With the Right Tools, Parents Can Keep Kid Surfers Safe
Just about everyone agrees that certain places in cyberspace are inappropriate for children. What people don’t agree on is how to keep kids from wandering into areas where they don’t belong.
The U.S. Senate on July 23 passed a bill sponsored by Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) that would require anyone who engages in “commercial distribution on the World Wide Web of material that is harmful to minors” to restrict access to people under the age of 17. On the same day, the Senate also passed a bill by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that would require schools and libraries to install filters to “block matter deemed to be inappropriate for minors.”
Civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argue that the Coats bill would have a chilling effect on free speech and could affect any site with material some community groups consider harmful to minors.
The organizations also oppose the McCain bill, arguing that federally imposed filters in schools and libraries are a form of government censorship. This bill also raises questions about local control and community standards.
The McCain bill appears to me to be a solution in search of a problem. If schools and libraries keep their computers in well-staffed public areas, kids are not likely to hang out at X-rated Web sites.
Using filtering software in the home is another matter. While I don’t advocate filtering for every family, I certainly agree that parents have both a right and responsibility to help determine what their kids do and see online, just as they do when it comes to choosing what TV shows and movies kids can watch and what they eat for breakfast.
Filtering programs like SurfWatch, NetNanny and CyberPatrol can help keep kids from the seamier side of cyberspace, but they aren’t perfect. None can filter all of the inappropriate sites, and there’s a chance they will block some sites that may be appropriate. Blocking won’t necessarily protect your kid from revealing his or her identity to a stranger online or prevent them from being lured into a potentially dangerous face-to-face meeting.
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Whether or not you employ a filter, it’s important to talk with your kids about how to behave in cyberspace. I’ve created two Web sites (https://www.safekids.com and https://www.safeteens.com) to help parents, kids and teens better understand the issue and their options.
KidDesk Internet Safe, from Edmark, takes a positive approach to keeping young kids safe on the Internet. Rather than just blocking kids from bad sites, the program has its own PC desktop and its own kid-friendly Internet browser, which not only controls where kids can go, but makes both the PC and the Internet easier and more fun to use.
KidDesk doesn’t contain a blacklist of inappropriate sites. Instead, it is designed to give parents the tools to create their own list of positive places for kids. Configuring KidDesk is like deciding how you and your kids will spend a Saturday afternoon. You don’t sit around thinking of all the bad places to avoid, but instead focus on the good ones to visit.
Although KidDesk effectively blocks all unsanctioned software and sites, it does it in a way that’s not only fun and entertaining, but easier for kids to use than the standard Windows interface. Parents can add sites individually or click on the Choose Kid Safe Sites button to load sites that Edmark has selected. You can also import entire lists of sites from any other Web site that has a directory of child-friendly sites.
Though the Internet version of the product is new, KidDesk has been around long before anyone started making noises about the dangers of the Internet. I used it when my kids were little to keep them from accidentally opening my Quicken files or wiping out data on my hard drive. My kids loved playing with the “desk accessories” like the calendar and “answering machine,” which they can use to send a voice message to other family members.
The program also functions as PC training wheels for young children who may not be ready to handle the complexities of Windows. Rather than confuse a young child with multiple windows, it presents the programs and Web sites you’ve picked for them so that they’re easy to find. To help avoid confusion, KidDesk, by default, turns off Windows’ multi-tasking interface so kids can run only one program at a time. Come to think of it, I know some adults who could use a program like this.
I didn’t see any age recommendations on the box, but the program seems appropriate for preschoolers to kids in first or second grade. After that point, kids should be able to handle the Windows interface and should have a bit more freedom surfing the Web.
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As kids get older, they also start to learn to use search engines like Yahoo, Lycos, AltaVista and Excite. These sites are great for finding tons of interesting Internet sites, but they can also locate places where you might not want your kids to go. Type “Bambi” in any of the major search engines and you’re bound to come up with sites that have nothing to do with the cute deer in the Disney classic.
There are, however, search engines designed just for kids. Yahooligans (https://www.yahooligans.com), which is operated by Yahoo, contains only sites that have been handpicked as safe. Lycos now offers a SafetyNet option that allows parents to restrict searches to those sites screened by a filter running on Lycos’ server. Parents are required to register and select a password before using the SafetyNet option and can turn the filters on and off as needed.
Ask Jeeves for Kids (www.ajkids.com) has the same natural language query engine as the general version (www.askjeeves.com) but unlike the main site, it brings up only sites that meets the company’s child friendly guidelines. Kids can “Ask Jeeves” general questions like “who is president of South Africa” and get links to sites about Nelson Mandela, apartheid and other related topics.
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Larry Magid can be reached at magid@latimes.com. His Web page is at https://www.larrysworld.com or keyword “LarryMagid” on AOL.
