RSSGroup seeks kids' online safety in the White House
By Angela Gunn | Published December 12, 2008, 8:33 PM
Everybody wants something from the next administration, and a group called the Family Online Safety Institute is no exception, asking that increased effort be put toward kids' online safety.
The group requests that President-Elect Obama create a post of "National Safety Officer," to be located within the office of the Chief Technology Officer -- an office to which the new administration has long been committed to creating. FOSI also seeks the creation of an annual White House Online Safety Summit, a US Council for Internet Safety, and an ongoing Online Safety Program.
Lest visions of Mrs. Lovejoy start dancing (hey, no dancing!) in your head, FOSI is an actual industry organization. The membership roster includes such industry lions as Google, Cisco, Comcast, Microsoft, MySpace, Sprint, Symantec, and Verizon. The group has the twin aims of shielding kids from harmful material and protecting free speech on the Internet.
The group gathered in DC Thursday at its second annual conference. The theme was "Safe At Any Speed: Online safety tools, rules and public policies," and the report (PDF available here) was presented at that time.
The group looks at everything from cyber-bullying to ethics and media literacy, but the report focused specifically on online-safety education. The writers concluded that though many groups and organizations have good ideas and even good intentions, without a national education strategy, the message is getting lost. Even industry efforts -- MySpace's Internet Technical Task Force effort, for instance -- are getting swept away in the always-on tide.
It's not just the kids who need a talking-to, by the way. The report notes that breathless media coverage of online predators (NBC's sleazy "To Catch A Predator" series gets a mention by name) don't help. Neither does allowing the discussion to be dominated by law enforcement personnel, who tend to see situations in terms of potential crime, or by the sort of self-proclaimed experts who find that scaring people can be a rather lucrative line of work.
Perhaps the most fascinating part of the report is the information given by documentary filmmaker Rachel Dretzin on what she found during the shooting of "Growing Up Online" for Frontline. The kids are all right, she says, when it comes to "stranger danger" -- consistently rejecting requests to IM with strange adults. (Even with her, in fact, which added a degree of difficulty to making her documentary!)
Instead, the biggest problems come from other kids (cyber-bullying, harassment, dangerous behavior by fringe elements) and from the numbing effect that potentially endless exposure to pre-packaged sex and violence have on their own social interactions and worldview.
Similar results have been noted in the UK and the EU, and action is being taken there at the government level. The US, on the other hand, has no comprehensive effort in place; the report speaks well of the FTC's OnGuard Online site, but that's just one aspect of the solution. Hence the call for an executive office appointment.
Another offer I have heard is to use a special code, like the one you have on some cable TV providers, that will prevent access to adult, violent, etc. sites. Everyone will be in "opt-out" mode by default. If you want to "opt-in" to one these sites, you will have to call your ISP, identify as an adult and get an access code to have access.
It hurts the concept of a free web to everybody, but frankly, as I have kids that will start using the computer very soon, I don't mind trying this as a parent.
_________________________________________________
write better comments: http://commentino.com/Tags/web01
Score: 0
|Sounds great....
So your code will regulate all of those services hosted in the US that chose to play by the rules - meaning they will voluntarily deny their 'services' they are intentionally trying to diseminate...
This is like asking all of the criminals to report and register their weapons! And while we are at it, we can establish a standard of etiquette and decorum for use during a crime...I mean, is it too much for them to at least say "please" and "thank you"?
So, you are proposing that US regulations will somehow magically extend to non-US hosted sites? Or that US laws somehow extend to non-US resources?
Gee, I guess all we need to do is to use a special code and all of the spam will disapear as well.
And we could extend this symbilism over substance notion to maleware as well...
And why stop there?
The problem is that MOST of the problem is NOT subject to the nice well-behaved world, or to a 'special code'! And for that matter, many laws ALREADY EXIST with the intention of stopping such activity. But such laws have NO jurisdiction over non-US sources.
Unfortunately, like the streets, there is no special code that replaces one doing their due diligence and supervising their kids TV viewing habits or surfing the web!
And I would seriously question the responsibility of any parent who lets their kids have random and unsupervised access to the web!
As nice as having a special code sounds,
ther is no magic that will absolve a parent from the responsibility of knowing where their kid is and what they are doing. And as the web is akin to the world, there are, and will remain plenty of places few if any should go, let alone kids. And a parent who allows their children unsupervised and unrestricted access to the web is simply irresponsible - just as if they let them wander anywhere in the real world unsupervised.
But if holding hands and all singing Kumbaya will make you feel better, by all means. But we don't need more bureaucracy to address what each parent should be doing and which is in large measure outside the jurisdiction of the scope and reach of civil and criminal law. We already have laws regarding such behavior....and you might pause and think as to why those have not been sufficient...as the bad guys don't voluntarily play by your well intentioned rules! (And the concept of a domain registration identifying such resources has already been refused.)
There already exist the tools and means by which bullying, and other anti-social behavior can be dealt with - but just like Columbine, the answer did NOT lay with some government program! (Despite NPR's Gwen Eifel's 'unbiased' question of "what should the government have done to have prevented this?" reflecting her 'unbiased'(LOL!) coverage and notion of the proper role of government.) The responsibility lay with the kids and teachers and parents who were directly involved in the community in which the bullying persisted. MANY knew of it and said and did NOTHING! If they had simply gotten off their 'oh so concerned' posteriors and had said something and demanded the situation be addressed BEFORE it exploded, we would not be talking about the incident - except as a model of how such problems can be effectively addressed by simple observation and the exercising of values and community involvment. Common sense doesn't need a law - even if it could be enforced! And no one else is going to guarantee the safety of your kids on the street, nor on the virtual streets of the web, for 'you'.
Score: 0
|Why..?
Score: 0
|because...
...the ponderings of the clueless...
Score: 0
|The new Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking, led by attorneys general Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, consists of Nigam as well as the attorneys general of 49 total U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The group has released a "Joint Statement on Key Principles of Social Networking," which it hopes will achieve industrywide approval from other social-networking sites and Internet providers. The lone state missing from the task force is Texas. North Carolina's Roy Cooper, speaking on behalf of the coalition's executive committee--Cooper, Blumenthal, Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, and Marc Dann of Ohio--would not comment on the reason why. The members of the executive committee were joined by Anne Milgram, attorney general of New Jersey, as well as Steve Cohen, a representative for New York attorney general Andrew M. Cuomo.
-----------------------
fchris
Visit Sexxat.com - Free Live multi cam videochat community
Score: 0
|What?!
Do you mean to tell me that the government is not our mommy? :-O
Well then who will protect me from being irresponsible and not taking the time nor making the effort to think and make intelligent decisions?
And who are you to judge me as I use the computer as a substitute for the TV to babysit my kids as I fail to pay attention to what they are watching or what sites they are visiting?
Shame on you! You folks just don't care!!!!!
Score: 0
|What a dumb, useless, and tax-money waste idea.
Score: 0
|It's just another lobbying effort to secure "scare" money for programs that will do almost anything to show "effectiveness" with bar graphs and statistic charts to secure, yet more additional funding.
End result? More control and loss of functionality.
There is a market for this, and it is called PROXY!!! The US government should NEVER NEVER NEVER be involved in determining your children's web browsing habits.
You can pay for PROXY services that filter the web for you, and they do a really good job of it. So this is uncalled for. Really it is.
Score: 0
|It's called a firewall, Cybersitter, and many many other programs that you can install on your computer that will limit ones usage. Cheat to free. No child should have admin rights to bypass them either. It just comes down to one thing, loving your child. If you love them then you care for them and if you care for them you are involved in their lives!
Score: 0
|The ONLY way to make things safe for kids is for their parents to love their children and know what is going on.
rant
That said, shouldn't we let the people that aren't smart enough to install a simple program, from a CD/DVD that uses Autorun, to just go off and die? What good are they? Everyone with an IQ of 90 or less shouldn't have everyone else cater to them. Laws made and changed every time we turn around, come on! I foresee the argument, where it will be said that we make money from them. No, we don't! They are too damned poor and stupid to have money, and what little money they do have it is spent on crack, meth, pills, and whatever else there is out there. /rant
Score: 0
|Nothing that comes from DC (or any president) will ever make up for ignorance and lack of caring when it comes to being online. Too many parents look at computers as toys for their children without a second thought as to just how powerful these things really are. Too many parents are also likely to give computers to their children with absolutely no knowledge of how computers (or the net) work. People think they don't need to know. Government can't fix this. If this is to be put in the hands of the government, bigger problems get created. The biggest problem with this article, my post, and any response is that those that need to be thinking about these things are not likely to ever come here to read any of this.
Score: 0
|You could say the same as TVs as well. In many cases it is because the parents have to each have a job to make ends meet and these devices make for easy babysitters.
Also, sometimes the government can work. The USA is the only Western nation where many of the population don't trust their government enough and it is also has a much lower quality of life as well than those who do. You put too much of your trust in the Corporate and look at what it has gotten you into now. I feel sorry for many Americans who have to suffer because of this paranoia.
Score: 0
|LOL!
Here is the true paranoic!
Yup, those POOR Americans...life is just SOOOO bad!
Such a poor quality of life. And yet so many more are trying to get here than into your little hellhole.
Of course, life is good for a socialist who gets more than he contributes as he lives entitled to 'the good life' as he sponges off someone else's more substantial contributions.
Score: 0
|The ramblings of an idiot who blames the 'corporation' if someone buys a phone for local pickup from an online portal located 1000km away!
LOL!
Score: 0
|