The
owners and operators of this site take an active role in educating
and helping parents to prevent minors from accessing inapropriate
material online. If you have questions about parental control
on the Internet, feel free to contact us directly. In order to protect minors, keep the Internet free,
and make it a safe place for all, we gladly help concerned parents.
Please understand, no law, no software, and no government can
make up for a lack in parental discretion and supervision.
Preventing
minors from accessing dangerous material is a parent's duty. Regrettably,
there are just as many crooks and creeps online as there are in
the real world, so partental control in the virtual world is is
as necessary as it is in the real one.
Example:
If you, as a parent have purchased adult TV channels and let minors
watch TV without any supervision, it is very likely that they,
sooner or later, will watch adult material, unless you protect
these adult channels with a password. The same is true for the
internet. If you as a parent allow minors to surf the web without
any supervision and without any limitation and control, you expose
them to a variety of potential dangers. Adult material and nudity
is probably a rather small problem compared to other potential
risks (see below).
Adult
paysites are by far the smallest problem. These sites are monitored,
in most cases follow the laws of a civilized nation, and are professionally
maintained. On the other hand there is a huge online subculture,
ignored by lawmakers, consisting of free and anonymous forums,
newsgroups, blogs, yahoogroups, and chatrooms where basically
anything goes and anything is accessible for anyone. As long as
lawmakers turn a blind eye to this subculture, and only focus
on professional sites, that have to follow the rules anyway, parents
should eduacte themselves in order to protect their children.
We
do understand that there are many parents out there who may feel
they don't have the computer skills to prevent their children
from accessing inaproriate material on the web. Protecting minors
from accessing adult material on the Internet isn't that difficult.
Familiarizing yourself with the Internet and the different tools
your child can use will enable you to quickly and effectively
deal with any problems that arise. In order to help parents we
have created this little guide.
1.
Configure Your Browser. Many browsers have so called
content advisors and saftey features. Browsers are the applications
that allow for navigation and viewing of the web. Among the most
common are Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer and AOL. The
makers of these browsers have added a variety of parental control
features. These features allow parents to limit or restrict certain
activities and/or filter or restrict access to certain content.Browser
controls are a way of restricting access to objectionable material
(unless your child is a computer genius who can crack the password).
These browser controls are designed to insure that sites viewed
are safe for minors. Sites that are not rated by RSAC - Recreational
Software Advisory Council or SafeSurf (content rating systems),
will not be accessible without a password (if so configured).
Configure Internet
Explorer. Configure Safari (for MAC users).
2.
Be There. Your attentive eye is the best monitoring tool.
Try to set a time when you can browse the web with your minors.
Ask them to wait until you get home, or use a tool to restrict access
at certain times.Discuss how much time they are allowed to spend
online, and whether their computer use is dependent on conditions
such as finishing their homework, doing chores, etc.We also recommend
that you actively monitor your children while they participate in
online chats.
3.
Filtered ISPs (Internet Service Providers). Your ISP may
allow filtering of Internet activity. Inquire about this option
if you have minors that use the web.
4.
Filtering Software. This software is installed on your
computer to prevent access to certain sites, which are considered
objectionable and are contained in the software's database.Other
variations may use keyword and URL analysis to prevent access to
questionable material. When choosing a filtering tool, look for
one that restricts not only web content, but chat and e-mail. Some
of the viable options are: NetNanny and CyberSitter.
5.
Monitoring Tools
These tools allow you to monitor what your minors are doing on the
web even when you can't be there. Some allow for a later review
of e-mail, chats and sites that your minor visited. These tools
work by recording what your child is doing. Some record keystrokes(every
time your minor presses a button on the keyboard) and mouse clicks,
while others take numerous snapshots of the screen and play it back
to you at a later time.Some may find this method rather extreme.
Minors may find this to be a great imposition and suppression of
exploratory freedom (if they know about it) or a violation of trust
(if they inadvertently find out about it). This is, of course, a
parental choice.Some of the these are Spector and SafeConnect.
6.
Time Limiting Tools
These tools limit the amount of time that your minor can spend on
the web. This is a great way to make sure that minors are not becoming
surf potatoes and spending their entire life online. Unless the
time limiting function comes as a part of a multifunctional tool,
it does not provide filtering features and similar restrictions. A
great time limiting tool is Childwatch.
7.
Set Clear Rules. Talk about which kinds of web sites are
okay, and which ones are off-limits. Are they limited to sites related
to their schoolwork? Sites that are designed especially for minors?
Decide whether there are restrictions or guidelines on the physical
location where minors can go online. Can they go online at school?
In the library? At a friend's house? Are they allowed to be online
when no adult is around?
8.
Online Behaviour - Education. Tell minors they should never give out personal information,
such as their full name, address, phone number, school, or picture,
to anyone they meet online.They also should never arrange to meet
an online friend in person without an adult present. Minors should
never respond online when they feel uncomfortable or scared by something
they've seen or read. Act ethical. All people online behave towards
other online friends as they would like people to behave towards
them.
9.
e-mail. If a minor receives an email message from an unfamiliar address,
they shouldn't read it and should tell you about it. If it's something
inappropriate and unsolicited, request of the message's source that
they delete your minor's email address from their database. If unsolicited
mails become an ongoing problem, complain to your Internet service
provider.
10.
Internnet Content Rating. Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA).
Protect your children online and download our own free filter with
ICRA. The Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) is an international,
non-profit organization of internet leaders working to develop a
safer internet. ICRA has long believed that self-regulation leads
to the best balance between the free flow of digital content and
protecting children from potentially harmful material.
12.
Web Browsers for Minors. There are webbrowsers that are
designed for minors, like Kidsplorer,
or Bumpercar (for MAC users). Those Browsers offer content-control and customization
features, so a minor cannot access unwanted material.
13.
Ask for Help.
In these days parents often feel that they are on the shorter end
when it comes to computer knowledge. Indeed, some youngsters are
pretty smart when it comes to computers, but don't let them outsmart
you. When you feel insecure and aren't sure what's going on ask
for help. Consult a computer literate neighbor, a computer person,
or a teacher, and have them configure your computer and browser
for you. Many computer stores will do this free of charge.
14.
Protect Material on your Harddrive. Another problem that
we ran into several times in the past, helping people to make their
computers childproof, is adult material that is already stored on
a computer. According to some statistics, 72 million people visit
adult orientet websites every year, that is almost every other adult
person in the USA. Many of those adults share a computer with minors,
but store adult material unprotected right on their hard drive or
leave tracks of visited adult sites in their browser history and
bookmark lists. Now, what sense does it make trying to protect minors
from accessing adult material online when it is stored right on
your home computer and minors can easily access it from there? If
you store adult material on a comptuer that minors may use, partition
your harddrive and password protect your partition. Give your minor
their own partition and their own password, so they can only access
what is stored on their partition and can only access their browser
or browser history.
15.
Content Barriers. We can suggest Intego's Content Barrier
(www.intego.com). It filters out inappropriate content and you can
configure it to block streaming media and chats. Another option
is Safe Eyes (www.safeyes.com). It allows you to blok unwantend
content and even allows you to create schedules for internet access.
It also creates a log of what your minors are doing on the internet.
16.
Mac OS X Leopard. If you own a Mac with the OS X Leopard
operating system you have not much to worry. The Parental Controls
feature allow your kisd having a great time online while you ensure
that there are limits on what they do online. Leopard lets you manage
and monitor the Websites they can access, the people they can chat
with, and even the times they are allowed to use the computer.
Other
Potential Dangers Online
Again.
Please be aware that there are by far more severe potential problems
when it comes to minors using the internet than adult material
and sex. You CAN PREVENT that a minor sees adult material on the
web, if you take the time to eduacte yourself and take the right
steps (see above), but you may not be able to control other risks.
What about unknowingly downloading
-
viruses and spyware, or getting entrapped by
-
spoof mails? What about
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identity theft? What about
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e-mail contacts with strangers that may lead to dangerous
meetings? What about sites that promote
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violence, racism, drug abuse, or hate- and crime content?
What about chatrooms with
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abusive adults or dubious lurkers? What about
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illegal file sharing where minors share priated software
or copyrighted music? We want to add one word about that. Like
stealing in the real world, stealing online is theft, even though
many people think it's not. Moral issues aside, if the wrong people
find out that your minor is sharing copyrighted material online
you could be looking down the barrel of a costly lawsuit.
-
music. What's wrong about music? Well, there is music
out there that has quite a bit of pornographic and/or violent content.
Therefore, it is important that parents supervise their minors'
access to music on the Internet. The audio files, video clips
and lyrics for many songs can be freely downloaded from the Net
by anyone, regardless of age. In some cases, the songs come with
additional lyrics that have been censored in the retail version.
Example: The controversial Madonna video What it feels like for
a girl,which was banned from television broadcast because of its
violent content, is easily accessible online after it was pulled
from the airwaves. Because music lyrics are freely available online,
the Internet can also be a handy tool for parents who have concerns
about the specific music their kids are listening to.
Think about it, know about it, and be there with your attentive
eye.
