FCC's positive new plan for digital literacy & Net safety

This morning Elmo of Sesame Street helped Julius Genachowski of the FCC launch the child- and family-empowerment part of the FCC's universal broadband plan (trying to understand Mr. Genachowski's job, Elmo asked, "So you're the chairman of the Funky Chicken Club?"). But before Elmo joined him, the Federal Communications Commission's chairman spoke of the "four pillars" of broadband Internet for US families:

Digital access – "every child should have broadband access," Genachowski said, and one of every 4 kids is missing out. "Anything less than 100% access is not good enough," because "every child must benefit from digital opportunities and do so safely."

Digital literacy "doesn't just mean teaching children basic digital skills" (though that's important, too, he said), "but also teaching children how to think analytically, critically, creatively" and to "teach media literacy." He said that both digital and media literacy skills are particularly critical, given how much time the average child spends a day in and with digital media. "This is not just a good idea," he said, "it's increasingly a job and citizenship requirement"....

Digital citizenship – Genachowski said the FCC plan is not just about giving children access and teaching them how to use the tools, but also teaching them how to be responsible community members, which gives them "the ability to participate in a vibrant digital democracy" (I'd argue in democracy, not just the digital kind; we adults keep thinking in this binary, delineating virtual/real, online/offline, digital/non- way). He also acknowledged the challenges to this effort, including online "anonymity," which masks the impacts of their online behaviors on others.

Safety – The FCC chair mentioned first the risk of online harassment, saying "43% have been cyberbullied, and only 10% have told someone." He also referred to distracted driving and inappropriate advertising. My connection to the event's live video streaming was a little sketchy, so the fact that I didn't hear a reference to "predators" in the mix could've been due to my connection; but his starting with cyberbullying was an important high-level acknowledgement of the findings of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, which some attorneys general have sought to discredit (see this for examples and a link to the ISTTF report). Schools often turn to law enforcement as their authority on Internet safety, so fears not grounded in research which are generated by senior law enforcement officials and published in their Web sites could be an obstacle to 21st-century learning and universal broadband adoption.

Though the plan is positive, Genachowski acknowledged children's experiences with media certainly aren't always: "Parents are asking themselves whether they should be embracing new technologies or worrying about them. The answer is, we have to do both," he said, as EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet reports.

To help parents and schools, he announced a "digital literacy corps to mobilize thousands of technically-trained youths and adults to train non-adopters," my ConnectSafely co-director Larry Magid reported in CNET; a plan to get public libraries "more broadband capacity"; "a national dialog" in the form of FCC-hosted town meetings around the country; a new section of FCC.gov for kids and parents; and an interagency working group on online safety (something I've been hoping would happen for a while), which certainly includes the Federal Trade Commission and its pioneering work on virtual worlds and free, well-written Netcetera booklet.

"Let's focus on what parents can do" in helping their kids have positive experiences with digital media, "not on what they can't," Genachowski concluded. Exactly, Mr. Chairman. Last July ConnectSafely made exactly that point in "Online Safety 3.0: Empower and Protecting Youth": "To be relevant to young people, its intended beneficiaries, Net safety needs to respect youth agency, embrace the technologies they love, use social media in the instruction process, and address the positive reasons for safe use of social technology. It’s not safety from bad outcomes but safety for positive ones."

Related links

"Multimedia in the Classroom - The Future Is Here" a video in which New Jersey middle school teacher Marianne Malmstrom (as avatar Knowclue Kidd) describes and illustrates what a powerful teaching tool machinima (like animated video, cinema+machine, or moving screen capture) is for young new-media producers and sharers (Generation Video?)

"I Need My Teachers to Learn," a musical plea for 21st-century learning from students' perspective, written, performed, and produced by educator and tech integration specialist Kevin Honeycutt in Hutchinson, Ks. (thanks to California educator Anne Bubnic for pointing it out)

"'21st-century statecraft' at home and school"," which I blogged because inspired by Secretary of State Clinton's vision for Internet freedom and call for creating "norms of behavior among states." She got me thinking about how we need to start here at home, in homes and classrooms, promoting and modeling norms of good behavior online as well as offline, something that the FCC, FTC, and Department of Education are now addressing!

"How to teach Net safety, ethics, security? Blend them in!"

The Web page where you'll find the video of Chairman Genachowski's speech today.

Moderator wisdom: Virtual worlds' youth-safety experts

Virtual worlds are a red-hot topic these days, probably because of their rapid growth and the US Federal Trade Commission's report on their content (see "Related links" below). I can think of two more reasons to add: ConnectSafely's brand-new safety tips for parents (shameless plug, links below) and insights from master virtual-world moderators in a recent 3-part series on the subject at ShapingYouth.org and in a white paper, "How to Moderate Teens and Tweens," at eModeration, London-based provider of community management in 31 languages.

Three points – one each about moderating kids, tweens, and teens – really leaped out at me as I read these contributions (just a sampler of the insights in them), and I think parents will find them helpful:

1. Two types of virtual-world moderators: In Part 3 of Shaping Youth's series, eModeration describes how virtual worlds are evolving, as illustrated by moderation techniques: The more traditional silent moderator "stays in the background, blocking offensive material from participants, warning users, defusing confrontation and reacting to abusive or illegal behavior. The second and increasingly popular type is the in-game moderator, who actively participates as a character or avatar ... encouraging children to explore and try new things and have as positive experience as possible, but stay safe and secure while doing so.” Gazillion Entertainment's director of user engagement Izzy Neis describes the former as the "elephant in the corner"; eModeration compares the latter to the fun, engaging host of a kids' birthday party. I think the latter type – because kid users tend to look up to this cool, fun "older avatar" – presents a tremendous opportunity for modeling civil behavior and good in-world citizenship.

2. Tween VW behavior is as dynamic as the real-world kind. Moderators are finding that, just as tweens move back and forth between children's play and playing at being adults in the real world, they do the same in virtual worlds. EModeration's Littleton quotes Neis as saying, "It's not always one or the other – often tween users balances between the two, depending on how their day went, or what escapism they need, or what reinforcement/acknowledgement they crave. They're taking the experiences they've had, applying imagination and exploring new territory (mainly adult situations)." She says virtual worlds see "the same playground problems kids have every day: bullying, heartache, betrayal, etc." That's why it's just as important, as we say in our VW safety tips, for parents to talk with their kids about what's going in their virtual worlds as what's going on at school. But moderation in all things (no pun intended). Kids also need some space. Virtual worlds, Neis says, "provide an outlet and a chance to develop other aspects of their personalities [which] they feel unable to explore during real life for fear of rejection, or sometimes they're just trying something to try it - an opportunity to fail without physical consequence.”

3. The delicate balance between over- and under-moderating teens: An experienced moderator in the UK, Amy Rountree, told Littleton that “moderating [youth] 16+ communities is about balance." She says that, if virtual world rules and moderators are too heavy-handed, users go elsewhere. If the moderation's too easygoing, both the company and its users are at risk. This echoes what we say at ConnectSafely.org about safety on the social Web: If parents are too controlling, kids – who have many workarounds and access points – tend to go "underground" to sites parents may've never heard of, to friends' houses where rules are more lax, to establish alternate "stealth" profiles and accounts parents aren't aware of, etc., etc., all of which spells even less parental input and guidance. Kids are safer when parents, like moderators, find the balance between "over- and under-moderating" and keep the communication lines open (see also "'Soft power' parenting works better").

Note Tamara Littleton's bottom line in her white paper: "Our view is that if you [a virtual world company] are inviting teens or tweens into your online space, you are in effect throwing a huge round-the-clock party for them. And what parent in their right mind would send out invitations worldwide, then leave the keys to the liquor cabinet with their 15-year-old and go away for the weekend?"

Related links

ConnectSafely.org's virtual world safety tips for parents of kids and teens, and tech policy expert Adam Thierer's review of them

"Virtual Parentalism," by Washington & Lee University law professor and dad Joshua Fairfield – the first of three parts at the Tech Liberation Front blog

Crisp Thinking's thinking on VW safety: SocialMediaPortal.com's interview on "detection and analysis of inappropriate online behavior" with Rebecca Newton, head of safety at Crisp Thinking, a provider of moderation technology for virtual-world companies

Shaping Youth series on moderating kids, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

"How to Moderate Teens and Tweens" by Tamara Littleton, CEO of eModeration

The FTC's "Virtual Worlds & Kids: Mapping the Risks"

My virtual world news roundup last month last month

Virtual world numbers

"Top 8 workarounds of kid virtual-world Users"

FTC's milestone report on virtual worlds

This is pioneering stuff on the part of the US government. The Federal Trade Commission today sent to Congress its close study of 27 online virtual worlds – 14 for children under 13 and 13 aimed at teens and adults – looking at the level of sexually explicit and violent content and what the VWs were doing to protect children from it. I think it's important for parents to keep in mind when reading the study or just the highlights here that "content" in virtual worlds means user-generated content (which is why, in "Online Safety 3.0," we put so much stress on viewing children as stakeholders in their own well-being online and teaching them to be good citizens in their online and offline communities). Here are some key findings:

The FTC found at least one instance of either sexually or violently explicit content in 19 of the 27 worlds – heavy (sex or violence) in five of them, moderate in four, and "only a low amount in the remaining 10 worlds in which explicit content was found."

Of the 14 VWs for kids under 13, 7 contained no explicit content, 1 had a moderate amount, and 6 had a low amount.

Nearly all the explicit content found in the kids' VWs "appeared in the form of text posted in chat rooms, on message boards, or in discussion forums."

The Commission found more explicit content in VWs aimed at teens or adults, finding it in 12 of the 13 in this category, with a heavy amount in 5 of them, moderate in 3, and a low amount in 4 of the 13.

Not just text: Half the explicit content found in the teen- and adult-oriented virtual worlds was text-based, while the other half appeared as graphics, occasionally with accompanying audio.

The report goes into measures these 27 VWs surveyed take to keep minors away from explicit content, including "age screens" designed to keep minors from registering below a site's minimum age (what the FTC calls "only a threshold measure"); "adults only" sections requiring subscriptions or age verifications (see "'Red-light district' makes virtual world safer"); abuse reporting and other flagging of inappropriate content; human moderation; and some filtering technology. "The report recommends that parents and children become better educated about online virtual worlds" and that virtual-world "operators should ensure that they have mechanisms in place to limit youth exposure to explicit content in their online virtual worlds." In the two pages of Appendix A (of the full, 23-page report + appendices), you'll find a chart of all the virtual worlds the FTC reviewed. [See also my VW news roundup last week and "200 virtual worlds for kids."]

This is a great start. As purely user-driven media, virtual worlds are a frontier for research on online behavior. The FTC was charged by Congress "merely" with determining the level of harmful content, not behavior – I really think because adults continue to think in a binary, either-or way about extremely fluid environments that are mashups of content and behavior. Where is it really just one or the other, what is "content" in social media, and how do we define "harmful"? We also need to define "virtual worlds." Some of these properties are largely avatar chat, some are games (with quests), some are worlds with games but not quests in them. Still, we've got some great talking points and very useful data to build on.

Good online-safety law passed

Actually, online-safety education is only one part of the just-passed "Broadband Data Improvement Act" designed to improve our understanding of how much of the US has high-speed Internet access so the government can "ensure the continued rollout of broadband access, as well as the successful deployment of the next generation of broadband technology," as one of the bill's sponsors, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), put it, ConsumerAffairs.com reports. The bill charges the Federal Trade Commission with establishing (within 90 days of enactment) an Internet safety and tech working group of experts in public and private sectors, creating a nationwide Net-safety public-awareness program, and promoting best practices within the Internet industry. The news media may not have noticed this part of the bill, but the Family Online Safety Institute, the Consortium for School Networking and the International Society for Technology in Education, and the National PTA certainly took note. Search for the bill's full text here (I'd give you a direct link, but all links are temporary in the Library of Congress search engine).