This is one of the more unusual stories I've seen in the news about a state attorney general dealing with teen social networking: Instead of focusing only on MySpace, as many attorneys general have done (at least on the public airwaves), New Jersey's seems to be more practical. Attorney General Anne Milgram "has asked a dozen Internet social-networking sites to find out whether convicted New … [Read more...] about NJ AG’s wider social-Web effo
Law & Policy
US Congress: Net-safety push
We can expect to see some online-safety legislation coming out of Congress this fall, lawmakers themselves are saying. "Expect a new push … for laws aimed at keeping sexual predators off the likes of MySpace.com and elevating fines on Internet service providers that don't report child pornography," CNET reports, saying Democratic lawmakers are focusing particularly on anti-predator and -child … [Read more...] about US Congress: Net-safety push
Jail time for a film clip?
Tell your kids not to mess around with digital cameras in movie theaters. A 19-year-old in the Washington, D.C., area went to see Transformers at her local movie theater with her boyfriend. She told the Washington Post she was enjoying the movie so much she thought she'd shoot a 20-second clip to show her 13-year-old brother how good it was. While she was doing so, two police officers order the … [Read more...] about Jail time for a film clip?
Sex offenders on MySpace: Some context
Last week Larry Magid and I co-wrote a commentary that ran in the San Jose Mercury News Sunday. Hundreds of news outlets worldwide had picked up the story that MySpace has deleted the profiles of 29,000 registered sex offenders. The news may have been shocking to a lot of parents of teen social networkers, so we felt parents deserved some perspective on this. Here's a slightly condensed version of … [Read more...] about Sex offenders on MySpace: Some context
AG’s spotlight moves to Facebook
An anonymous person who said he or she was "a concerned parent" contacted the New York Times about a fake teen profile he (we'll make it "he" to simplify) created apparently to check into the predator risk on Facebook, the Times reports. The "parent" had this imaginary teen join sex-related groups (ongoing discussions users can join) and add some of the members to "her" friends list. Since that … [Read more...] about AG’s spotlight moves to Facebook