NPR article about Sexting

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121461349

Attacks on red-headed children in California linked to Facebook

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/11/ginger-attack.html

Facebook to install panic button

Facebook will be placing a panic button on their site for youth to report inappropriate content or cyberbullying based on a recommendation by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety.

Facebook updates privacy settings

Check out this letter from Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, about the changes in privacy settings.

Included:
the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload
remove regional networks

http://www.blog.facebook.com/

Girls Now! and Cyberbullies

Recently I hosted two workshops at the Girls Now! conference at the Ann Richards School for Girls. Several other presenters covered the topic of cyberbullying and Internet safety.

Please listen to this KUT story about the event.

http://kut.org/items/show/19021

Online Safety 3.0 by Anne Collier

Recently in the School Library Journal, Anne Collier wrote an article about the path Online Safety needs to take in the future.

It's a great article. She talks specifically about the four types of safety necessary for youth to participate online in a healthy way:

Physical—freedom from physical harm
Psychological—freedom from cruelty, harassment, and exposure to potentially disturbing material
Reputational and legal—freedom from unwanted social, academic, professional, and legal consequences that could affect you for a lifetime
Identity, property, and community—freedom from theft of identity and property and attacks against networks and online communities at local, national, and international levels.

Please take a few minutes to read the full article.

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6703696.html

Texas girl arrested for online harassment

http://www.kvue.com/news/top/stories/101409kvue_teen-arrested-charges-eh.214f548af.html

We'll talk more about this new law in the next blog post.

Social networks are mostly good for us...

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-09-27-social-networking_N.htm

What are the implications for educators and students?

online safety working group met 9/24

Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act created a working group to discuss Internet safety education. The group met again last Thursday and here's a recap of the meeting:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/01/scitech/pcanswer/main5354648.shtml

My and the author of the linked new story's favorite part was a quote from a DC middle school student who said, "The only person who can protect you on the Internet is you."

A Positive Place- Cyberactivism

My colleague brought to my attention the "cyberactivist" section on New Jersey's Tobacco Prevention/Anti Tobacco Industry website for youth.

As a cyberactivist you can commit to anything from sending an e-card, getting 10 friends to play Rebel's online game, to becoming a blogger.

We hear so often about the negatives of social networking and how often youth mess up online that we sometimes forget the positives. What a great way to make a difference. Locally, Nationally, Globally. Think of the potential!

http://www.njrebel.com/Learn/HOWTOREBEL/Beacyberactivist/tabid/74/Default.aspx

On the lighter side...

Emoticons deciphered!

http://www.radicalparenting.com/2009/09/07/emoticon-translations-top-teen-emoticons-defined/

MySpace Back to School Internet Safety

http://www.myspace.com/pressroom?url=/article_display.cfm?instance_code=myspace&article_id=1062

Texting while driving

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/technology/01distracted.html

Model Fights Anonymous Blogger in Court and Wins - ABC News

Model Fights Anonymous Blogger in Court and Wins - ABC News

Shared via AddThis

Overreaction to Cyberbullying?

http://techliberation.com/2009/08/25/la-times-on-the-overreaction-to-online-harassment/

Executive Summary Point Safe, Click Smart

http://pointsmartreport.org/executive-summary.html

Best practices in Internet Safety

In Depth Look Insider Twitter's Exponential Growth

http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/

Back in October 2008...

Interesting! Will facebook change our Relationships? Has it already?

What Houston's doing about cyberbullying

The Reality of Cyberbullying

Internet Safety expert Larry Magid fleshes out cyberbullying.
http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_12839453?nclick_check=1

A little different from my usual story

Though this blog is primarily about Safety on the Internet, occaisionally I see a story that brings up the greater implications of social media. Here's One from the Huffington Post.

Interesting Perspective

Love this commentary about student-led parent nights!

http://connectsafely.com/Commentaries-Staff/should-schools-end-internet-safety-nights.html

Causing quite a stir...

Lori Drew's conviction is overturned.

Top Six Ways to Kill Piper

This story was covered on CNN last week. Pretty horrific, especially considering the age of the girls.

Embedded video from CNN Video

Students taking the lead

I love stories that showcase student-led solutions, and today I have two for you.

The first is a group of high school students in Bowling Green, who worked with the police department to talk about cyberbullying. Many of the teens have experienced cyberbullying firsthand and decided to do something about it. Check out their page.

Girl Scouts of the USA have also taken Internet safety to heart. Their LMK: Life Online website is about girls, for girls, and looks like a lot of fun. Check out their Life Online website.

Sexting Video!

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/28793204#28793204

Texas lawmakers examine cyberbullying

http://www.the33tv.com/pages/content_landing_page/?Texas-Lawmakers-Take-Aim-at-Cyberbullyin=1&blockID=251384&feedID=460

Cyberbullying suit

A teenage girl is suing Facebook for a private group hosted on the website created by the girl's classmates to cyberbully her. Alledgedly the group's page said she has AIDs, is an intravenous drug user, and acted inappropriately with animals.

Here's the link:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10187531-71.html

Texas lawmakers introduce S. 476 and H.R. 1076

Two Texas lawmakers introduce bill that would require ISPs, including coffee houses that provide free Wi-Fi, to log user activity and store that information for two years.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9128823

KidZui wins 2009 Best of the Web Award from Wired Safety

The KidZui browser was designed to offer kids the same experiences adults have on the web. KidZui brought together a team of over 200 teachers and/or parents to scour the web in search of the best content for kids.

KidZui recently won a WiredKids Best of the Web Award, along with 13 other websites.

Check it out:
www.kidzui.com

New Privacy features on Facebook

Facebook has finally updated their privacy features to make them user-friendly and easIER to read.

Enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/policy.php?ref=pf

Girl Sues Over Cyberbullying Record

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/02/08/0208cybercontroversy.html

From the AP: Teen accused of sex assaults in Facebook scam

Click here to read the full story.

Findings from Task Force Report

Below are a few of the fascinating findings from internet safety task force. This report reinforces the idea that it’s not the technology, but the risky behavior of our youth that causes many safety problems. If we focus more on preventing risky behavior our ability to positively affect our youth’s choices exponentially increases.

• Minors are not equally at risk online. Those who are most at risk often engage in risky behaviors and have difficulties in other parts of their lives. The psychosocial makeup of and family dynamics surrounding particular minors are better predictors of risk than the use of specific media or technologies.
  
• Much of the research based on law-enforcement cases involving Internet-related child exploitation predated the rise of social networks. This research found that cases typically involved post-pubescent youth who were aware that they were meeting an adult male for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity.
  
• Youth report sexual solicitation of minors by minors more frequently, but these incidents, too, are understudied, underreported to law enforcement, and not part of most conversations about online safety.
  
• Bullying and harrassment, most often by peers, are the most frequent threats that minors face, both online and offline.
  
• Technology can play a helpful role, but there is no one technological solution or specific combination of technological solutions to the problem of online safety for minors. Instead, a combination of technologies, in concert with parental oversight, education, social services, law enforcement, and sound policies by social network sites and service providers may assist in addressing specific problems that minors face online. All stakeholders must continue to work in a cooperative and collaborative manner, sharing information and ideas to achieve the common goal of making the Internet as safe as possible for minors.
  
• Parents and caregivers should: educate themselves about the Internet and the ways in which their children use it, as well as about technology in general; explore and evaluate the effectiveness of available technological tools for their particular child and their family context, and adopt those tools as may be appropriate; be engaged and involved in their children’s Internet use; be conscious of the common risks youth face to help their children understand and navigate the technologies; be attentive to at-risk minors in their community and in their children’s peer group; and recognize when they need to seek help from others.

I will post more findings as well as my analysis of the report in my next blog entry.

New Report from Internet Safety Task Force

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/pubrelease/isttf/

Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies is a report from the Internet Safety Task Force. This task force is made up of industry members, attorneys general, academia, public policy and child safety advocates and technical development members.

I'll post key findings from the report in my next blog entry.