Young people are increasingly finding the need to put up firewalls between private and public online lives. They're "assuming online aliases" on social-networking sites "to avoid the prying eyes of parents, college recruiters, potential employers, and other overly interested strangers," the Washington Post reports. "They are also being more selective in who they allow in as 'friends' by paring … [Read more...] about Online aliases: The new privacy
Risk & Safety
What mobile carriers need to do for kids
US cellphone companies have made impressive headway with parental controls lately. That's great in terms of preventive measures, but this country's mobile industry has quite a ways to go, compared with those of some other countries, on support for kids and families after bad stuff happens. I'll tell you what I mean in a moment, but first here is what's in place right now. According to the mobile … [Read more...] about What mobile carriers need to do for kids
Age verification not the ‘killer app’
ConnectSafely.org, a site and forum, Larry Magid and I co-direct, was invited to join the Internet Safety Task Force that is part of MySpace's settlement last January with 49 state attorneys general. The Task Force's first meeting last month - attended by Internet companies including MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, AOL, Google, and Yahoo, age- and identity-verification companies, and online-safety … [Read more...] about Age verification not the ‘killer app’
More safety features at Facebook
As part of its agreement with 49 state attorneys general in the US, 70 million-member Facebook is implementing "40 safeguards to protect young people from sexual predators and cyberbullies," the San Jose Mercury News reports. Facebook's agreement follows that of MySpace with the attorneys general, announced in January, and many of the new features are similar, for example, restricting users' … [Read more...] about More safety features at Facebook
Toward solving ‘cyberbullying’: Editorial
Is the following what your teenager would think of as "cyberbullying"?: "Caustic comments, once passed around class as folded notes, are now immortalized on semi-public Web pages, where they can be viewed by thousands. Students are called fat, their sexuality is questioned and their fashion choices critiqued, often in language not fit to print in a family newspaper," the Washington Post reports, … [Read more...] about Toward solving ‘cyberbullying’: Editorial