Mobile phone bullying is on the rise in Japan, where some 96% of high school students own mobile phones, and the country's Education Ministry is proposing a nationwide ban on cellphones at school. "Nearly 6,000 incidents of mobile phone-related bullying were reported in schools last year, a rise of more than 1,000 compared with the previous year," The Telegraph reports, citing Japanese government … [Read more...] about Japan’s mobile bullying problem
Risk & Safety
Toward fixing teen risky behavior in social sites: Study
A professor of pediatrics said she was a little surprised by how much information about risky behaviors teens post online - information for all to see but that their doctors struggle to get out of them. In a random selection of 500 MySpace profiles of people who say on their pages they're 18, Dr. Megan Moreno at University of Wisconsin, Madison, and her co-authors found that "54% of the profiles … [Read more...] about Toward fixing teen risky behavior in social sites: Study
Rate all English-language sites?
Believe me, it's been thought of. But the idea of rating Web sites the way movies and videogames are rated is being revisited by the British government. British Culture Secretary Andy Burnham said his government "plans to negotiate with the US on drawing up international rules for English-language Web sites," the BBC reports. It adds that Britain's NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of … [Read more...] about Rate all English-language sites?
Filtering improved
The European Commission funded a just-completed three-year study of parental-control tools, and the results are now available. With the help of 140 testers (parents and teachers), the researchers studied 26 tools, from filtering to computer security, server- and family-computer-based. They looked at the tools' appropriateness for three age groups: 6-10, 11-14, and 15-16 (here are the testing … [Read more...] about Filtering improved
Oz filtering update
The protests are getting louder and their base is broadening, but so far the Australian government's nationwide filter plan is going forward. "Consumers, civil-rights activists, engineers, Internet providers and politicians from opposition parties are among the critics of a mandatory Internet filter that would block at least 1,300 Web sites prohibited by the government - mostly child pornography, … [Read more...] about Oz filtering update