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."