Online safety czar called for

The Family Online Safety Institute, the only such US organization with offices on both sides of the Atlantic, this week called on President-Elect Obama to promote "a national strategy on how to best educate children, tweens, teens and their parents on online ethics, safety and cybercitizenship," citing the "excellent example of the UK government" in developing industry best practices, funding research, and setting up the UK Council on Child Internet Safety (for disclosure, I'm on FOSI's Advisory Board). In a report FOSI released at its annual conference this week, CEO Stephen Balkam, makes four recommendations: that the Obama administration 1) hold an annual White House Online Safety Summit, 2) create a US Council for Internet Safety (the FCC's National Telecommunications & Information Administration is right now putting together something similar, a "working group" called for by a just-signed broadband Internet law), 3) create a $100 million online-safety program to fund research and educational and awareness campaigns, and 4) create a National Safety Officer position in the office of the US's new chief technology officer. Here's the Washington Post's coverage.