Digital Dating Abuse

An emerging problem among teens is digital dating abuse.  In short, a couple breaks up and one or both begin harassing the other online, through hateful messages, lies, insulting websites, social media harassment, and even circulation of nude or embarrassing photos.  The number of teens who experience digital dating abuse is rising logarithmically in the US and is happening in almost every high school in the country.

In light of some recent digital hate crimes and cyber-bullying in the past few months, several media giants have done stories on digital harassment including dating abuse.  MTV had a short series last month called "A Thin Line," Fox News ran related stories in conjunction with cyber-bullying and cyber-harassment, Anderson Cooper and other CNN analysts have been contributing similar story-lines lately.  Today, the CNN website has a great article on the topic that I think every parent of teenagers should read.

Here's the link: http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/10/26/teens.digital.dating.abuse/index.html?hpt=T2

A Young Adult's Guide to Safety in the Digital Age

Here's the scenario:  You've done your best to raise your kids to be decent digital citizens.  Over the years you've had a few online issues but overall you've done a good job keeping your kids safe.  Next year, they go away to college - far removed from your guidance and watchful eye.  They are embarking on a journey into the digital wilderness alone.  Waiting for them are not only the creeps, predators, and bullies you worried about when they were younger, but also a whole new troop of bad guys trying to steal their financial information, rip them off, catch them in a scam, or load their machines with spyware and viruses.  Nervous?  I will be when my kids reach that age (...in the not to distant future).  What's a responsible parent to do?  Jeff Sechler has the answer.

Jeff's book: "A Young Adult's Guide to Safety in the Digital Age" is intended for teens and young adults and is a survival guide of strategies that will help young people stay safe and maintain their personal integrity online.  The book is written in a language that is easily understood, it contains simple rules and suggestions, and covers most everything a young adult might encounter.

There are several things I really like about this book.

1. It fills a void - Most online safety guides are written for parents or teachers of younger kids.  Not much exists for young adults who are experiencing new freedom in the digital world.  Late teen and college age kids don't necessarily need filters for bad words and offensive content.  They need a whole different set of strategies that very few people are writing about.  Sechler's book hits the mark in these areas.
2. It's comprehensive - The book addresses three primary risk areas: personal safety risks, personal property risks, and professional risks.  The few books that do exist for young adults usually focus on one of these.  The most common are books on protecting your personal safety (from predators, perverts, stalkers, etc.).  The next most common are guides on online privacy and protecting personal property (like bank accounts, identity theft, credit fraud, etc.).  Very few things have been written about professional risks, which is becoming a huge problem for many young people.
3. It's written for it's target audience - Easy to read, doesn't waste time with a bunch of background or historical info.  This book says "here's the problem and here's the way to protect yourself."  It's hard enough to get kids and young adults to read anything so why muddy the water with auxiliary, useless verbiage?  
4. It's current...for now - The problem with any print book about technology is that it becomes obsolete so quickly.  But I'm sure this is just a first step for Mr. Sechler and he has plans for keeping this guide up to date (and if he doesn't, he should).  Right now this book addresses all the relevant stuff young people will face as they embark on their solo digital journey.

Of all of these positives, my favorite is definitely how comprehensive this book is.  It tells young people that they have to worry about their personal safety and property as well as their professional integrity.  How many times have heard stories of people posting their drunken "train wreck" photos on Facebook and then regretting it two years later when they try to get a job? Employers are definitely using social media as screening tools, and yet college kids remain selectively oblivious to the dangers of posting risky content.  Sechler's approach to the three primary risk areas that young people face is extremely appropriate and timely.

Here are a list of the major topics in the book:

• Sexual and Online Predators
• Cyber-Bullying and Harassment
• Cell Phone Texting and Sexting
• Internet Addictions
• Personal Property Risks
• Identity Theft
• Online Scams
• Computer Viruses and Spyware
• Professional Risks
• Online Reputation and Applying for College or Jobs
• Copyright and Plagiarism Laws

My recommendation?  I think that this book should be required reading for every high school in the USA.  The problem that Mr. Sechler faces with this book is getting it into the right hands.  Kids that age are probably not going to go out and buy a book like this.  Required reading might be the only way to appeal to large numbers.  This book is valuable enough to make it part of any school's required reading and it is short enough and easy enough to read that it won't have too big an impact on the rest of the curriculum.  My suggestion for Sechler: come up with a teachers guide on how to teach a short unit around this book.  That would definitely drive adoption by school districts.

I definitely recommend this book, not only for young people, but for parents of young people who want to help their children stay safe online.  I am also going to actively suggest it to the school districts I work with.  It's cheap, easy to read, and covers some really important stuff.

Here is a link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Young-Adults-Guide-Safety-Digital/dp/1453618414/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1288022955&sr=8-11.

And here is a link to the book's website where you can get in touch with the author and/or publisher: www.digitalagesafety.com

WHIO TV Internet Safety Interview

In July of this year, I was interviewed by WHIO TV in Dayton OH. I finally got my hands on a copy of the video. It was too big to post in one chunk so I had to split it into two parts. Here you go:

Part 1


Part 2


Thanks to WHIO TV for providing me a copy.

GoGoStat Parental Guidance for Facebook - Part II

Sorry for the delay.  I know I said I'd get to Part II of this article "tomorrow" but a death in the family and an unexpected trip to Colorado put me way behind.

So lets talk more about GoGoStat.  As I said in my first article, I discovered the GoGoStat product through an article on an NBC News website.  The article caught my attention because it was titled "Facebook Partners with GoGoStat to Improve Safety for Kids."  Could it be possible that Facebook was acting responsibly?  Don't get your hopes up.  My interview with Senior Product Manager Ron Stevenson revealed that Facebook had nothing to do with the appearance of GoGoStat on the Facebook scene.  GoGoStat is a Facebook app like a thousand other Facebook apps, all developed by third party entities to run inside the Facebook environment.  Facebook offers an interface for programmers (called an API) that allows them to come up with games and/or gadgets that people can add to their page.  I'm sure you've heard of FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and any number of trivia games.  These are all applications that people other than Facebook create and then list on Facebook's site for people to add to their profiles. The point is, they are all developed independently from Facebook.  However, they all must operate inside of Facebook's "rules of operation" including their privacy policy.

I found it interesting and ironic that the developers at GoGoStat had a difficult time creating their product within Facebook's rules.  Facebook doesn't allow people to create apps that invade user's privacy or distribute personal information and that's exactly what GoGoStat does...in a good way.  It monitor's a child's profile/page and reports information about it to another person - the child's parent. That functionality is against the rules.  Here is GoGoStat trying to make a much needed tool to protect kids and here is Facebook making it difficult for them at every turn.  BUT (and I can't believe I am writing this) don't be too hard on Facebook.  Without such rules and requirements there could be a glut of really bad apps that could endanger kids even more.  So, while the process was difficult for GoGoStat, it was a necessary evil.  And their developers were smart enough to make it work despite the limitations.

The other thing I found interesting is that every time Facebook changes it's privacy policies, GoGoStat has to adjust their product so that it still works within the new regulations.  Facebook "improves" their privacy policies about once every two months.  That means the GoGoStat developers have to remain vigilant so that there is no lag in service.  To date, the product has worked smoothly.  Not bad for a free service.  I personally think it's admirable that the GoGoStat people are that committed.

Kudos to GoGoStat.  Keep up the good work.  Consider me a fan and supporter.

Oh and one more thing.  In the first article I talked about the Spanish version of the product. It was released last week.

GoGoStat Parental Guidance for Facebook - Part I

Looking for a way to protect your kids on Facebook?  Keep reading.

Those of you who read this blog on a regular basis put up with my frequent critical rantings about Facebook.  It's a dangerous place for kids and Facebook does nothing to make it safer, despite their seemingly unlimited resources and success.  Facebook's position: "It's not our job to police your children."  That statement is two-sided for me.  On one side...believe it or not...I agree with Facebook.  It's not their responsibility to monitor what children do, it's the parent's responsibility.  I firmly believe that parents who allow their children to run wild in Facebook without supervision are asking for trouble.  Trouble from sexual predators, trouble from cyber-bullies, trouble from identity thieves, and trouble from the future as their kids' potential employers find the drunken train wreck pictures their kids post.  On the other side of the statement, I disagree.  If you are going to make a free product available on a medium like the Internet, you have to take some responsibility.  Tobacco companies got slammed years ago because it was too easy for kids to get cigarettes.  Those tobacco companies could have used the same "it's not our responsibility" argument Facebook does, but we as a society stepped up and said "you produce a dangerous product that threatens the health and welfare of our children...you must control it."  Under that same logic, why are we letting Facebook get away with the same thing?  The thing that bugs me the most is Facebook could do the right thing and use some of their billions of dollars to make their product safer for kids but for no good reason, they are choosing NOT to do the right thing.

My advice to parents has always been to keep your kids off Facebook until they are adults.  With other alternatives like Yoursphere and (hopefully soon) Imbee, they can have a similar or better experience without the risk.  But I realize that this advice is unrealistic.  The genie is out of the bottle.  So what now?

GoGoStat Parental Guidance for Facebook is definitely "what now."  GoGoStat is a Facebook App that monitors your kids' Facebook pages and lets you know when their content is at risk.  I learned about this product through an article on NBC's website and as soon as I did, I had to know more about it.  So, I sent an e-mail to GoGoStat asking to talk to someone and they were gracious enough to comply.  Yesterday I had a great conversation with Ron Stevenson, Senior Product Manager and collected some good information.

What it Does
GoGoStat runs in the background whenever your child is logged into Facebook.  It monitors the content on your child's page and looks for "at risk" items.  You will be notified when...

• Your child posts pictures (any pictures)
• Your child "friends" someone new (personal info of the new friend is provided)
• Your child uses or receives words on their page or messages that meet GoGoStat's ever-growing, predefined criteria for at-risk content.  This includes not only foul language, but language that is sexual in nature, drug references, suicide references, and language used in cyber-bullying.

Notification of at risk items comes to your e-mail address:

When you log into your GoGoStat parent control panel in Facebook you see something like this:

Reading the "Full Report" (green button) provides the details about the content in question


How it Works
GoGoStat is installed through a mutual agreement between parent and child.  The parent signs up for GoGoStat and in the process, identifies his/her children's Facebook profiles.  The child and parent are both sent special codes and both must exchange these codes outside of Facebook to complete the process.

Once GoGoStat is setup, it runs quietly in the background whenever your child is on Facebook.  There are no indicators or graphics displayed on your child's Facebook profile that GoGoStat is running (nothing for them to be embarrassed about).  One of the huge benefits of GoGoStat being a Facebook App is that it runs as part of Facebook.  Many competing products like SocialShield, McAfee, and Norton run only on the machine where the product is installed.  If your child logs into Facebook at a friend's house, no parental controls are enabled and their activities are unmonitored.  GoGoStat is "on" whenever your child is on.

What it Costs
Nothing.  It is totally free.  Since I am usually suspect of anything free online, I asked Ron Stevenson if it really was free and how they supported it.  He explained that the current version of GoGoStat will always be free.  In the near future, they will be releasing a paid version of the app that provides additional features to parents, but even that will only be a few dollars per month (and you will still have the free version as an alternative).  GoGoStat is one of several products the company makes.  The big picture for them is to create a comprehensive platform of social networking products and offering GoGoStat for free gets people used to their product and brand name.  It's the same marketing concept Google uses.  Win for them...win for us.

Negatives
Not many.  Some parents may not like that they have to have a Facebook profile in order for GoGoStat to work.  But honestly, if your child is on Facebook you should have a profile to keep tabs on them.  You used a baby monitor when they were new...think of this as an "adolescent monitor."  The soon to be released premium (paid) version won't require a parent Facebook profile and word is the free version will go that route in the future.

Positives
Everything listed above plus the newly released support for Spanish language.  The number of Spanish speaking people in the US is unquestionably on the rise.  If your child is a native Spanish speaker, then rest assured the product will monitor them as well.  If your child is not, you should realize that they can pick up some Spanish from native speaking peers.  Using Spanish to hide conversations or words from parents is a rapidly growing strategy among teens.  GoGoStat monitors both languages.  Also, the fact that the product is a Facebook App means nothing to install on your computer and nothing to update (GoGoStat takes care of that).

Where to Get it
GoGoStat Website: http://www.gogostat.com/
GoGoStat Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=123402281032622&ref=ts

Ron was also nice enough to send me a pdf file that contained screen shots of the screens that parents and children encounter.  You may find it informative.  Download the document here.

I am definitely a big fan of this product and recommend it to all parents who have kids on Facebook.  What do you have to lose?  If your child doesn't want you to install it, too bad.  Be a parent.  Access to their Facebook account SHOULD be a condition for being allowed to have one.  But parents should keep in mind that this product only monitors your child's Facebook site.  It does not block anything or prevent them from doing anything.  It just gives you the info, it's your responsibility to act on it.

I have much more good stuff on GoGoStat but this article is getting too long.  Look for part II of my discussion about GoGoStat tomorrow.

Cyber-Bullying Awareness

1 in 5 kids in the USA have experienced cyber-bullying in some form.  So says a recent survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation.  Cyber-bullying is an ever-growing problem that is becoming more difficult to control.  It occurs in most every form of electronic/digital media that children access today:

• On the Internet via social networking sites (e.g. Facebook and MySpace), chat rooms, instant messaging, YouTube (a favorite tool of cyber-bullies), websites, and e-mail
• On video game consoles via online multiplayer games
• On cell phones via text messaging, instant messaging, and e-mail

The reality is that kids today are near to one or more of these media sources 24/7 and as such, are unable to escape the trauma of being bullied.  When I was a kid, you got bullied by "that kid" on the playground or in your neighborhood but the instances were short lived and when it was over, it was over.  If you got bullied at school, you could go home and be safe, removed from the influence of the bully.  Cyber-bullying is constant - kids can't escape it. It's also permanent.  When a cyber-bully posts something hateful online, it remains until someone removes it.  Go out to YouTube and search for "Star Wars Kid."  Your search will return hundreds of variations of the same video - a video that was supposed to be the private property of one 15 year old boy - a video that was absconded by cyber-bullies who pretended to be the kid's friends and then posted online in an effort to humiliate the kid - a video that was posted over 5 years ago.  The video has collected over 3 million hits since it was posted.  Now imagine if that happened to your child.

Parents need to increase their awareness about cyber-bullying.  Too many parents don't view it as a tangible threat.  During one of my Internet Safety presentations, I had a father say "don't you think you are making too big a deal out of this...kids aren't actually hurt by cyber-bullying...you can't punch someone over the Internet."  Really?  Cyber-bullying results in suicide, depression, eating disorders, poor self-image, etc.  Are these not real medical threats?  If your child had these conditions as a result of being cyber-bullied, how would you deal with it...by telling them they are making "too big a deal out of it?"

CNN ran a great article today on cyber-bullying.  You can read it here.  Also, Anderson Cooper, in cooperation with the Cartoon Network, is airing an episode of Anderson Cooper 360 titled "Stop Bullying: Speak Up" tonight (Monday, 10/4) at 10PM EST.  I will definitely be watching it and I would recommend all parents do the same.

CNN just posted another good article (interview with the father of a boy that tried to commit suicide after being cyber-bullied) on the subject.  Read it here. 

Yet another great article from CNN on this topic.  Read it here.

What Is The Answer?

My friend Tracy Mooney from McAfee (read her blog here) responded to my latest posting about Facebook with this question/statement: "Yes but how?"  A very short statement that sums up a huge problem with the online world - how do we make it safe for kids?  I can always count on Tracy to bring my lofty goals down to Earth :-).

In July, I wrote an article reviewing the Online Safety and Technology Working Groups (OSTWG) report on the current status of the online safety of children in the U.S. and their recommendations for improving the situation.  In summary, their research produced extremely valuable data and their suggestions fell far short of improving anything.  At that time I made some suggestions for how we as a nation might make the online world safer for kids.  The two primary suggestions I had were:

1. Certified "Kid Safe" sites - a single organization (like the OSTWG) comes up with a set of standards and requirements that a website must meet to receive the certification.  A company like Google creates a browser that only allows access to these certified sites.  Schools and homes install this specialized browser on machines that children use.  The federal government legislates steep penalties for organizations that abuse the certification.
2. Youth ambassadors/youth credibility - the message of good online citizenship must come from sources that kids view as credible.  That means people who know the online world as well as they do and people that aren't viewed by kids as being out of touch with the problems they face.  A national curriculum should be created (again OSTWG would be a good source for this) utilizing college age, young adults (much like youth ministers or camp counselors) to deliver the message.

Of course there is much more to this than the summary description I listed above.  Read the full article for complete details.

While I still strongly believe these ideas are sound and should be explored on a national level, I don't think either of these solutions would solve problems like the one presented by Facebook.  Here are the facts:

• Facebook is unsafe for kids
• Facebook is blatantly uncaring and uninterested in making their site safer for kids
• Kids would still join Facebook despite my "Kid Safe" site certification idea.

In a perfect world, I would like to believe that sites and services like Facebook, Twitter, Skype, etc. would live by the adage: "with great power comes great responsibility".  All of these companies have become very lucrative and powerful from the success of their products.  Stepping up to the "responsibility" part of the equation should be the next step.  With all of their resources and momentum, they should set aside some money and R&D effort to come up with a solution.  They are obviously smart enough.  But apparently they aren't interested in being responsible and clearly we can't count on them to solve the problem.  Without their leadership, we are back to Tracy's question "Yes, but how?"

I was laying in bed thinking about all of this last night when something occurred to me (bear with me here).  In the early 1900's automobiles were the emerging technology in Europe and the U.S..  European government leaders recognized the dangers that these machines zipping around pedestrians and slow moving animals could create.  In 1903, Prussian leaders created a set of mandatory tests that drivers had to pass before receiving a certificate of privilege to drive.  Included in these requirements was a mandatory age, clear vision and hearing, and a baseline level of intelligence and responsiveness to typical scenarios drivers would face.  The driver's license was born and the concept quickly caught on and was adopted by governments all over the world (the first in the U.S. was New York, 1910). Today the emerging technology is cyberspace.  Is it time to come up with a license to use it?  Maybe so.

Imagine a culture that has embedded the online world into every part of their lives - communication, entertainment, shopping, news and information, banking, business interactions, etc.  Realizing the potential danger that abuse of such a system could cause, this culture's leadership comes up with a digital ID much like a driver's license.  You receive it when you are born and use it through life to identify and verify yourself when you go online making business and commerce transactions.  It would keep you out of harmful sites when you are young and give you more security when you shop and do your banking.  OH WAIT...we are that culture...why haven't we looked into developing the digital ID for all citizens?  Businesses have been doing it for years.  The digital signature is common for verifying digital transactions and verifying data in the corporate world.  The technology is there, why not take it to the next level and make a digital identity required just like a birth certificate and social security card?

This concept is nothing new and I certainly didn't invent this idea.  Digital visionaries have been kicking the idea around for 20 years.  The two big arguments that come up any time the concept of a required, national digital ID are:

1. The infrastructure it would require to manage such a system would be huge and expensive - who would assume that responsibility?
2. The "Big Brother" potential - people feel that this gives the government too much visibility into our private lives.

Here are my answers to those arguments.  First, Social Security is a big system, as is the State driver's license system.  But we do it because it's necessary.  How long will we keep our head in the sand and not admit that we have progressed to a point where digital ID's are now necessary? Let's also not forget that the federal government is spending billions trying to stimulate new business - grants for anyone to come up with any hair-brained idea they have.  Well, this would be a new business wouldn't it?  Put some stimulus money toward developing this.

Second, come on...the Big Brother argument is no longer valid.  If we as a nation were worried about government visibility into our private lives, we wouldn't be posting every mundane detail of what we do on our social media accounts.  Do you really think the government doesn't have visibility into that? When George Orwell's book 1984 came out, it scared people and a huge push for individuality and personal privacy ensued.  60 years later we have willingly sacrificed every shred of our personal privacy in the name of entertainment. What we have done with Facebook and Twitter would scare George Orwell.

Someone has to do something.  Our current solutions aren't working.  It's time that society wakes up and confronts this problem realistically.  What would have happened if our forefathers said "a driver's license is a silly waste of time"?  Would you venture out onto the roads knowing there are no minimum safety requirements or accountability for the other drivers around you?  No.  Then why are we doing it digitally?

So, my new, number 3 item on my list of solutions is personal digital ID's.  Let the nay-saying begin.

Fox News: Pedophiles Find a Home for Social Networking -- on Facebook

Last week I was lambasted by a purported Facebook employee who said that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's donation of $100 million to schools in NJ proves that child wellfare is extremely important to Facebook and that I was pretty much full of crap as a critic.

Today an article by Fox News reports that a national association for pedophiles - NAMBLA (yes, believe it or not there is one) uses Facebook as their primary source for communication.  Read the article here (it's definitely a must read).  Pornographic pictures of minors are exchanged, meetings with minors are arranged, and the so called "rights" of pedophiles are evangelized.  Preliminary reports show that this group has used Facebook for at least two years and possibly more without incident (meaning Facebook has not shut them down).

Facebook's response to the article by Fox News was this statement: "We take safety very seriously and have a strict policy against the posting of child exploitive content or content that supports child exploitive groups.  Facebook is highly self-regulating, and users can and do report content that they find questionable or offensive. Our team of investigations professionals reviews these reports, removes content that violates our policies, and escalates to law enforcement as necessary.” 

If this statement were true, why is it that Fox News investigators found not only NAMBLA's disgusting site, but over 80 affiliated group sites and over 100 links from other group sites to the NAMBLA site?  80 groups don't pop up overnight.  If Facebook made any effort at all to investigate as they say they do, they would have surely stumbled onto one of these sites (which should have lead them to others).  The Fox News article reports that a simple search on "man/boy love" revealed many of the sites.

So I would very much like the Facebook employee who keeps sending me hate mail to comment on this article and their supposed commitment to child safety on their social network.  And I would also very much like all those parents out there that let their children run amok on Facebook unsupervised to rethink that policy.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/09/28/pedophiles-find-home-social-networking-facebook/

UPDATE:  Mary Kay Hoal of  Yoursphere.com and Yoursphereforparents.com took the ball and ran with it even further.  Be sure to read her article for even more information on Facebook and NAMBLA.  Good stuff Mary Kay!

ANOTHER UPDATE:  Because of Fox New's outstanding report, Facebook is finally dismantling the NAMBLA organization and their chapters sites.  Read about it here.  Thank you Fox News!

iBoss Router - Where Can I Get One?

Several times I have spoken of the iBoss Router.  Great product that solves many online safety problems in the home.  If you want to know more about it, you can read my review here.  The problem with the iBoss Router is where to get it.  Phantom Technologies (who makes the iBoss) seems to be moving in an enterprise direction, marketing their equipment to large organizations.  As a result, their website is becoming less friendly to the home users like you and I. 

I got an e-mail yesterday from someone who was frustrated that they couldn't find iBoss home router information on the Phantom Technologies website.  I went out and dug around and finally came up with it.  Here is the link:  http://www.ibosswebfilters.com/ibh_more_info_int.html.

Facebook Fires Back...Again

If you read this blog, you know that I occasionally get e-mails from a person at Facebook complaining or disputing my many Facebook related posts.  I got another one today, this one directing my attention to this article:


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/education/23newark.html

The article reports that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg donated over $100 million to schools in Newark NJ.  The e-mail that I received had this message in it for me:

"You go to great lengths to point out how Facebook is supposedly harmful for children and that Facebook as a company has no interest in the welfare of children.  This donation by our CEO proves that you are very wrong and, I believe, discredits you as a critic."

Really?!  So you create a product that readily reveals private information about children, that facilitates cyber-bullying and harassment from anonymous sources, and makes it easy for pedophiles and sexual predators to stalk and hunt minors...and this donation is supposed to make that all "ok."  Seriously?

Pablo Escobar was one of the most generous donors to schools and social services in his local community in Columbia.  Did that make the drug empire he ran "ok"? Did that make up for the millions of people who's lives were destroyed from addiction to his drugs?  I'm not saying that Facebook is comparable to a Columbian drug cartel (far from it), but a donation doesn't automatically fix the problems.  Morality isn't something you can purchase.  I would have rather seen Zuckerberg invest that money into efforts around making Facebook safer for kids.  Then at least he would be accepting responsibility for the problems his product creates.

And of course I have to end with my usual sermon.  The blame for exposure to dangerous Facebook features does not lie solely with the people at Facebook.  Any parent who lets their child get onto Facebook without direction or monitoring is equally to blame. Ignorance isn't an excuse, it's a form of laziness.  Learn about Facebook and if you must let your kids on it, be there with them.  It's a dangerous neighborhood.

(note: the communication I have received from Facebook has been from an anonymous person who claims to be a Facebook employee.  No official communication from Facebook has been issued, though I would very much like to start that dialogue with them)

Facebook Faux Pas

This is both funny and scary at the same time.  A British teen accidentally created a public event for her private birthday party and posted it to Facebook (including her home address and contact info).  Within a few days over 20,000 people responded (and now know the girl's address and contact info).

You can read the article here:

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/09/21/5150049-teen-posts-birthday-party-invite-on-facebook-and-21000-rsvp

Parents, know what your kids are doing on Facebook.  Kids make bad choices sometimes (intentionally or not) and Facebook does nothing to protect their privacy.  It's definitely a dangerous place for kids.

Dangers of Skype

Wow.  If your kids use Skype, you have to read this great article by Stephanie Kohl.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Dangers of Internet for children highlighted by Skype incident

September 16, 2010
By STEPHANIE KOHL skohl@pioneerlocal.com

A 10-year-old Lake Forest girl was chatting with her friends on Skype about the first day of school and some homework assignments recently.

It was not unusual for the student to log into Skype -- which offers free video calls and instant messaging to others on Skype -- on Sept. 1, as she and her friends have been using it for awhile now. So, when a user with a screen name she didn't recognize requested to chat with her, she accepted, thinking it was a friend from the neighborhood, said her mother.

After the request was accepted, a video started. It was a naked, middle-aged man inappropriately touching himself and sending equally inappropriate messages to her. The girl screamed for her mother, who immediately called the police. The incident is still under investigation.

"She got so freaked out that she's not Skypeing anymore," the mother said of her daughter. (The pair wish to remain anonymous.)

Realizing if this happened to her daughter, it could happen to anyone using any online communication tool, the woman shared the incident with her friends. She also told all her children who use Skype and other cyber outlets -- like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter -- to communicate only with their friends and to never respond to requests from people they are not certain they know.

Read the rest of the article here

How to Disable Facebook Places

Hopefully, you've read my rants on how dangerous I believe the Facebook Places feature is for kids.  If you haven't you can read them here.  My intention was to post instructions for parents and teachers to disable Facebook Places but my friends at Yoursphere.com beat me to it (not surprising since they always have great info for parents and teachers).  So with their gracious permission, I am re-posting their content so you can be better informed about disabling this feature.

Here is their article (you can read the original article complete with pictures here)

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How to Turn Facebook Places Off

A GPS (Global Positioning System) can be a great tool when we need it--like for driving directions or when we need to find the nearest Starbucks.  But when it comes to protecting our children from strangers--whether it's online or in real life--giving away the exact location of our kids is the last thing we want to do. 

So we've put this guide together for parents who use Facebook, or have older children who are on Facebook.  The guide gives you a thorough walk-through on how to disable Facebook Places to the best of your abilities.  You'll have to dig through the Privacy Settings and Account Settings of your profile and your child's profile if you want to do it right, so follow each step carefully:
Privacy Settings: Step 1 - Log in your Facebook profile => go to Account => go to Privacy Settings.
Step 2 - From this page click on the little blue link towards the bottom called "Customize settings"
Step 3 - In the category "Things I Share" look for "Places I check in to" and click on the drop-down menu.
Step 4 - Choose "Custom". In the box that comes up, under "Make this visible to" select "Only Me".

This will make it so that in case you do ever "check in" on accident, with Places, the only News Feed it'll appear on is yours.  (This is protection for you since Facebook doesn't allow you the option to "disable" or to completely opt out of this particular feature of Places.)

Step 5 - In the same category, uncheck the box called "Include me in "People Here Now" after I check in
Step 6 - In the next category, "Things Others Share", click on the drop-down menu next to "Friends can check me in to Places" and select Disabled.
Account Settings:
Step 1 - Go back up to Account  => go to Account Settings
Step 2 - At the top, click on the Notifications tab.
Step 3 - Scroll all the way down to the Places category and uncheck BOTH boxes. 
Step 4 - Click the Save Changes button below.
Click here for the full guide with pictures and all.  You can also read Mary Kay's thoughts and concerns about Facebook Places.

Google Family Safety Center - Come On Google, You're Better Than This!!

Last week, Google launched their anticipated "Family Safety Center" without much noise from the media.  I knew this effort was in the works but didn't know when it was coming out.  It's out :-).

I was excited about the possibilities that a project like this coming from an organization like Google could bring.  Everything Google does is cool and cutting edge and I was hoping for another home run in their long list of successful ventures (YouTube, Picasa, Buzz, Blogger, Gmail, Chrome, and about a hundred other subsidiaries, not to mention their ever-improving search engine).  Like a fan at a Red's game, I watched the pitch with great anticipation as the launch of Google Family Center approached...the swing of the bat...a hit....and...a short little blooper over the short stop's head.  A single...but definitely not a home run.

A few months ago I did an article about Disney's lame attempt at child safety online.  Companies like Disney...and Google, with all of their power and momentum, should be able to come up with something ground breaking; something that really advances the cause of Internet safety for kids.  Instead, both came up with a lukewarm attempt that was just a repeat of stuff other people are already doing.  Almost as if they were just looking to "say" they are doing something instead of actually doing something.  Google could have done a lot more than they did.

So what does Google Family Center offer parents and teachers?  Here's the list:

1. Google Safety Tools - this is the most useful feature of this new service (though that's not saying much).  It contains directions for enabling safety features in Google search and YouTube.
2. Report Abuse - provides instructions for how to report abuse or offensive content found on YouTube, Buzz, Picasa, and Blogger
3. Advice from Partners - a list of links to the standard Internet Safety websites
4. Video Tips for Google Parents - a small collection of videos of (apparently) Google employees talking about Internet safety issues with their own kids.

Some of this stuff is useful, but consider this:  With the exception of "Report Abuse," every feature Google Family Center offers...is also a feature of this blog (the one you are reading right now).  Over on the right hand side you will see links to many of the "partners" they reference.  You will also find directions for using Google's safety tools.  On top of that, I try to post useful information as often as I can (often daily), which they are not doing.  Last time I checked, I'm not a multi-billion dollar global corporation who could afford to pour tons of money into such an effort...and I'm practically out competing them in this space.

If it were anyone else, I would probably give the site a 4+ on my 10 point scale, but because of what Google COULD do if they really wanted to, I give Google Family Center a 3- (barely).  Maybe this is just the first step.  Maybe a year from now this service will be super cool.  I hope so.  But for now, don't waste your time.  Come on Google...you're better than this.

Here's the link:  http://www.google.com/familysafety/

Thanks to the Western Cincy Monthers of Twins Club

Did a presentation last night for the Western Cincinnati Mothers of Twins club. Great group, very engaged in the dialogue and interested in child safety online. Thanks for having me.

Here is a link to their website.