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
Search Results for: bullying
Online victimization: Facts emerging
It was great to see the Associated Press's "Net threats result of kids' online behavior." It means newspapers and broadcast media worldwide just may run this story, and more parents will be getting facts instead of scary messages based on ignorance, politics, well-intentioned guesswork. Here are some facts we have now:Fact No. 1: Posting personal info online isn't actually what makes kids most … [Read more...] about Online victimization: Facts emerging
Cyberethics training needed
“She was a little big for her age, her face still chubby and prepubescent,” writes ZooeysRoom.com’s Kaley Noonen in Edutopia.org. “She pulled me aside after the cyberbullying workshop I'd just given to a room full of 20 middle school girls. She looked as though she were hiding something. ‘Would you help me get my MySpace page shut down?’ she asked.” The girl explained to Kaley that an ex-friend … [Read more...] about Cyberethics training needed
Facebook’s growth spurt
Christopher Beam of Slate calls Facebook “the Volvo of social networking,” the kind of “comfy, sturdy, and attractive without being showy” social site “you’d bring home to Mom.” But that’s all changing, at least the Volvo part, since Facebook “tore down its walls and opened its pages” to outside widget providers allowing Facebookers to add to their pages little features like a Graffiti widget that … [Read more...] about Facebook’s growth spurt
Phone monitoring on steroids
It's a little chilling, but maybe some parents feel they need to go to these lengths to protect their cellphone-using chilling. I can see parents using a product like this openly as a tool for solving a cyberbullying problem that might include calls and text message to a child’s cellphone. It’s called Flexispy, and it’s downloadable monitoring software for cellphones. The Thailand-based company's … [Read more...] about Phone monitoring on steroids