Today's Ypulse Guest Post is from Nancy Gruver, CEO, New Moon Girl Media. Nancy attended a recent "unconference" in San Jose called Kids Online: Balancing Safety and Fun. I was in Florida and couldn't make it, but I wanted to know what happened. I figured you might, too, so I asked Nancy to write a recap for Ypulse readers…

A Report From Kids Online: Balancing Safety And Fun

Doing everything we can to provide kids with online safety seems like a no-brainer. From what I hear, parents, educators and law enforcement all worry about it. So a recent study by HighlightsParents.com surprised me with 75% of parents saying that their kids access the internet without supervision.

The very same week, I was excited to be part of the first-ever Kids Online: Balancing Safety and Fun "unconference" at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. It came on the heels of the 7th Internet Identity Workshop, and both conferences were organized by Identity Commons, which addresses the many identity and privacy issues encountered online.

The brainchild of Joi Podgorny, Denise Tayloe and others, the day brought together many leaders of online services for children up to age 12. It combined small-group and full-group discussion of how companies like mine can improve children's online safety while not making it into a barrier for kids to use our sites. It hit home for me as our online practices and guidelines at NewMoonGirls.com put several barriers in place to maintain a safe and fun environment for girls 8-12. But we’re hearing from our members that they’d like us to remove those barriers. Even some parents tell us that we should leave it up to them to keep their daughter safe on our site.

But considering the research by HighlightParents.com, it seems that the majority of parents are depending on the online companies to keep things safe for their children. Some companies take this seriously and spend significant sums to obtain parental consent, moderate all posts and conduct other oversight. There are financial and time pressures to shortcut full moderation. That made a session on how to generate revenue (to cover the cost of moderation) without exploiting children by allowing advertising a lively discussion. It's a challenge, that's for sure!

But what about spaces like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube, which say they are only for consumers age 13+ (wink, wink), but which kids are eager to join before they’re old enough? Is it possible to keep our kids safe there? The consensus was no. Most conference participants thought there needs to be higher expectations for the 13+ sites to keep 12-and-unders off them.

We're going to regroup monthly to plan additional meetings with one another, as well as organize online safety conferences for parents and kids. I came away hopeful that this day will lead to continuing improvement of online safety for our kids. As the internet changes every day, it's essential we always be looking for the next way to provide reasonable security for kids' wellbeing.

About Nancy Gruver

Nancy is founder of the international online community and magazine for girls ages 8-12, New Moon Girls, author of How To Say It To Girls: Communicating With Your Growing Daughter (Penguin Putnam, 2004) and blogs on girls’ issues and media. She is a national leader in using media to develop girls’ full potential. As pioneered by Gruver at New Moon Girl Media, Inc., truly collaborative work by girls and adults is an innovative counterbalance to societal pressures which lead many tween and teen girls to abandon their dreams and silence their voices.

Categorized under: Tweens, Web

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. If you are a Facebook user, comment using your Facebook account.