Filters, laws, parenting?

It never hurts to have another tool in tech-parenting toolboxes, and good sense, software, and laws are among them. The Journal News in Westchester County, N.Y., suggests that parents are increasingly using filtering software as a stopgap for younger Web surfers when they can't be looking over surfers' shoulders. "The increasing reliance on technology comes in the absence of enforceable laws that regulate pornography on the Web," the Journal News reports, though "the lack of laws is not for lack of trying." There have been many legislative efforts, but the First Amendment keeps bringing online child protection back into parents' hands, which is probably best because that's the only place where solutions can be tailor-made for each child. The Journal News mentions the latest legislative effort, Cyber Safety for Kids Act of 2006, a proposed law from Sens. Mark Pryor (D-AK) and Max Baucus (D-MT), "that would create a new [.xxx] domain for adult Web sites" with "the idea that filtering software could then easily identify which sites to weed out." It, too, will probably face big hurdles because a body outside the US government, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), is what creates Web domains, the .xxx idea has been stalled there for years, and meanwhile US courts (including the Supreme one) are still trying to figure out what to do with the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (stay tuned for the next set of arguments in the federal court in Philly in the fall).

Teen self-expression: On Web, in a book

Teen online journals and social-networking sites aren't the only "place" to find out what kids are thinking about. There's also The Notebook Girls, by Julia, Sophie, Courtney, and Lindsey, who "passed a notebook around to each other during classes [at Stuyvesant High School in New York City]. In that notebook, they would share comments on all sorts of things – "boys and basketball, drugs and dating, politics and promiscuity," according to the Los Angeles Times's review – their whole other life that "parents don't even know about," as one of the authors put it, so it's not for the faint of parental heart. That one, collective journal of four freshmen's school life, with both "personal and political [post-9/11 lower Manhattan] anxieties," became five bulging, handwritten notebooks that publisher Warner Books compressed back into one. The sub-plot of the L.A. Times's great review is about teen writers, who are beginning to compete, perhaps rightfully, with adult authors in the "Young Adult (YA)" category. "This generation of teenagers seems less fazed by the challenges of writing a book and getting it published…. Teenagers, after all, are forever sending text and instant messages. They spend hours updating blogs and keeping online journals. The discipline that adult wannabes fight so hard to master in night classes and writing colonies — the need to write, write and write some more — comes effortlessly to many teens. For them, daily life on the Internet has become an almost natural prelude to the writing of short stories, essays and novels." A definite upside to teen online activity, I'd say.

YouTube: The next MySpace?

Not really. Facebook apparently wants to be the next MySpace, since it passed on a $750 million offer and is "reportedly on sale, with an asking price of $2 billion," Fortune reports. But YouTube.com is definitely a phenomenon, having seen "the number of viewings on the site shoot up from 3 million a day to 30 million since the Web site's December launch," CNET reports. The New York Times calls it "the latest medium for short, loud adolescent messages." It has some tough competitors with huge resources (Google Video, iFilm.com, and Atom Entertainment's AddictingClips.com), so – besides its huge popularity as a media-hosting site, it's like the early days of MySpace in this way: "Nobody knows how YouTube, which has 20 employees, plans to make money," according to CNET. Maybe advertising? Here's CNET on the competition.

Social-networking 'sting'

I don't usually plug TV shows in advance, but this one stars a learning process a lot of parents and teens are going through right now. It also features recent NetFamilyNews contributor and kids' online-safety advocate Det. Frank Dannahey in Rocky Hill, Conn. He suggests that kids and parents watch this segment on NBC Sunday night (4/9) together - as a great "talking point" for family discussion. Please see this week's issue of my newsletter for details.

Phone with sex-offender alerts

It's not the first phone with GPS technology, but it's the first one linked to a national database of sex offenders. Nextel's Cat Trax phone "allows parents to build a 'geofence' around every listed child predator that lives within their ZIP code. The phone alerts parents through an email, text message or pager if their child enters that zone," the Associated Press reports. This new feature will be available within two months and will cost $19.99 for the first phone and $9.99 each for additional phones. "Other products, like Wherifone and Teen Arrive Alive, also help parents keep tabs on their children's whereabouts and driving habits," the AP adds.

'M' for 'Missing info'?

When buying videogames, parents "may be getting more than [they] paid for," reports ABC News, citing a study by the Harvard School of Public Health as finding - "more sex, violence and obscene language, that is." The study, which looked just at games rated M (Mature/17+), found that 81% of the games "were mislabeled and had missing content descriptors" (e.g., the M descriptor on the back of game boxes: "content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language"). On p. 3 of its report, ABC explains how the Entertainment Software Rating Board's rating process works. The ESRB did have a practical response concerning how much info can fit on game packaging. It "argued that the researchers in this study want to see game packages littered with descriptors." A parent who's a gamer himself told ABC parents shouldn't rely too much on any rating system: "He suggested parents spend time researching the games they buy their kids — and themselves.

Teens arrested for uploaded video

It was a homemade video allegedly showing two teenagers firebombing an old airplane hangar in the Novato, Calif., area. They had uploaded the video to their MySpace.com pages, police saw it, and the boys were arrested "on charges of possessing destructive devices," the Associated Press reports. "Police officers stationed at each middle and high school in Novato regularly surf the MySpace site for signs that local teenagers may be involved in criminal activity such as drug or alcohol use, sexual assault or vandalism," the AP added. Police said the damage to the building, part of an Air Force base that was closed in 1976, was "minimal." The two boys have since been released and their case "referred to the Marin County District Attorney for possible prosecution."