
child-friendly networks.
It prompted two companies, led by two moms, to create technologies for safer
Web-surfing for kids.
One, an Emeryville company called Industrious Kid, later this month will
unveil a social networking site called Imbee.com, geared toward children 8 to
14 years old.
The other, Thinkronize, a Cincinnati company that created the netTrekker
search engine for K-12 schools, began making its product available to
consumers in January.
Children and their parents have to pay to use these sites, which make some
educators and industry analysts skeptical that they will attract a viable
customer base.
But the two companies apparently believe that online child safety has become
such a pressing concern that there is a growing demand for what one industry
expert called the walled garden approach to child Internet access.
Industrious Kid's Web site hopes to serve as an online hangout for children, a
place where kids can communicate with each other and create content.
The company wants to address growing concerns over MySpace, the popular social
networking site that's supposedly restricted to people who are at least 14
years old, but which has attracted younger children and adults who prey on them.
Jeanette Symons, chief executive officer of Industrious Kid and a mother of
two, said the idea to form the company came to her after her 6-year-old
daughter and, later, her 8-year-old son said they wanted to set up their own
blogs.
"It sounded like a great, cute idea, but what I started to panic on was
whatever they posted would start leaving a trail, and that trail would follow
them forever," Symons, who was also co-founder of Oakland's Zhone
Technologies, said, citing another concern over the often personal materials
teenagers post on their MySpace sites.
Self-contained site
To accommodate her children's request, Symons set up a server in their closet,
which allowed them to create content that was not publicly accessible.
"They can create sites," she said. But "it's absolutely not public. It's
literally in the closet."
That made her think: Why not create a self-contained site where young children
can create content and interact with each other?
Symons and her team began working on the idea before the public discussion
exploded over young people blogging and taking part in social networking sites.
"When we started this six months ago, it was a struggle to explain to people
what blogging was and what social networking was," she said."
Then, MySpace, which has about 68 million members, came under fire for
attracting child predators. The Los Angeles site, which says it signs up
250,000 new members a day, has implemented many measures to protect its users,
particularly minors, spokeswoman Dani Dudeck said.
The site has removed about 250,000 profiles of underage users since it began
in 2004 and has worked closely with law enforcers to make sure the site is
safe for children.
But the criticism and attention continues. Last month, the FBI arrested two
men in connection with separate sexual molestation charges involving two
girls, ages 11 ages 14, according to the Associated Press. The men met the
alleged victims through MySpace.com.
As a result of such stories, some lawmakers have pressed MySpace to do more to
verify the ages of its users.
That's what Industrious Kid plans to do by requiring users to have their
parents sign them up using a credit card, even for access to the free sections
of the site.
Imbee.com will charge up to $5 per user, per month for higher-level access.
"Our goal is provide a safe environment for kids to have fun and to talk to
their friends -- and not to someone assuming an identity to be their friends,"
said Tim Donovan, Industrious Kid's vice president of marketing.
Protecting children from inappropriate materials while doing online searches
was what prompted educator Chris Willig to help create netTrekker.
A mother of seven, Willig said she became frustrated with "challenging
searches" her children encountered while doing online research for school that
led either to inappropriate or irrelevant information .
Created in 1999, the search engine has developed a database of more than
180,000 Web sites that have been reviewed and rated by a network of about 400
educators, she said.
Inappropriate material
NetTrekker has been used by school districts nationwide, including the San
Jose Unified School District, which signed a four-year licensing contract at
about 85 cents per student, or about $25,000 a year for the district of about
30,000 pupils. District students also have access to the site from home.
In January, Thinkronize began offering netTrekker Home for consumers "because
of the demand we were hearing from parents who wanted access to the site,
whether their school subscribed or not," Willig said.
"Parents (and their children) were experiencing the same trouble with Web
searching as teachers were -- stumbling across porn, reams of inappropriate
material, sites that look credible but really are not, loads of ads/pop-ups,
etc. We've been selling netTrekker to schools for five years," she said.
"We decided it was time to listen to parents' concerns and provide access to a
family-focused version of the site in netTrekker Home."
One of the new subscribers is Brian Reeves of Ladera Ranch (Orange County),
who recalled how a Google search on the life of Martin Luther King turned into
a troubling experience for his 8-year-old daughter who "came across horrible
language and racism" while visiting a Web site named after the civil rights
leader.
The site was full of articles seeking to discredit not only King but also
civil rights icon Rosa Parks and included an article attacking minorities and
Jews.
"It was a little bit scary," he said. "I had to step in, and normally I'm
looking over her shoulder in the search."
Parents have had access for years to free search sites geared to children,
such as Yahooligans, perhaps the most popular, and Ask for Kids, as well as
other sites set up and maintained by a host of nonprofit organizations,
including public libraries.
Access to netTrekker Home costs $9.95 a month.
Other sites, such as Yahooligans and Ask for Kids, also submit Web sites for
human review before making them available to users.
But netTrekker says its database is subjected to a more rigorous review by a
deeper pool of experts and educators who also rate the Web sites according to
grade and reading levels.
For example, a search in the high school section using the word "sex," brings
up several Web sites, including an article in ReligiousTolerance.org that
explores issues of bisexuality and homosexuality. The hit identifies a Ohio
teacher with a master's degree from the University of Cincinnati as the reviewer.
Keeping out "the bad stuff"
A similar search in the elementary section brings up a narrower list focused
mainly on issues around sex discrimination.
"It's the fact that a trained educator is looking at these sites and saying,
'Yes this is credible,' " Willig said.
At Reed Elementary School in San Jose, fourth-grader Segen Gebrehiwet said
netTrekker points her to stuff she needs for school, "not like junk."
Joseph Londre said netTrekker does a good job keeping out "the bad stuff."
"Sometimes when you google there are bad pictures," he said. "With netTrekker,
it's just stuff you're looking for."
Karen Billings, vice president of education of the Software and Information
Industry Association, a software trade group, said netTrekker offers a benefit
that "Google and other search cites were never set up to do."
That has made netTrekker one of the successful products in the K-12 software
market, now worth about $1.7 billion in annual revenue.
But Perry Aftab, executive director of WiredSafety, an advocacy group for
child online safety, said that while netTrekker is useful for schools, it may
not be attractive to many households.
"In the home, I don't think there's enough of a benefit, now when you've got
Yahooligans," she said. "There's a lot of great free resources out there."
Gary Price, director of online information at Ask.com, echoed this view and
pointed to free search sites for students and educators such as the
Librarians' Internet Index (www.lii.org), a free site run by librarians that
has about 20,000 subscribers.
He also cited the National Science Digital Library (www.nsdl.org), a program
of the National Science Foundation, which is focused on science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics.
"With a little bit of skill, often just by having a chat with a librarian, you
can find these resources for free," Price said.
In fact, Reeves, the netTrekker subscriber, said he had not heard of the free
sites, Yaooligans and Ask for Kids.
Aftab also said safe Internet content should be available to all families. "I
think parents who don't have a lot of money are entitled to have their
children use safe content on the Internet the same way parents with money do,"
she said.
Teney Takahashi, a market analyst with the Radicati Group, said netTrekker
"makes sense for schools that need to develop an online curriculum and/or
provide Internet access to students."
He said the site "will be a tougher sell for consumers, however, since there
are other Web filters out there."
He said Industrious Kid's social networking site will attract some attention
as an "alternative to MySpace." But he said MySpace "has such a large, quickly
growing community" that Industrious Kid will have a hard time competing for
young users.
"I believe that it will be difficult for a parent-sponsored site like
Industrious Kid to build credibility among kids and younger teens," he said in
an e-mail. "I believe that many younger Internet surfers will ultimately
emulate the Web activities of their elder peers, rather than follow the
suggestions of parents."
John Carosella, vice president of content control at Blue Coat, an internet
security company in Sunnyvale, said "creating a walled garden is a problem"
because "the Internet moves quickly."
"Nothing is going to be perfect because the Internet is way too dynamic and
the problem is way too imprecise for any solution, even a supervised human
review environment," he said.
Even Symons, the CEO of Industrious Kid, conceded that a self-contained site
can only do so much.
"The struggle is keeping them closed in," she said. "Can you do a complete
enough job? Can you give them enough content that they don't need to go out? I
don't see that happening."
E-mail Benjamin Pimentel at bpimentel@sfchronicle.com.
San Francisco Chronicle
i-SAFE Inc. is the worldwide leader in the Internet safety education.
i-SAFE Inc.
Child safety advocates have been concerned about Stickam.com, which allows its
600,000 users ages 14 and over to interact via unmoderated live Webcam chats.
Voyeurs 'R Us: What parents need to know about Stickam
In School District 65, at the middle school level, students are taught
Internet safety during their advisory classes about once each week for a
month. Two of the main things discussed include making sure students think
about what they are posting and the ramifications of careless posting, as well
as how to handle an uncomfortable situation and who to notify if one arises,
said Laurie Brown, technology coordinator for the district.
Dangers of Internet for children highlighted by Skype incident
Other Resources