TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Tag: parenting

  • Even the AG’s admit it’s useless

    My not so safe space, still?:

    This is a great article from the Philadelphia Inquirer about how MySpace’s ‘pact’ with the Attorneys General is pretty much useless. Who says so? Why Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett says so.

    That’s because the safety barriers it prescribes depend largely on MySpace subscribers’ truthfully reporting their ages when creating online profiles. And it offers no reliable means of identifying or policing the suspected millions who do not.

    “I’ve been arguing this point for more than a year now,” said Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett, who considers the agreement more blueprint than panacea. “Age verification has been the number-one issue for us from the very beginning.”

    Until that nut is cracked, no set of guidelines can keep 12-year-olds from registering their virtual selves as adults, or stop 60-year-old creeps from masquerading online as high school cheerleaders.

    Yet none of the Attorneys General have come up with a realistic way on how to verify age on the internet.

    The article also at the very end prescribes to common sense.

    But police say the best security of all is a vigilant parent – one who knows a child’s passwords, monitors his online friends and activities, and keeps the computer in a public area of the home. Some even buy spyware that can record their kids’ online conversations and Web visits.

    “A lot of parents don’t want to do that because they don’t want to invade their kids’ privacy,” said Montgomery County Detective Ray Kuter, an Internet-crime expert. “I say, ‘You are the parent. You need to decide what to do.’ ”

    “Parents,” Kuter said, “are the best monitoring program we know of.”

    The police know this why don’t the Attorneys General?

  • Child advocate scoffs at MySpace. Scoffs, I tell you.

    Child advocate scoffs at MySpace. Scoffs, I tell you.

    Children’s Advocacy Group Scoffs at New MySpace Security Measures:

    Robert Fellmeth is the director of the Children’s Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego. He’s not happy with the new proposed security measures that MySpace will be putting in place.

    I’m just concerned that parents will get a false sense of security that this is all taken care of because they’re handling it — and I don’t think they can handle it.

    He also has some advice for you.

    Fellmeth says parents need to be the first line of defense in monitoring children’s Internet use.

    You don’t send your kids sown a dark alley alone. Why should the internet be any different?

  • MySpace caves to pressure for new security measures

    MySpace caves to pressure for new security measures

    MySpace Agrees to New Safety Measures:

    First, let me hit you with just the first paragraph from the AP article that’s making the rounds about MySpace’s proposed new safety measures.

    Under mounting pressure from law enforcement and parents, MySpace agreed Monday to take steps to protect youngsters from online sexual predators and bullies, including searching for ways to better verify users’ ages.

    The fact that parents are pressuring MySpace is a joke. If parents were actually parenting, I would say more than half the stories on this site wouldn’t have happened.

    Here are some of the things MySpace said they will do for lax parents. Ok, I made up the lax parents part.

    Under the agreement, profiles for users under age 16 will be set to private so no strangers can get information from their profile; users can block anyone over 18 from contacting them; and people over 18 cannot add anyone under 16 as a friend in their network unless they have their last name or their e-mail address.

    All of these can be circumvented by the underage user if the parents aren’t paying attention.

    Another new feature will be the following…

    MySpace said it is in the process of creating a database where parents can submit children’s e-mail addresses to prevent their children from setting up profiles.

    And it only takes your kid about a minute to set up another e-mail address that you don’t know about.

    In my opinion, age verification won’t work either, even if you need a credit card to sign up with MySpace. First of all, MySpace will never do that because their userbase will plummet. Secondly, it wouldn’t take much for a kid to slide the credit card out of mom or dad’s wallet, use it to sign up on MySpace, then slide back unnoticed.

    There is no greater security measure than good parenting.

    Thanks to Bay for the link.

  • More Stickam antics

    More Stickam antics

    Potential Dangers Of Webcams:

    Just another local news article, this time from Philly, about the dangers of Stickam.

    For two months, CBS 3 has been monitoring the website stickam.com – the latest in chat room websites that allow users to communicate using a webcam.

    It’s as simple as hooking up your camera, logging onto the site, and then anyone can log on and watch you, live.

    One local girl, who used the words “fondle me” in her on-screen name, went so far as to list her hometown.

    One girl, who claims to be 16, calls herself the fallen angel.

    We watched as she flashed her chest for the camera when someone in the chat room asks “can’t we see what’s under the blue top?”

    Other comments to her were “I bet you look so sexy naked” and “you should come to my bedroom sometime.”

    And another teen, whose screen name is Toni, also made sexual gestures for the camera at the prodding of strangers, “we’re not asking for a lot” one person writes.

    “They lose entirely that sense of modesty that you would otherwise have in polite conversation, and the problem with that is that those images then end up on the internet,” said Green.

    And possibly into the hands of child predators.

    It’s important to note, and we’re glad to report, that most of teens we encountered online were not participating in sexual behavior. Many of them use the cameras simply to communicate with friends.

    But the bottom line is if you allow your teen to have a webcam, supervise their use, and make sure their computer is in a public area of your home.

    Why some parents still don’t do that is beyond me.

  • Stickam Strikes

    Stickam Strikes

    Live, Streaming Website Poses Online Dangers:

    Back when I first posted about Stickam I had the feeling that its unmonitored webcam chats would make MySpace look like an ice cream social. Unfortunately, it seems I was right…

    If you haven’t heard of Stickam, chances are, your kids have. It’s another social networking site, much like MySpace, Friendster or Xanga, but this site goes further.

    Users stream their webcameras live and connect with other people’s webcameras. You could see and hear everything in real time. What happens here should concern every parent. We want to warn you, some of the material in this story may be inappropriate for young kids.

    One recent afternoon, the News 4 WOAI Trouble Shooters logged onto Stickam curious about what we would find there.

    Stationed halfway across the world, we found men who say they are army soldiers. They were apparently looking to make some new friends online.

    They had just connected with a young woman on her Stickman webpage. We won’t reveal her face or screen name, because according to what she wrote in her chats with other Stickam users, she is only 12-years-old.

    The guys are having a good time. They are dancing, singing, and chatting with that 12-year-old girl they don’t know.

    Through their live webcam, they show her a bottle of what looks to be alcohol and a pill.

    Just a few minutes into their online chat, they asked her to expose herself. They also said they have something to show her. Things were about to get worse.

    Stickam has posted a warning on its site, saying sexually explicit content is “prohibited.” That didn’t seem to matter to the soldiers chatting with the 12-year-old girl. Just minutes into their live webcamera chat, one of the men exposed himself to the girl and to all the other users looking in on her chat room.

    She seemed to laugh it off and the men continue to say lewd things to her, while other people logged into the chatroom try to shield the young girl.

    One user wrote: “she’s a child.”

    Another wrote: “are u (sic) aware (the girl’s) parents are cops?”

    A third person claimed to be videotaping the whole thing. That person later backed off and admitted he didn’t videotape it. But we did. An Army spokeswoman has asked for all of our findings to send to the Criminal Investigation Division.

    You should really watch the video attached to the article to get the full effect.

    I can’t stress this enough that if you have underage kids, please monitor their online activity. Place the computer in the living room or another common area. Don’t rely on a website to babysit your kids.

    Stickam has already banned 4500 users for inappropriate use of their site. Just imagine how many more they’re not catching since they don’t police their site.

  • Parenting, what a concept

    Parenting, what a concept

    The Return of the School Shooting:

    This is an opinion piece from Blogger News Network about school shootings, which also comes to the most logical conclusion about them…

    However, I think it’s important to note that kids getting picked on doesn’t explain the totality of the issue. Something had to make school shootings start in the first place in the mid-to-late ’90s — bullying has been going on for ages — and analyses of Columbine showed the shooters did not concentrate on those who’d picked on them, opting instead for “Doom”-style random violence.

    My preferred explanation — one that ruffles feathers — is parenting. Many of these kids had plenty of time alone in their houses (Harris and Klebold made pipe bombs), and in most cases I can recall, the parents could easily have afforded quitting one job or working fewer hours. It’s also a parent’s job to monitor his/her children’s mental health issues, and keep guns away from the offspring if need be.

    I think it’s the only explanation that stands up to scrutiny, as it’s one of the few explanations that changed markedly between my parents attending high school in the ’70s (much bullying, lots of access to guns, no shootings) and now. Other factors can make it wax and wane, but as long as parents let a violent media raise their kids, the shootings won’t disappear.

    I’m glad to see that I’m not going crazy by having the same opinion.

  • Teens’ secret MySpace lives

    Teens’ secret MySpace lives

    Mom finds her teen’s secret life on MySpace:

    Another parent with no clue, waking up to the harsh reality of their kids and the internet…

    Q: My 15-year-old daughter has a MySpace website (I overheard her talking about it on the phone with a girlfriend), and I was able to check it out last week. I was astonished with what I found a group picture with a bunch of her best friends, apparently at a party, most with a can of beer in their hand. She wasn’t holding a beer, but she was surrounded by kids who were. I also read some (but not all) of the notes on the site from her friends, and many were OK, but some were suggestive of other parties and some skipping of school. This is all news to me, and I don’t know how to approach her. I’m furious, but I’m also concerned and want to let her know that this behavior is not fine with me. But will she think that I was snooping? How is the best way to handle this?

    Who cares if she thinks you were snooping? You’re the parent. If your kids do not practice common sense or good judgment online, then it’s your job as a parent to watch out for them.

    Or you can click the article link for the lengthy answer by a professional.

  • Congressman wants FTC to do parents’ job

    Congressman wants FTC to do parents’ job

    Suburban congressman wants FTC to warn parents about MySpace:

    So, Congressman Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) wants the Federal Trade Commission to issue a national consumer alert warning for parents to look at the web pages their children are posting on MySpace. Isn’t that basically wasting taxpayers’ money on something that used to be known as common sense?

  • Is MySpace finally getting serious?

    Is MySpace finally getting serious?

    MySpace.com hires child safety czar from Microsoft:

    News Corp. is set on Tuesday to name a security czar to oversee child safety measures on MySpace.com, the popular teen dating and music site that has provoked an outcry among parents who fear they have not done enough to thwart sexual predators.

    Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam, now director of Consumer Security Outreach & Child Safe Computing at Microsoft Corp., will head up safety, education, privacy and law enforcement oversight programs for MySpace and other Fox Web properties.

    The appointment is effective May 1, News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media, the parent of MySpace, said in a statement.

    The move is one of several responses MySpace and its owners have taken in recent months to respond to harsh criticism by parent groups, legal authorities and politicians.

    Nigam brings strong credentials to his new role. He has more than 15 years of experience in online safety, including serving as a Federal prosecutor against Internet child exploitation for the U.S. Department of Justice.

    He was also an advisor to a Congressional commission on online child safety, and an advisor to the White House on cyberstalking.

    Prior to Microsoft, Nigam was vice president of worldwide Internet enforcement at the Motion Picture Association of America, where he oversaw the global strategy to combat online video piracy for seven major Hollywood studios.

    Impressive credentials outside of that stint with the MPAA.

    MySpace reaching out to parents:

    MySpace has also hired more employees to handle security and customer care–roughly 100 people, or one-third of its workforce, scout out inappropriate content or underage members.

    Again, that is rather impressive, but will it be enough? Only time will tell.

  • Ask Amy

    Ask Amy

    Mom finds MySpace a harmful disgrace:

    Check out this letter to an advice column called “Ask Amy”…

    DEAR AMY: I didn’t realize the harmful nature of MySpace.com until I received an anonymous copy of my 16-year-old daughter’s MySpace page. She thought it was “just fun and games” when she posted provocative pictures on her home page. I was shocked when I read her Web space, which was tame by comparison to other kids from our community who have posted lewd pictures with profane comments for the world to see! I’ll be monitoring my daughter’s activity, if not deleting it altogether, but what about the parents who are unaware of this Web site? What has our culture degenerated to when photos of girls imitating sexual acts and wearing bras in the midst of boys are posted online for anyone to see? No wonder we are so concerned about predators. Our children are making themselves targets for anyone to exploit.

    Saddened by Complacency

    Rather than give the whole answer away, I’ll just post the best part that should be common sense…

    DEAR SADDENED: If your daughter is demonstrating such poor online judgment, then it’s time to take the “car keys” away until she figures out that those photos could affect her life now and haunt her well into the future.

    Is that so hard for parents?