Internet Risks and How to Deal with Them

Material Unsuitable For Children

Material unsuitable for children - pornography (including child pornography), racism, bomb-making instructions, depictions of violence and sites that promote alcohol, smoking and drug use - can easily be found on the internet.

Some of this material is more than just unsuitable or offensive, it is illegal.

What to do:

Be cybersmart: The best protection is direct parental supervision. Parents who are concerned that children may have been exposed to unsuitable material can open the history function on their browser to check which internet sites have been accessed.
If you come across anything that you think is illegal - leave the site and report the address to ACMA. See ACMA complaints Online Hotline.
Install filtering and labelling tools: These can block access to unsuitable web sites, newsgroups and chat rooms. However, none of these tools is foolproof - they cannot be a substitute for active parental involvement in a child's use of the internet.

Social Networking

‘Social networking’ describes the multitude of ways that people – kids and grownups - are connecting online. Such services allow everyone to share aspects of their lives with friends - and total strangers - and to be amazingly creative with writing, photography, digital art, to name just a few.

Social networking includes

the creation of profiles on sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo
blogging on sites such as Livejournal and Xanga
video sharing on sites such as YouTube and Google Video
photo sharing on sites such as FlickR and Fotolog
bookmark sharing on sites such as Digg and del.icio.us
micro-blogging on sites such as Twitter and Jaiku
making friends in virtual worlds such as Teen Second Life and
making friends in Massively Multiplayer Online Games such as Runescape and World of Warcraft (also known as MMOGs)

People can connect using computers and mobile phones and other internet enabled devices such as Playstation (including PSPs) Xbox and Wii. Content can include game-playing, real time chat, blog entries, photos, video clips, music clips. Some services feature in-house chat and IM, and personal message or email (PM) services.

The communication and creative opportunities are endless! However, as with every other form of online communication there are risks, and kids need to know

A ten point guide for kids

It’s public! You may feel that you are just talking to friends, but actually the whole world is watching.
Protect your privacy – don’t give out your personal information to anyone who asks for it. This includes your password, phone number or other identifying information.
Think carefully about the information you put up in your public profile – this includes photos, your email address, IM ID, and anything that might identify you in the day to day world.
Be yourself, but play it nice. Bullying behaviour is not acceptable at any time.
Think twice about what you post to blogs and profiles: Information posted online can stay there for years, and your parents (or children!), school teachers, and perhaps future employers may end up reading it.
Learn how to make blog entries or public pages visible only to your friends.
Remember, the people you meet online aren’t always who they say they are. They may sound like they just want to be your best friend, but you can’t know that for sure.
Keep your online friends online. If you do want to meet someone in person, then take a parent or another trusted adult with you.
Not all promises are real – generally the better they sound, the less likely they are to be true.
Tell a trusted adult if someone bullies you, or makes you feel uncomfortable in any way.

Parents

Don’t panic!
Talk to your kids about what they are doing, where they are going, and who they are meeting online, just as you would in the day to day world.
Talk to your kids about the kind of information they can share online. This should be limited to username and other general, non-identifiable information. You’ll probably need to explain why it’s necessary to do this – kids never believe anything bad can happen to them.
Agree on rules about how much time will be spent online. It can be surprising just how much time can fly by when you ‘just have to complete this mission/quest/thing…’
Depending on the age of your children, and the kinds of activities they want to engage in, filter software can block certain activities or sites.
A lot of activity will happen in real time, and won’t be something you can go back and check later. While it’s obviously not possible to sit looking over their shoulder all the time, you should keep checking to see that they are OK.
Keep the computer in a public area of the house, so that you can listen, even if you can’t watch.
Sit with your kids while they register with services and set up their profile.
Check the privacy setting options are set appropriately.
Check the minimum age requirements for the service – not all social networking services are suitable for younger kids, and quite a few target 18years+.
Ask your kids to share their online details with you.
Sometimes the best way to find out about social networking services is to go exploring yourself! Set up your own profile or character and see how it all works.
On the other hand, kids get a buzz out of showing their parent how things work, so think about asking them to be your guide.
If you have your own profile, then consider ‘friending’ your kids.
Explore the service’s Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy and find out where you can go to report trouble if it happens.
Depending on the issue you may be able to make a complaint to the service provider, to the police, or to ACMA.
Remember, kids will be kids. This is their space to be creative and ‘themselves’ with their friends. If you over-react to little things then your kids might be reluctant to talk about more serious matters when they need to.
Keep the lines of communication open – kids need to be able to talk to you about the things that happen, good and bad.
Above, all: don’t panic. Even if there is a problem there are steps you can take to fix it!

Chat

Internet chat offers tremendous opportunities to meet and talk with people across borders, time zones and backgrounds. It is a great way to make friends and exchange information.

Chat is real time text-based communication across the internet. The most common versions are internet Relay Chat (IRC) - comprising multiple servers connected to each other - and web-based chat.

Chat is very popular among young people, particularly young teenagers. A lot of the same risks that exist in the real world also exist online especially in chat rooms. Young people tend to be more vulnerable to these risks.

Most people online are friendly and polite, but some can be unfriendly and rude. A small number are exploitative and predatory, and there have been instances of paedophiles contacting children in chat rooms and by email.

Tips:

Talk to children about their experiences online to get to know who they are chatting with.
Encourage your children to tell you if anyone says something online that makes them feel uncomfortable or scared.
Teach children how to protect themselves from stranger-danger online.
Encourage them to follow the cyber rules and to protect their privacy. Make sure your children know what information they can give out and where they can go online.
If a child wants to meet someone they have met online, make direct contact with that person (and preferably their parents) by telephone, to check that they are who they say they are. It is strongly recommended that you accompany your child to the meeting.
For children aged 5-7, limit chat room visits to when you are present and keep visits short.
For children 8-11 years, investigate any chat rooms or online activities they want to explore and use the telephone or other means to check they are legitimate. Help children understand the need for caution with online strangers. Encourage participation in chat rooms that are moderated by appropriately trained adults.
Young teenagers are generally more independent and self-assured. Remind them of the need to be careful, and recommend visiting those chat rooms that are monitored or moderated.
Access to chat and IM programs an also be blocked with most filterl tools.
Make using the internet a family activity. Put the computer in a public area of the home and keep in touch with what your children are doing online.

Remember! The best protection is parental supervision and guidance.

Useful site

Chat Danger - This is an excellent resource for parents and kids about how to keep safe in chat rooms.

There are a growing number of ways that children communicate online, linking up with friends, and joining communities of people who might share their hobbies or interests. To join in, a child will need to create an online identity, and perhaps also a publicly viewable profile, which would be displayed in the site’s member directory.

Instant Messaging (IM)

Instant Messaging services are very popular with kids and young people, because they allow real time discussions between groups of friends. They also allow the easy sharing of files (for example, music, photos), and can be connected to a web cam so that the IMers can see each other as they chat. Some IM programs have now also begun to offer voice communication services with their IM programs, as well as IM through mobile ‘phones.

To use IM, you need to download a client program, and then create an online identity or ID. Many IM programs use a web-based email name as a starting point. For example, a hotmail address can be used to access the MSN Instant Messenger program. You can include a display picture, publish your phone number, and to create a public profile which can be viewed by anyone.

Most IM services will also allow you to set who can ‘see’ you when you are online, and to block other users altogether.

IMers build up an address book of contacts, or ‘buddies’, by ‘inviting’ someone to be in their address book. Generally, that person must agree to being included before they can communicate with each other.

While IM discussions appear to limit the danger of chatting to strangers, it is still possible for this to occur. For example, if Terri and Sam (‘buddies’) are talking, Terri can invite a contact from her address book to join in, even though that contact isn’t known to Sam. Sam needs to remember the cyberrules and protect his privacy even if he thinks he can trust everyone he’s chatting to in an IM session.

In registering for services such as blogs and message boards you may also be asked for your IM IDs, which may be displayed in your profile, or by link each time you make a post.

Tips:

Set up an IM account for yourself – play with it, push each of the buttons to see what they do. This is the best way to find out what safeguards a program can provide;
Be aware of the information included in your child’s IM profile – and be particularly cautious about making phone numbers public;
Make sure your child’s online name doesn’t give away their identity by accident. It should preferably be gender and age neutral; (‘HiI’mSally-sayhello!’ is one example of what not to do!)
Remind your children to be careful who they give their IM IDs to, and where they publish them, in the same way that they are careful about giving out their email address, phone number, and any other personal information;
Most IM programs will create logs of discussions if this option is ticked in the account profile. In any case, IM sessions can be manually saved to your computer by clicking ‘File’, and ‘Save as’;
IMs are not transmitted securely and may not be covered by firewalls. While it’s very handy to be able to share photos and other files so quickly, this is also a backdoor entry for viruses and other nasties. Remind your children to be very, very careful about accepting files for download from this source, even if they think they know the person who’s sending them the file. Some IM programs will utilise the user’s own PC anti-virus software to scan these files, if set up to do so.

Web Cams

Many families have set up web cams with their computers, because it’s an easy, inexpensive way of being able to see friends and family who are far away. However, it is also a feature that requires a lot of care, particularly if a child’s IM or blog profile is set to show that there is a web cam available. To be on the safe side, ensure that the option to show a connected web cam is not checked on your child’s IM ID.

Message boards and forums

There is a place on the net to discuss any interest, be it movies (for example, Harry Potter), music, TV programs, sport, the latest fashion or computer games. Many of these web sites can be very large, and incorporate news updates, access to movie trailers or galleries of pictures, as well as offering a discussion forum or message board.

To participate in the discussions you generally must register with the site in question. This includes creating an online ID and password, and deciding which information about yourself you make public. Most sites will have a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, which should set out the aims for the site, notify whether it’s ‘family friendly’ or aimed at an adult only audience, define acceptable and not-acceptable behaviours, and outline actions that will be taken if these are contravened.

The US Federal Trade Commission requires that commercial web sites, web sites targeting younger children and those general sites likely to attract a child membership must comply with the obligations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). This means that clear advice must be given on the site about the kind of information collected from children under the age of 13, and the purposes to which this information will be put. In turn, many sites will require age notification from the person registering, and, in some cases, will also require parental approval before posting access is switched on.

While this applies mainly to sites hosted in the US, many sites based in other countries have also adopted these principles.

Blogging

Another forum that kids can use to express themselves on the ‘net is by setting up and publishing content to a weblog, or blog.

Web space can be found through major portals (for example, MSN, Yahoo), as well as from dedicated blogging services such as LiveJournal, GreatestJournal, Xanga, Wordpress, Blogger.com, amongst a host of others.

A blog is web space that the individual can use to publish their thoughts, their photos, stories, rantings, ravings, links through to other sites, and so on. Blogging can be a wonderful creative outlet, and can help children develop their skills of expression and social communication.

As with IM, blogging services allow a user to set up a network of ‘friends’, and, on this basis, the blogger can customise who will see each of the entries made to the blog. However, this relies on the blogger remembering to set this option each time they make a post to their journal, as, with most providers, there isn’t an option to make an entire blog private.

‘Friends’ can be people you already know, or they may be people who you find through a search of bloggers who have similar interests. Other visitors to your blog may have come from a ‘random read’ option or from the ‘most recently updated’ advice on the blog provider’s home page.

Opening a blog will require registration, and the provision of information such as username, email address, age verification (see the COPPA requirements), as well as setting out privacy options in relation to email addresses and IM IDs. In many cases, provision of personal information (such as location, or interests) is optional. In addition, some blogs will instruct search engines not to include your blog entries in their search results, if you tell them to do this. The way to do this should be explained on the sign-up page. You should still be able to do this by updating your member profile after registration.

Most blog providers also give the option of including a small image file (or ‘avatar’) which identifies you visually when you post in your log or comment on someone else’s.