High Court declines child-porn case

The US Supreme Court refused to hear the constitutional challenge to a 200-year prison term for an Arizona man convicted of possessing child pornography, Reuters reports. It was "turning down his appeal arguing that the sentence was excessive or cruel and unusual punishment" for someone with no previous criminal record. The man's lawyers said that Arizona law, with its mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years for each image of child pornography to be served consecutively "is the toughest in the nation" Under federal law, the man would have received a sentence of about five years' imprisonment, Reuters added.

What to teach K-6 about tech

Sorry, I'm blogging about a blogger's blog post, here, but this is relevant to parents and educators. It's about what Internet "usability guru" Jakob Nielsen says children should be taught about computers in elementary school (click to it from this San Jose Mercury News blog. Nielsen's bottom line: "Schools should teach deep, strategic computer insights that can't be learned from reading a manual." Hear, hear! I'm highlighting here three of his eight general skills, which I think are absolute musts: search strategies, information credibility (children click ads much more than adults do, and teens are particularly impatient in info-gathering, which makes them more vulnerable to hype, etc.), and how to deal with information overload (he has some simple strategies for all ages here). Here's Nielsen's "Life-Long Computer Skills."

'Social intelligence' & youth

People's "social intelligence" is impaired when they socialize online. In "real life," our socializing is equipped with what author Daniel Goleman calls a "face-to-face guidance system" that gives us "a continual cascade of emotional signs and social cues" when we interact. It's what helps the interaction go well, so that nobody gets hurt or makes a gaffe. Take the face-to-face part out, he says in a commentary in the International Herald Tribune, and what we've got is "disinhibition" - psychologists' term for "the many ways people behave with less restraint in cyberspace." It's what explains bullying, harassing, or just rude behavior online. Obviously, it's not just a challenge only for young socializers, but especially for middle schoolers – before driving, when so much out-of-school socializing happens in streams of instant messages and social site comments – the amount of online socializing (and adolescent spontaneity) can compound the social risks.

'Wired' means 'connected,' Mom?!

The idea that somebody who is "wired" is Net-literate or connected is fading fast – and will no doubt mystify our kids! A third of US Net users have now used the Web via a wireless network, and 20% now have wireless networks at home, the Pew Internet & American Life Project announced in its just-released data memo. And that 20% is double that of January 2005, Reuters reports. What this says is that the Internet is indeed more mobile and more "always on" all the time, and from a parent's perspective it means less and less control over children's Internet activities. Parents might consider this from tech educator Wesley Fryer (to fellow educators): "I think the question should not just be 'how do I control it' but 'how do I manage it?' The issue should be one of helping cultivate an accountable, responsible, and respectful culture of computer use in school [at home too?] rather than seeking to entirely shape user behavior through … blacklisting websites and blocking port access."

Job search in the Digital Age

Among other places, Google is looking for potential employees in social-networking sites, WebProNews reports. The writer got that from Jeff Moore, who recruits for Google and recently gave a talk at Harvard on "The Impact of Technology on Job Search." Moore had some tips for young job seekers, which WebProNews lists. The two I'd highlight: "Manage your public profile" and "Be careful about what you do online." As I've mentioned probably ad nauseum in this newsletter, we need to help our kids figure out how to be their own spin doctors and schools need to fold "spin control" into media literacy lessons – fast! [See "Today's 'cave painters'," "Participation: Key opp for our kids," "Teen reputations, jobs at risk," and "Budding online spin doctors."]

NJ schools held liable for bullying

In a unanimous decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that school districts are responsible for stopping bias-based harassment of students, New Jersey Online reports. "Much like employees in a workplace, students have the right to attend school without being subjected to repeated taunts from other children," the court said. Its ruling addressed a case brought years ago by a student "who complained he was slapped, punched and repeatedly taunted [for years] from the time he was in fourth grade by classmates who perceived him as gay." The court's opinion stated that "students in the classroom are entitled to no less protection from unlawful discrimination and harassment than their adult counterparts in the workplace…. We do not suggest, however, that isolated schoolyard insults or classroom taunts" would be enough to spark a legal case, the decision said.

Be aware of Stickam.com

Keep in mind as you read this that every new Mac has a built-in Webcam, and Webcams are otherwise very easy to buy, use, and conceal from parental detection. Stickam is a site parents probably don't want to find in their kids' browser History or Bookmarks. It's "a year-old social-networking service that urges members to connect with others via live Webcams and instant chat," CNET reports. MySpace doesn't allow Webcams or even links outward to Stickam for security purposes. That's not to say there isn't good stuff going on in Stickam (CNET mentions live video chat with musicians and video feeds from the Sundance Film Festival), but the problem is it's just about impossible to enforce rules like a minimum age (14) or no obscenity where live video's concerned. An investigative reporter researching Stickam recently told me a group of people can be chatting about a completely innocuous topic, when someone can spontaneously join in nude on camera and start "performing" – though a Stickam executive told CNET the site's "trying to overcome these problems by developing technology to block inappropriate behavior, and by keeping a team of staff that monitors video feeds, alongside warning flags from members." CNET adds that the site has about 40 staff to deal with all the above. It has 400,000 registered users and is "adding between 3,000 and 4,000 members a month," mostly 14-to-25-year-olds, the site says.

Social site ZEBO: Review

In this week's issue of my newsletter, the third part in our series about social Web sites from the perspective of a university student studying their impact on youth. Ann Moylan-McAulay at Portland State University reviewed the social-shopping site ZEBO.com. I'd like to highlight here three characteristics Ann zoomed in on. They're the types of features all over the user-driven Web that, if used maliciously or just unthinkingly, can cause embarrassment, hurt reputations, or harm psychological well-being. These are the kinds of features we all – teens and adults - need to give careful thought to as we work through the positives and negatives of the social Web:

"Comment blocking. Users are not able to block certain people from sending messages to their ZEBO inbox. Blocking comments can be a very useful tool for online socializers - for blocking cyberbullying or other unwanted messages from unknown users. The site did mention that they were working on getting this option put into place, but as of mid-February, it isn't in place.

"Photostrips. The site caters to the more egocentric side of youth by offering a "photostrip" option (MySpace does not offer this feature, though someone savvy in html code could install one themselves). The photostrip is a scrolling slideshow on a user's profile page that can contain up to 1,000 pictures. The idea of photostrip may seem downright terrifying to some parents. While youth are exploring their identities, they may not fully understand that the photos they display are there for *everyone* to see. So, as a parent, it's important to keep a running dialogue with your child about the public nature of Web sites and discuss what is and is not OK to upload onto a public site.

"WikiEdit. This tool enables users to go to friends' profiles and change them in two ways. Members of the site can change a friend's profile photo or background image, by uploading one for them. Once a page has been edited the profile change will go into effect within 24 hours and an email will be sent to the friend notifying them of the change. If they don't like what was done to their profile they can change it back, but there is no option to approve the change before it goes public. There is an option within the site to not allow WikiEdits on your profile. But my concern is that younger users may not know about this option, or choose not to use it until something goes awry. If the intentions of the person making the edit are good, all should go well, but malicious edits could be traumatic for the profile owner. Out of spite or "humor," someone could post an inappropriate picture of a friend without considering the possible consequences. In other words, this is a feature that can be used for cyberbullying purposes."

At the end of Ann's review are some thoughtful pointers for parents of people who might be attracted to sites like ZEBO (here's her full review).

Gamer raters wanted

The Entertainment Software Rating Board is looking to hire full-time raters who are gamers themselves. They have to have "experience with children," but "parents are preferred," 1UP.com reports. To date, rating games has been a part-time job, but "in the wake of renewed legislative pressure, [the ESRB] decides that the task of assigning ratings to games requires more than a part-time commitment," says Gamespot's subhead.

Breaking up hard to do?

Not on YouTube, apparently. The Associated Press leads with the question grownups (parents, educators, etc.) will be, maybe need to be, asking more and more: "Was it live … or was it just a stunt for YouTube?" Whether the videotaped break-up of a couple of college students was real or not (they said it was), it was definitely a hit on YouTube, the AP reports. "The various videos of [North Carolina State U. sophomore Mindy] Moorman's hostile breakup with University of North Carolina senior Ryan Burke have been watched more than 300,000 times as of Wednesday - making it one of the most popular clips on YouTube.com in recent weeks." Moorman, a political science major "thinking of going into politics" was asked by her mother how she plans to get elected now. Good question, except that it could also be that the popularity of her breakup video will give Moorman a name-recognition headstart in a future campaign. Increasingly, reputation damage will probably depend on an online video's content. Less likely to get elected are future politicians who "starred" in compromising party shots, school-fight videos (see my 1/26 issue), or worse (see last week's feature about the upheld convictions of teen producers of child pornography).

Social-networking training wheels

Actually, I think these sites may be teen-social-networking training wheels as much for parents as for their users (parents who don't already have MySpace profiles, anyway). Newsweek leads with how Club Penguin (4 million visitors/month) kept a child, who was in the hospital for five months, connected with his then-distant friends. But this site for 8-to-14-year-olds, Newsweek says, is just the "tip of the iceberg" in the category targeting tween socializers. Some, such as ClubPenguin.com, Whyville.net, Nicktropolis.com, Habbo Hotel, and Disney's VMK are more like a kid version of Second Life, others – such as Tweenland.com and Imbee.com – are more in the MySpace or Xanga category (profile or blog creation + IM). "Most of these sites are remarkably safe," Newsweek reports. "Still, experts warn against growing too complacent," because site moderators probably can't tell, for example, if a group of peers has decided to give a friend the cold shoulder offline and online - a form of social harassment or bullying.

Cyberbullying laws considered, US-wide

The Associated Press story leads with this cyberbullying tragedy: the suicide of Ryan Patrick Halligan at the age of 13 after being bullied online for months. Classmates sent him "instant messages calling him gay. He was threatened, taunted and insulted incessantly by so-called cyberbullies," the AP reports. Across the US, states are considering various sorts of crackdowns against cyberbullying, including legislation. There's no easy solution. The AP quotes an educator questioning whether laws can change bad behavior. Maybe if the legislation requires public schools to address the issue? "In Arkansas, the state Senate this month passed a bill calling on school districts to set up policies to address cyberbullying only after it was amended to settle concerns about students' free-speech rights," the AP reports. Check out this thorough report on efforts in Vermont, Rhode Island, Oregon, Washington, and South Carolina as well.

Teens' communication tools: Study

I have two take-aways from the latest Harris Interactive study, "Communication Rules": 1) Social sites, IM, and cellphones are tools integral to teens' socializing, not add-ons, and 2) Teens generally know when it's appropriate to communicate through devices – which tool is appropriate and when. "When the tone of a communication is serious, such as arguing and breaking up with someone, teens realize that communication tools may not be the best avenue of discussion," the study press release says. Other findings include:

67% of teens 13-18 "would not break up with someone" and 42% would not argue with a friend over phones, email, instant messaging, text messaging, or social networking sites.

"When choosing a communication tool, teens will most likely choose to use cellphones and landline phones to talk to a friend about something serious or important (phone 34%, landline phone 23%); apologize to a friend (cellphone 22%, landline phone 20%); or break up with someone (cell phone 14%, landline phone 9%)."

"If teens want to … have more time to think about what they have to say, they're more likely to use instant messaging … over cellphone, text messaging, or social-networking sites," though cellphones are No. 1 for arranging to meet with friends, having quick conversations, contacting a friend when bored, and inviting people to a party or event."

Help for safe surfing

Casually clicking around the Web "can be a dangerous business" these days, because of the malicious stuff you (or your child) can download just by arriving at some Web pages, CNET reports. By malicious stuff, I mean software that can affect a PC, your identity, or your wallet, not harm a child – e.g., trojan software that can take control of the family PC, keylogger code that grabs passwords or credit card numbers, or nasty spyware that's tough to get rid of. So CNET's reviewers "looked at five standalone safe-surfing tools and compared them with the native protection within Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7." They're all quite different, some identifying and blocking phishing sites, others identifying and blocking legitimate sites containing bad downloads. Most did a better job than the protection in browsers. Check out CNET's at-a-glance chart.

'Get on the [Net safety] bus!'

Austin, Texas, has a good thing coming: It's a bus full of videogames, Xbox 360 consoles, and laptops with Vista loaded. But it's not just for kids. Austin's the bus's 10th stop in a 20-city tour designed to teach parents that online safety's not rocket science by demo-ing Vista's parental controls, News 8 Austin reports. The campaign, which is called “Safety is No Game,” will appear in 20 cities across the United States. Austin is one of the first stops. Here's the tour schedule, many stops with dates yet to be announced.

Videogames for surgical skills?

A study published in this month's issue of Archives of Surgery found "a strong correlation between videogame skills and a surgeon's capabilities performing laparoscopic surgery," Reuters reported. " Out of 33 surgeons from Beth Israel Medical Center in New York that participated in the study, the nine doctors who had at some point played videogames at least three hours per week made 37% fewer errors, performed 27% faster, and scored 42% better in the test of surgical skills than the 15 surgeons who had never played video games before." However, moms and dads, one of the study's authors did tell Reuters that spending more than an hour a day playing videogames is *not* going to help kids get into medical school! (A 2004 survey found that 94% of US teens play videogames for an average of nine hours a week, Reuters added.) In related findings, the 2005 National Summit on Educational Games, sponsored by the Federation of American Scientists, the Entertainment Software Assoc., and the National Science Foundation, concluded among other things that "many videogames require players to master skills in demand by today's employers – strategic and analytical thinking, problem solving, planning and execution, decisionmaking, and adaptation to rapid change," Harris Interactive cited in its latest trend report.

From social networking to life?

Headlines are beginning to say that Second Life, with 2 million+ users and growing, is the next social-networking phenomenon. If descriptions like "virtual world" or "alternate reality" don't work, try this wordier one from the Fort Worth Star Telegram Fort Worth Star Telegram: "sort of a combination of MySpace, The Sims and Monopoly, with the three-dimensional touch of Star Trek’s holodecks and the video game World of Warcraft, Second Life is not a competitive pursuit so much as an alternative state. In a profile of Second Life founder and CEO Philip Rosedale, USATODAY says "he thinks he is remaking the Internet." No longer a "playground for the ultra-nerdy … Second Life has 10,000 people a day signing up. "CBS chief Leslie Moonves hosted Rosedale on stage at January's Consumer Electronics Show. Reuters set up a virtual Second Life news bureau. It is becoming so vital that politicians are campaigning there, bands such as Duran Duran are giving concerts, and hotel chains are using it to try out new concepts," USATODAY reports. And Sweden plans to be the first country to open an embassy in Second Life, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, is scrambling to make the world accessible to PCs that run Microsoft's new Vista operating system. So far there have been some compatibility issues, CNET reports.

Social-networking 9-1-1?

Disaster relief would benefit from developing social networks. That's the view of two University of Maryland scientists pointed out by MIT's Technology Review. Jennifer Preece, an expert in human-computer interactions, and Ben Schneiderman, a computer scientist, suggest in Science magazine that "local, state, and federal governments develop 911.gov, a social network that would allow residents to report disasters, request assistance from neighbors, and check for emergency updates and relief information." Because phone operators and relief agencies are usually quickly overwhelmed by call volume, social networking could spread out the information and contact points in something more like a telephone chain that would let people know at a glance who's nearby and what aid is available. Preece and Schneiderman are really describing what I'd call peer-to-peer disaster relief as opposed to the traditional top-down kind. Online marketing expert Max Kalehoff builds on this idea in his blog in a way that makes sense: "Instead of building a new network that nobody even knows exists, emergency personnel should leverage the ease and dispersion of existing networks that have already proven their utility in real life." In other words, the social-networking services aggregate people for a lot of purposes other than socializing; they're a sign of how society will tackle large-scale problems in the future – something that people seeking to ban social sites should be aware of.

School violence apparently averted

This was one of those cases where a social site helped investigators. A Connecticut high school student sent a link to a disturbing video in YouTube to a friend, who – when he recognized some people in the video - told his parents. The parents called the police. The video "showed teens firing weapons and igniting explosives," the Hartford Courant reported. It wasn't clear last week who made the video, but it led police to a 16-year-old boy's house, where they seized weapons and found "a hit list with at least 20 names" and documents detailing a plan to attack them with "explosive devices and guns," according to the Courant. The boy was arrested and arraigned last Thursday on "two counts of making bombs and ordered held on $500,000 bond," the Associated Press reported. It added the police said they were "extremely grateful" the parents reported the video. According to the Courant article, a conviction on each bomb charge carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

Teens' child-porn convictions upheld

It’s not known how the police heard about it, but two Florida teenagers were prosecuted for taking sexually explicit photos of themselves and “distributing” them in violation of child-pornography laws. Last month a Florida state appeals court ruled 2-1 to uphold their conviction, CNET reports. What happened was, ‘Amber’ (16) and ‘Jeremy’ (17) [not their real names] took more than 100 “digital photos of themselves naked and engaged in unspecified ‘sexual behavior.’ The two sent the photos from a computer at Amber's house to Jeremy's personal email address. Neither teen showed the photographs to anyone else.” They were both charged with “producing, directing or promoting” child pornography, and “Jeremy was charged with an extra count of possession of child pornography.” What this case establishes, CNET reports, is that, in Florida, it’s legal for two minors to have sex, but “they’re criminals if they document it.” Criminals, and yet – as the appeals court itself wrote – “children … not mature enough to make rational decisions concerning all the possible negative implications of producing these videos.” This case is no anomaly. To find out why, please click to this week's issue of my newsletter.

Court dismisses suit against MySpace

A US district court in Texas this week dismissed a negligence lawsuit filed last June by the family of a girl who was sexually assaulted by someone she met on MySpace, Reuters reports. "In dismissing the suit, Judge [Sam] Sparks said that as an 'interactive service,' MySpace was protected from materials posted on its site by the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996." The law "generally grants immunity to interactive computer services such as MySpace so that they are not liable for content posted by users," the Associated Press reports in its coverage of this development. "If anyone had a duty protect Julie Doe, it was her parents, not MySpace," the court ruled," ASPnews reported. Judge Sparks also "noted that the girl lied about her age, posing as an 18-year-old when she was only 13," Reuters added. The minimum age at MySpace is 14. The family said it would appeal the dismissal. (Here's my item on this case last June.)

Two new online-safety projects

They tackle the challenge of protecting online kids on two levels: in the home and at the strategic level. The household part is addressed with a new "4-1-1" service at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). Up until now, the Center's CyberTipline.com has offered the public more of a "9-1-1" service in the area of child exploitation. Now it's covering the info-gathering part of the picture, NCMEC CEO Ernie Allen told BlogSafety.com's Larry Magid in an interview for CBS News. At the strategic level is the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), launched this week in Washington, D.C., and next week in London. Basically designed to foster and promote the best thinking in children's online safety, "the Institute will bring together the leading thinkers, innovative technologies, effective educators, and enlightened legislators to make [safety awareness] a reality," said its CEO, Stephen Balkam. On the tech front, the Institute will fold in and carry on the work of ICRA, the Internet Content Rating Association (Larry Magid and I are serving on FOSI's advisory council, so we have a bias about this development). Here's Larry's article at CBS News.

Proposed IL law: Ban social sites

The proposed law would ban social-networking sites from public schools and libraries in the state of Illinois. The legislation appears similar to the Delete Online Predators Act (DOPA) that was passed by the House last year but died before the Senate could vote, only more sweeping, CNET reports. “For one thing, the House version applied only to those schools and libraries that receive federal funding under the E-Rate program.” But the Illinois law “would apply to social-networking sites on all publicly accessible library computers - apparently without regard for whether the user was a child - and on all computers ‘made available’ to students at public schools.” As for DOPA, it may’ve found new life: “This new version of DOPA, already called DOPA Jr., was introduced by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK)” last month, a ClickZ News blog reported. Writing about DOPA for CBS News last summer, my BlogSafety.com co-director Larry Magid quipped that “maybe the law should be called DOTA (the Delete Online Teenagers Act)” because, “rather than ‘deleting’ online predators, it [would’ve] deleted the ability of schools and libraries to determine whether kids can constructively take advantage of social networking and other interactive services that are extremely popular among teens.” New legislation under consideration in Washington would do a better job of actually “deleting” predators – by establishing a national sex-offender registry and requiring that offenders register Internet contact information as well as offline info (see 12/8/06).

Teacher's controversial porn conviction

This really seems to have been a case of guilty until proven innocent, except that the system (prosecutor, jury, etc.) never wanted to give proving this person's innocence a chance. Don't miss this Hartford Courant column about how a Connecticut substitute teacher who doesn’t know much about computers and was taught by the school system never to unplug or turn computers off was assigned to a classroom with a computer whose anti-virus and anti-spyware protection had expired on which porn pop-ups kept appearing on screen apparently after students in her classroom inadvertently click to a porn site, and she’s tried and convicted for exposing children to adult content. She now faces possible sentencing of up to 40 years in prison (sentencing hasn't occurred yet). Courant columnist Rick Green writes, "A city is being pilloried in news reports across the globe. Amero - an incompetent teacher at worst - is a convicted porn felon. Could we all step back and look for some truth?" Here's the Associate Press's coverage, picked up globally.

Teen dating abuse: study, hotline

A just-released study of teen dating abuse found that 71% of teens (13-18) “regard boyfriends/girlfriends spreading rumors about them on cellphones and social-networking sites as a serious problem, and 68% say friends sharing private or embarrassing photos or videos is a serious problems. The survey, sponsored by Liz Claiborne, Inc., as part of its 16-year focus on stopping domestic violence, also found that “a significant majority of parents are completely unaware of this type of dating abuse.” The study is part of a national education campaign that also includes a 24-hour hotline (866-331-9474) that Liz Claiborne has committed to help fund for three years. The confidential teen hotline is operated by the Austin-based National Domestic Violence Hotline. Here’s USATODAY on the hotline. Here are other key survey findings:

• “24% of teens in a relationship communicated with their partner via cellphone or texting hourly between midnight and 5 am.”


• “30% say they are text messaged 10, 20, 30 times an hour by a partner inquiring where they are, what they're doing, or who they're with.


• “67% of parents whose teens were checked up on 30 times per day on their cell phone were unaware this was happening.


• “25% of teens say they have been called names, harassed, or put down by their partner through cellphones and texting.


• “71% of parents were unaware that their teen is afraid of not responding to a cell phone call, text or IM massage or email for fear of what their partner might do.”

Acting out for the videocam

But that’s not all they’re doing to up their ratings in video-sharing sites, the New York Times reports: “boys holding cell phones under the lunch table to photograph up girls' skirts; an innocent kiss at a party posted out of context on an ex-boyfriend's Web site; someone bursting in on friends who are in the bathroom or sleeping, drinking or smoking; students goading teachers into tantrums; assaulting homeless people.” Maybe with too much time on their hands, they upload the taped exploits to PhotoBucket, YouTube, MySpace, and other user-content sites – including “niche” ones just for this purpose like PSFights.com, according to the Times. “In response to such cyberbullying [such as the “bullying incident on Long Island last December” - see “Teens’ fight video"], Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive, recently asked school districts to designate a staff Internet monitor to watch for Web-posted misbehavior among students.” Nancy Willard, author of Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats, told the Times, though it could be damaging to people and property, to teens this activity is both the game of teenage life and the exploring of identity and social relationships. Not that adults aren’t involved sometimes in a somewhat exploitative way - read the part about the fence-plowing fad, done by teenagers but started by a young film producer seeking insta-fame.

Social media in the biz world

If anybody thinks social networking’s a fad or if parents think it’s just frivolity, see this: “The nation's fastest-growing private companies are making use of social media — including blogs, social networking and podcasts — at a rate more than twice that of Fortune 500 companies, according to a new study.” Fox News is citing a University of Massachusetts survey of companies on the Inc. 500 list to gauge their familiarity with and use of social media. Your children’s blogging in Xanga, profile customizing in MySpace, or video producing in Facebook may actually be prepping them for future career experiences, networking, or self-presentation. BTW, you may have seen in tech headlines nationwide that Cisco, which makes networking routers and switches, just acquired a company that makes software which adds social-networking features to businesses’ Web sites. Yet another sign that pretty soon any site that ever offered “community” will offer social networking. So, parents, if teens decide MySpace is too safe, they’ll soon be able to socialize, openly or secretly, just about anywhere on the Web.

Patch the family PC

Lots of security patches from Microsoft this month, ZDNET reports - “12 bulletins with patches for at least 20 vulnerabilities in a wide range of widely used software products. Six of the 12 bulletins are rated “critical,” Redmond’s highest severity rating.” A number of the patches address vulnerabilities in Word and Explorer, none are patching any problems with the new Vista operating system upgrade. Windows users should definitely get them all – manually through Windows Update, by automating patches on the family PC, or by using the Windows Live OneCare service.

New social site for girls

It’s called Flip.com. “Predicated on the notion that young girls have a turbocharged instinct to personalize their stuff, Flip.com lets its members design and publish ‘flipbooks’ containing text, images, audio and video,” Clickz News reports. It can't be easy for content providers to strike the right balance between allowing advertisers to interact with their young users and protecting young users from exploitation. It appears they think of "transparency" – requiring advertisers to be transparent about their marketing intentions as one protection. A competitor to CondeNet's site is GirlSense.com, though preteen girls is its primary target.

Mobile-socializing numbers

Many of the photos and videos on MySpace and YouTube reportedly originated on cellphones. So it’s only a matter of time before the socializing, too, happens on phones. Here are some of the first figures I’ve seen. “A number of new media research firms predict that social media is likely to be the tipping point for mobile video adoption,” TVWeek.com reports. “Research firm eMarketer recently reported that mobile social communities - a grouping of like-minded people interacting on cellphones - should grow from 50 million users worldwide today to 174 million in 2011.” But while growth is being seen, US usage is still relatively small. “By the end of the third quarter of 2006, the United States counted about 5.1 million mobile video subscribers, double the number at the end of the first quarter,” according to TV Week, citing Telephia research. Another example of growth: “One [mobile social-networking] site, Pitch.tv was created in London for users to share their personal space with friends. It's only four months old, but sales director Ben Tatten-Brown says it already has 20,000 registered users. And that, without advertising the site, CNN reports. Another such startup, Cerkle.com, went from 0 to 2,000 under-30 users in its first 24 hours, CNN adds. See also “Mobile socializing: Accelerating change."

EU to ban 'sockpuppets'

Sockpuppets are marketing blogs made to look like regular people’s blogs (or pages or profiles) – they’re basically stealth ads. The EU is not only wise to them but planning to ban them (I guess if they’re on servers based in Europe), reports Play.tm, a London-based videogame news site. The law goes into effect at the end of this year. “Those transgressing the new directives will be named and shamed by Trading Standards or taken to court; the law also covers people with a vested interest reviewing their own products on sites such as Amazon.

Students' advice to tech educators

They should get into the online-safety business, two college students basically suggest. That was “one of the strongest messages for educators” from Darian Shirazi of University of California, Berkeley, and Lorrie Ma of Santa Clara University, speaking at a conference for education IT professionals from around the world, CNET reports. “Universities shouldn't try to restrict access to online information and social-networking sites like MySpace or Facebook. Rather, universities should educate kids on the positives and negatives of those sites and offer best practices for Internet use.” Good advice for parents, K-12 educators, and children’s advocates too. As for all the very personal info students are uploading to the Web, they made the point that “it would be even weirder if someone didn't exist on the Web.” Wouldn’t colleges and universities worry about students’ ability to use computers and technology if they have no presence on the Web? Ma and Shirazi suggested. Not that Ma didn’t have regrets about what she’s uploaded in the past – see her account at the end of the piece. See also the online-safety field’s latest thinking on kids putting out personal info online, in SafeKids.com’s Larry Magid’s “New Approach to Online Safety Education."

Kids' exposure to porn: Study

I just received another email from Jessica, parent of three teens in Michigan, with more than four dozen URLs of X-rated pages in a social-networking site. I haven't looked at them all (I pass them along to the site's customer-service department), but the URLs themselves are highly suggestive of sex-related content – e.g., two of the more mentionable ones are "gurl-frm-hell" and "DUDEWITHCAM." I'm telling you this because it bears out researchers' latest thinking about online porn – that exposure to it may now be a norm of teenage life. But let me quote the researchers exactly, with some important advice they pair with this finding: "Exposure to online porn might have reached the point where it can be characterized as normative among youth Internet users, especially teenage boys. Medical practitioners, educators, other youth workers, and parents should assume that most boys of high school age that use the Internet have some degree of exposure to online pornography, as do girls…. Frank direct conversations with youth that address the possible influences of pornography on sexual behavior, attitudes about sex, and relationships are needed." That's from the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center (CACRC) in their just-released analysis in the journal Pediatrics of a 2005 study. [Here’s TechNewsWorld's coverage of this much-covered analysis.]

The key new issue highlighted by Jessica's effort to expose and stop porn in social sites is that much of it is user-produced. This is the challenge of the youth-driven social Web: not just how to protect young people from porn operators and predators but, in essence, how to protect them from themselves and each other? The cold reality is that teens (and plenty of adults) are porn operators too – the homemade variety. [Here are Jessica's post in the BlogSafety.com forum about her findings.]

Back to the data. It shows that unwanted exposure to porn has been growing. The CACRC reports that 42% of US 10-to-17-year-olds said they'd been exposed to online pornography in the past year, and 66% of that group "reported only unwanted exposure." Thirteen percent went to X-rated sites on purpose, but a much larger number, 34% were exposed to online porn they didn't want to see (up from 25% about five years before this survey), due to things like pop-up ads, spam email, clicking on unintended search results, or misspelling Web addresses the browser window. [The authors did say that not all unwanted exposure was inadvertent; in some cases, curiosity leads kids to X-rated sites, and then they find the exposure is unwanted. Peer pressure can be another catalyst – the fact that kids are encountering porn at "friends' houses" showed up in the data.]

"Although there is evidence that most youth are not particularly upset when they encounter unwanted pornography on the Internet, unwanted exposure could have a greater impact on some youth than voluntary encounters with pornography. Some youth may be developmentally and psychologically unprepared for unwanted exposure, and online images may be more graphic and extreme than pornography available from other sources." For tips and one family's strategy for reducing kids' unwanted exposure, pls see this week's issue of my newsletter.

International child-porn bust

"Nearly 2,400 suspects from 77 countries allegedly paid to view videos depicting [child] sexual abuse online," the Associated Press reported. Within 24 hours of receiving a heads-up about some of the videos an Austrian network administrator who'd stumbled upon them in a routine scan, "investigators recorded more than 8,000 hits from 2,361 computer addresses" in all those countries, including the US. The lead investigator said his team believes "the videos were shot in Eastern Europe and uploaded to the Web from Britain. A link to the videos was posted on a Russian Web site, which is no longer in operation, and hosted on a server in Austria. Some of the material was free, but the Russian site charged $89 for access for a 'members only' section." The article points out that, even with the size of this group, finding this activity is needle-in-a-haystack work.

Facebook & a sex scam

It was the first time Facebook has been accused of being used by a sexual predator to contact a minor, its chief security officer Chris Kelly told the Chicago Tribune. Last week in suburban Chicago, "authorities arrested a [23-year-old] man who they say used Facebook to pose as a teenage girl in an elaborate scheme to lure a 15-year-old boy from Evanston to his home for sex." The Tribune says Facebook believes the man "may have circumvented safeguards by "hijacking" a female high school student's profile last year (by obtaining her user name and password), using it to trick the boy into believing he was going to meet a peer. The 16 million-member service "is made up of 47,000 networks - individual schools, companies or regions - that are each independent and closed to non-affiliated users," the Trib reports. Kelly was quoted in this article and in CNET's coverage of his appearance at the RSA conference: "There's going to be crime in any large community, offline and online. But you can put up lights in parks to prevent criminal activity." A lot of social sites are working on those park lights right now. [Here's an alternate link for the Trib story at PopMatters.com.]

Videogames: Health benefits

Some benefits to videogaming are beginning to pop up here and there in the news media. The one concerning eyesight, for example got a lot of coverage: “People who played action video games for a few hours a day over the course of a month improved their vision by about 20% percent,” NBC6 TV in South Florida cited researchers at the University of Rochester as finding. And The Dartmouth looked at whether videogamers and couch potatoes had a lot in common. It depends on how you play them, the paper reports, especially Wii Sports for Nintendo Wii (you choose whether to just wave your hand or get your whole body involved). Certainly Wii boxing and Wii tennis don't replace their real-life counterparts, but they do get heart rates up. The article also looks at NBA Live and DDRMAX2 (Dance Dance Revolution) for PlayStation2. Meanwhile, the Wii is outselling the PlayStation3 in Japan these days, CNET reports.

Sex-offender registry upgrade in UK?

As in a law working its way through the US Congress right now, the United Kingdom may soon require sex offenders to register their online contact info too. "Home Secretary John Reid said he was also considering making paedophiles add their chatroom names to their other details on the Sex Offenders Register," the BBC reports (hopefully IM and social-networking screennames are included too). According to Home Office figures, there are about 30,000 registered sex offenders in England and Wales. Secretary Reid's announcement came "a day after three men were jailed for using a chatroom to plot the rape of two young girls" and was also timed to Safer Internet Day, celebrated around the world this week. The BBC says "as many as two-thirds" of British teens are using social-networking sites, particularly MySpace and Bebo. For more on the US's proposed law, see my 2/2 issue.

1 million online students

That's the total number of seats, K-12, in all online classes across the US, a figure that "has grown more than 20 times in seven years," the Los Angeles Times reports. It cites figures from the North American Council for Online Learning projecting growth of 30% a year. "Nearly half the states offer public school classes online, and last year Michigan became the first in the nation to require students to take an online course to graduate from high school. In California, a state senator introduced a bill last week to allow public high school students to take online classes without depriving schools of the state funding they receive for attendance." Why do students enroll? "Online schools are also popular with home-schooled children, with students who are devoting large blocks of time to such activities as ballet, acting or tennis, as well as students who don't enjoy a traditional school atmosphere or who need to work…. Paul Riscalla, 17, a senior at Orange Lutheran who lives in Orange, splits his time between online classes and the traditional school so he can work 40 hours a week at two jobs and play drums in a rock band."

Facebook video on cable too

Facebook video sharers soon will have the chance to co-create a TV series called "Facebook Diaries." Comcast and Facebook are teaming up to start a contest in March in which users "submit short video segments about their lives. Throughout the contests, Facebook users will be encouraged to upload, view, share and rate the videos," XChange Online reports. The best videos will get featured on Facebook and in Comcast's social site Ziddio.com. They'll also "form the basis for" the new series's 10 half-hour episodes that will air online and on TV. According to the Associated Press, the series will be produced by R.J. Cutler, "known for his edgy work gathering stories from regular folks in shows such as 'American High,' a nonfiction TV series chronicling the lives of suburban teens at an Illinois school."Facebook video sharers soon will have the chance to co-create a TV series called "Facebook Diaries." Comcast and Facebook are teaming up to start a contest in March in which users "submit short video segments about their lives. Throughout the contests, Facebook users will be encouraged to upload, view, share and rate the videos," XChange Online reports. The best videos will get featured on Facebook and in Comcast's social site Ziddio.com. They'll also "form the basis for" the new series's 10 half-hour episodes that will air online and on TV. According to the Associated Press, the series will be produced by R.J. Cutler, "known for his edgy work gathering stories from regular folks in shows such as 'American High,' a nonfiction TV series chronicling the lives of suburban teens at an Illinois school." And this week in the Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg demonstrates just exactly how "anyone can be a video producer."

MySpace mobile in the UK

The UK is only the first stop for Vodafone Live, enabling MySpace users to socialize from their mobiles, the BBC reports. They'll just need to download the MySpace Mobile software. Then users will "be able to edit their MySpace profiles, post photos and blogs and send and receive MySpace messages." Europe is next for the Vodafone Live rollout. Yet another sign that online socializing is here to stay, is moving beyond the Web at the speed of light, and is making children's self-protection and education more important than ever. Helio was MySpace Mobile's first partner in the US, early last year. Here's Reuters's coverage. [See also last week's "Mobile socializing: Accelerating trend."]

Teen video viewing on Net

More than half (53%) of US teens view online videos occasionally, and 22% view videos weekly or more often, according to new findings by JupiterResearch. The teens who watch them frequently "tend to be both active online and socially influential," Jupiter says. Like adults, teens tend to rely on friends' recommendations to find online videos. That's the top source, followed by personal blogs, social networking sites, and search engines. A late-2006 Jupiter study found that about 20.6 million US teens were online last year, "79% of all US teenagers." Here's eMarketer's coverage.

Steve Jobs: Drop DRM

This could be huge for young music video producers everywhere. The Apple CEO's advice to the recording industry came in "a rare open letter," CNET reports. According to the Wall Street Journal, he wrote that digital-rights-management (DRM) technologies aren't "deterring illicit copying of music." And DRM's a problem the music industry needs to fix, Jobs writes. What's interesting, a CNET source said, is that Apple has benefited more than any other company from the use of DRM systems. But Jobs says Apple had to use DRM just to be able to get iTunes off the ground. "There are alternatives, Jobs wrote. Apple and the rest of the online music distributors could continue down a DRM path; Apple could license the FairPlay technology to others; or record companies could be convinced to license music without DRM technology. The company clearly favors the third option," CNET reports. Parents and teachers will note that even if DRM goes away the need to thinking through the ethics of digital-media use won't. The need to work together on digital ethics and citizenship might even grow. In related news, the New York Times reports that British recording giant EMI plans to offer "a broad swath of its recordings" for sale online sans DRM; the Washington Post, though, has the recording industry's general reaction to Jobs's message.

Teaching digital commuters, not tourists

This is a metaphor I used in our book, MySpace Unraveled, in which the commuters, approach the Web and social networking entirely differently from the way we adults do – kind of like the way commuters and tourists approach huge public spaces like Penn Station in New York City. I suggest that the tourists can't shape the entire public discussion, set all the policy, and teach entirely from their perspective. Commuter input is needed. Building on that is a blog item by tech educator David Warlick in TechLearning.com. After talking with Karl Leif Bates, Duke University's manager of research communications (kind of an interpreter for the public of current research), David blogs about the different ways two generations of scientists approach science. For one thing, Bates told him, the younger ones collaborate electronically much more – physical distances are nothing to them. The second observation was *really* interesting: Warlick writes that Bates told him "science used to be reductionist in nature. I asked what that meant, and he said that science was about drilling down to components, cutting out and examining bits of the world, reducing it to its barest fundamentals. He said that the younger scientists spend more time synthesizing, that they seem much more interested in systems and networks, not so much how things operate independently, but how they operate as part of a larger organism, ecosystem, or cosmos."

Check out how David uses this as a metaphor for how computer skills are taught in schools. And I will use it as a metaphor for the way we have taught online safety so far. We can no longer separate it out as a "curriculum" – not in teaching digital commuters, for whom there is no distinction between "online" and "offline." Online safety on the social Web will not work if it's reductionist. But tell me what *you* think, via anne@netfamilynews.org or, ideally, for all to see at BlogSafety.com.

Web 2.0 for indie films

At Jaman.com, you can kibbitz online about the indie film you're watching, as you watch it. "Currently in its free beta stage, Jaman offers about 1,000 foreign and independent films for download," the Kansas City Star reports. "Movies on Jaman come from Asia, Latin America, Europe and North America. The company says it has the largest online selection of Sundance Film Festival movies." Movie downloads are free while Jaman's in beta, but in the next month or so, the pricing will be "$1.99 to rent a movie for a week or $4.99 to buy it." A competitor is Flixter.com.

Video ringtone-sharing

Yet another social-networking niche! But a very logical one, given kids' love of media-sharing with cellphones (70% of 13-to-17-year-olds in Europe and the US share content on their phones, M:Metrics found). Now think about the online-safety implications. The promo for Vringo.com, aimed at people in their teens and 20s, "shows a teenage girl holding up her phone with a video of herself: 'Hey Frank, what’s up, what’s going on? Come on, answer your phone. You know you want to',” the Kansas City Star reports. Nothing about safety or privacy in the company's FAQ. It just says, "You can share any Vringo you shot yourself with the whole community. You can choose the option from your handset, to upload a Vringo you shot and make it available to every one."

Mobile socializing: Accelerating trend

Until very recently there were basically two kinds of mobile social networking: 1) the Web + phone kind, using a mobile phone to access your page in a social Web site, and 2) the phone + "real life" kind, using your phone to locate friends' physical location and go to meet them. But, predictably, the line of distinction is blurring. In this week's issue of my newsletter, I offer some examples of this mashing up - more clear signs that "old" categories are getting remixed and the "Web 2.0" that we've just started to understand is changing fast. During any given Saturday night in a teenager's life, socializing will be both online and in person and on multiple devices when it is "online." They make no distinction between "online" and "offline"; they just socialize. See also "Cellphone social networking" and "Virtual worlds on phones."

Globally safer Internet

That's the aim of the fourth-annual Safer Internet Day on February 6, with participants in nearly 40 countries. The event involves the work of nonprofit child advocacy organizations in multiple countries, led by Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for the Information Society and Media. "The highlight of the day will once again be a worldwide blogathon, which will reach Australia on 6th February and progress westward through the day to finish up in the USA and Canada," according to European Schoolnet, the event's organizer. The blogathon will include the work of young people from 200+ school in 25 countries participating in a content-creation competition. They created "Internet safety awareness material on one of three themes: e-privacy, netiquette, and power of image." Really great topics US educators might consider for next-generation (Web 2.0) Net safety curricula! The winners will be announced and their projects uploaded to the blogathon on Tuesday (2/6). Here's coverage from SiliconRepublic.com out of Dublin.

YouTube as police tool

Toronto police have posted video of missing 17-year-old Eva Ho on YouTube to help their investigation, CTV Toronto reports. Investigative leads suggest she might be in Hong Kong, so the social Web is a logical tool to get the word out internationally. It's a first for the Toronto police but a growing trend in law enforcement, CTV adds. In another case last December, "Hamilton police posted surveillance video of two men attending a hip-hop concert in the city. They were hoping to gain clues in the investigation of a stabbing death. The short video was viewed online more than 30,000 times." Within about two weeks, a suspect turned himself in.

An experiment in the YouTube 'lab'

Copyright pressures on YouTube are mounting as media companies struggle to find the right balance between the marketing value of exposure on the top media-sharing site and actually getting paid for their content. "Viacom Inc., parent of MTV and Comedy Central, said it has ordered YouTube to immediately remove more than 100,000 video clips placed on the popular Web site without its approval," the Wall Street Journal reports. Among them would be the likes of Colbert and The Daily Show. "The decision comes after Viacom and YouTube executives failed to reach an agreement over a distribution deal despite months of negotiations," the Journal adds. This is like one long lab session in a giant experiment concerning the mixing of a user-driven Web, content creators, and businesses that live on distributing the content users love to upload, remix, and/or view whenever they like.

Habbo's safety campaign

Habbo Hotel, "one of the world's largest and most popular online destinations for teens" (claiming 2 million members in North America) is following the lead of other responsible social sites and raising safety awareness. Having designated February "Teen Online Safety Awareness Month for North America," Habbo's press release says it will "saturate its site … with interactive activities for teens such as the 'Infobus,' a virtual bus inside the Habbo community on which members can learn how to protect themselves from online scams and predators." There will be incentives for hopping on the "bus," Habbo says, in the form of prizes and "Habbo Coins" with which users decorate their "rooms." Habbo has sites for users in 25+ countries. If the above link goes dead, here's the "Press Room" for Habbo's parent company, Helsinki-based Sulake Corporation Oy, which will probably archive the release shortly.

Schools banning cellphones

Schools all over the US are "cracking down on students whose cellphones disrupt classes and make it easier to cheat," USATODAY reports. For example, Milwaukee's 222 schools just started enforcing an if-you-use-it-we'll-take-it rule "prompted by fights that escalated into brawls when students used cellphones to summon family members and outsiders." Reporter Judy Keen gives us other examples in Minnesota, Kentucky, Mississippi, and New York City. Meanwhile, 2006 was a record year for cellphones – more than 1 billion shipped in last year, the Associated Press reports. And in the New York Times, SafeKids.com’s Larry Magid points out that, with a mere download or two, most any kid could figure out how to make the most basic phone do a lot of what today’s expensive “smart phones” can do.

Teach ethics in tech class?

That's what Camilla, Ga., teacher Vicky Davis recommends as she blogs in TechLearning.com about this time in which our (and every teacher's) action can be videotaped and instantly uploaded to YouTube and many other social sites. Among other examples, she cites the incident in Canada of students using a cellphone to take video of a teacher being abusive (later reports indicated they might have incited her yelling for video-sharing purposes – see "We're All on Candid Camera"). Where technology's concerned, she says, "students are largely self-taught…. When students teach themselves and adults are left out of the equation, teens focus on HOW to do things rather than if they SHOULD." Other bits of wisdom include: "Update acceptable [Internet] use policies" to include extracurricular use of video; understand that school hours are not 24/7; understand that filtering doesn't protect your school from this issue (which so far has been most schools' "solution"); and this interesting point – teachers "should always be ethical and kind, for truly it is the teachers who are wronging students or who are easily excitable who I think are most at risk."

Teens' own tech site

A few weeks ago at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Arizona 13-year-old Kimberly Kolwitz “had fully-grown, professional manufacturers practically groveling at her feet,” KVOA in Prescott, Az., reports. It’s understandable, because Kimberly and two cousins (aged 15 and 16) in California publish NeekTalk.com (“neek” being a cross between “geek” and “nerd,” Kimberly told KVOA), which is “basically an online teen tech site [aka blog] filled with new product reviews,” photos, and podcasts the girls record. Though KVOA doesn’t provide site traffic numbers, electronics manufacturers are “groveling,” apparently, because the site attracts cutting-edge technology-seeking teenage readers, an important market for the tech industry. These site publishers sound smart, too, because they’re having a lot of fun (favorites at CES were Ultra Mobile PCs at the Intel booth and the ASIMO humanoid robot at the Honda booth) and covering other teen interests too, like finding the right college/university (last summer “the neeks” traveled east to look at and blog about MIT, Harvard, Wellesley, and Dartmouth). For further perspective, here's a New Jersey high school student's commentary on social networking.