SafeKids.com

This post first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News
by Larry Magid

A recent survey by Opinion Matters on behalf of GFI Software found that many people don’t fully understand how to protect their data and privacy in the event their phone is lost or stolen.

The survey of just over a thousand U.S. adults found that 57 percent of respondents were most concerned about “the hassle and cost of having to buy a new phone” but nearly as many (54 percent) were more worried about “losing my contact list.” Just over a third (34 percent) worried about losing memorable or irreplaceable photos, while 29 percent were most concerned about “being vulnerable to identify theft by having my personal information or documents stored on my smartphone compromised.”

Those worried about losing their contacts or other data may be unaware of ways to back up phones via the cloud, and I wonder if those who worry about data getting into the wrong hands know that there are programs that can be used to remotely lock or wipe their phones.

If my phone were stolen, I would certainly fret about the cost of replacing it, but I would have absolutely no concern about losing my contact list or valuable photos because they’re all backed up in the cloud. I use Gmail and let Google (GOOG) store my contact lists and calendar on both my iPhone and my Android phones, and my wife does the same on her Blackberry. If the phone were lost or stolen, the data would still be safe and the contact list and calendar are always in sync, so if I add or change something from my PC or Mac, I can see it on my phone and vice versa. It also means that all my mobile devices are in sync. Apple’s (AAPL) iCloud offers similar backup services.

I would worry a little about my data getting into the wrong hands, but there are Apps for that. Apple’s iOS operating system comes with Find My Phone that allows owners to remotely lock or wipe their phone. It can also be used to locate a missing phone. The “find” feature works by sending a relatively loud tone and displaying a message like “if you find this phone please call me at 408 555-5555.” You can access Find My Phone from any Web-enabled device or by using the app on other iOS devices.

One of several products that can help find, secure and wipe your phone

There are many similar apps available for Android and Blackberry devices. The study’s sponsor, GFI, just launched GFI VIPRE Mobile Security Premium, which includes these features along with anti-virus protection, online backup and activity monitoring and location tracking of children’s’ phones. The “freemium” app offers free lost device alarm, anti-virus, and contact backup. The full suite of features are available for 99 cents a month or $9.95 a year after a 30-day free trial period.

The only drawback to these apps is that the phone needs to be on and getting a signal for them to work. So, if your phone is lost or stolen, you need to act quickly while it’s still running. Apple’s service has a feature that sends you an email when the phone is found, which means that if someone finds it and turns it on later, you’ll get an email so you know to log on to iCloud right away to wipe the device. If you use GFI VIPRE to wipe a phone that’s not online, the phone will be wiped if and when it connects to the Internet via the cellular nework or Wi-Fi.

Regardless of whether you use any of these location-based products, it’s a good idea to lock (password protect) your phone. In addition to keeping prying eyes away from your data, it also prevents people from using your phone to make expensive international calls or using it to send inappropriate emails or text messages that appear to come from you. It’s is especially important to remind kids that their phones are an extension of them and anyone using their phone can easily impersonate them.

The GFI survey also asked parents whether it’s more important to monitor their kids activity on a PC (laptop or desktop) or on a phone, and 13 percent chose PC while 8 percent chose phone. Most respondents said they didn’t have kids (61 percent) or that their children don’t use PCs or smart phones (9 percent).

It strikes me that if you’re worried about what your kids are doing with technology, you should be more concerned about their cell phone use than what they’re doing on the home PC. I’m not saying that they can’t get in trouble at home, nor am I suggesting that all kids need to be monitored either at home or on mobile devices; as I frequently say at my SafeKids.com and ConnectSafely.org sites — I think that talking with kids is sometimes sufficient or even better. But kids use mobile devices in places where there is no adult supervision and they can do just about anything with a mobile device that they can with a PC plus a lot more — like taking and sending pictures, allowing others to track their location and, of course, talking on the phone.

Smart phones and cars are the most powerful technologies people own. Both expand your mobility and enhance your life but — if not used carefully — they can both get you into trouble.

Facebook engineer Arturo Bejar (Photo by Jordi Bejar)

(This post is adapted from Larry’s Daily News column of July 18, 2012)

by Larry Magid

Like other engineers at Facebook, Arturo Bejar, a mathematician by training, is helping to build new products to encourage users to communicate and share.

But his products are a bit different.  He works on social tools to help people get along with each other and resolve conflicts ranging from the posting of annoying pictures to serious cases of bullying.

Listen to Podcast interview with Facebook Engineering Director Arturo Bejar about social reporting tools and compassion research

Working with researchers from Yale, Berkeley and Columbia University, Bejar and his team are tasked with improving the tools that enable Facebook users to report and resolve problems.  When analyzing user abuse reports, Bejar and the researchers noticed that many complaints did not fall under the company’s Community Standards, which are the rules of the road that Facebook requires users to follow. These rules cover offenses like violence and threats, encouragement of self-harm, bullying and harassment, hate speech, nudity and pornography and such things as spam and phishing scams.  Violation of these terms can result in content being taken down and – in some cases – being kicked off the service.

And while Facebook has staff around the world who deal with reports of serious abuses, they also hear about issues that have more to do with interpersonal relationships among members — like someone posting or tagging you in a photo that you don’t like, or someone saying something unpleasant about you that – while annoying – is not considered bullying or harassment.

“We found when we were looking at reports that there were a lot of things getting reported that were really misunderstandings or disagreements among people who use the site,” said Bejar in a recorded interview.

So, instead of putting Facebook employees in the impossible position of resolving feuds, the company started experimenting with “social reporting” designed to encourage users to work out issues between themselves or seek help from trusted friends or relatives.  For example, if you see a photo on Facebook that bothers you, you can click the Options link and “Report This Photo.” But rather than automatically report to Facebook, it asks you “Why are you reporting this photo,” with choices ranging from “I don’t want others to see me in this photo” to “this photo is harassing someone.”  If it’s just something you don’t like you can specify why it bothers you (such as “it makes me sad” or “it’s embarrassing”) and you’ll be able to send a message with suggested wording like “Hey Marie, seeing this photo makes me a little sad and I don’t want others to see it. Would you please take it down?”

New Facebook screen for reporting photos

If it’s an issue that can’t be easily resolved, Facebook lets you seek help from a trusted third party or, if you feel you need big guns, you can still seek help from Facebook support staff who will intervene if the photo or post violates community standards.

Bejar said that most of the reports they hear about have to do with unintentional slights like posting an unflattering picture of someone.  What they found is that if they simply put up a blank message box for asking a friend to take down a picture, only 20% of the people will fill out the dialog box to send a message to a friend. “Asking your friend to take a photo down that they uploaded is actually kind of difficult.”  They began experimenting with various default messages to “trigger a compassionate response” and then studied how people responded to those options.

Based on this research, they are fine-tuning their social reporting and in the process of rolling out new suggested messaging that is proving  to be more effective.

A friendly message is sometimes all it takes

Some of this research was presented to the public earlier this month when Facebook conducted its second “Compassion Research Day” at its Menlo Park headquarters. In addition to Bejar and others at Facebook, speakers included Marc Brackett from Yale’s Health, Emotion, & Behavior Laboratory, Robin Stern of Columbia University,  Dacher Keltner, Director of Berkeley’s Social Interaction Laboratory and Piercarlo Valdesolo of  Claremont McKenna College.

Bejar said that his work enjoys “extraordinary support” from CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg who see it as “a big part of our mission and what it means to support the people who use Facebook.”

A parent of a young son, Bejar is both optimistic and realistic. He doesn’t necessarily think that being a kid is better or worse than it used to be but it’s going to be a “different world.” He added, “when I look at my son and the access he has to computers, how he is learning to program at this age and how he uses the different services that connect him online, I think he’s going to have a wonderful childhood and it’s going to be a wonderful set of teenage years.” But, said Bejar, “I also think that there will be significant challenges as he becomes a teenager.”

Truer words were never spoken.

 Disclosure: Larry Magid is co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization that receives financial support from Facebook

Adapted from an article that first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

by Larry Magid

A lot was written about the DNSChanger scare last week, including several articles about how over-hyped it was. I tried to downplay the risk, but some security experts and journalists sounded alarms. Could it be that spreading fear about malware helps sell security software and improves ratings for news stories?

DNSChanger hype
In case you missed the hype, DNSChanger is a computer virus of sorts that caused infected computers to access rogue DNS servers and be directed to hackers’ sites instead of where they meant to go. The FBI took down those servers in 2011 and temporarily replaced them with clean ones, then announced a long time ago that those clean servers would go offline on July 9th, at which time anyone still infected would effectively have no Internet access. Months ahead of that deadline, people with infected machines received notifications from their ISPs and major websites, so it’s not as if the deadline should have taken anyone by surprise.

There is no way to know the exact number of computers that were still infected on July 9th. But even if you take a high estimate of 50,000 in the United States, that represents about one in 5,000 PCs. It’s no wonder a Comcast spokesperson told me that their customer support volume last Monday was no higher than a typical Monday.

A bit of perspective
We’re talking about not being able to access the Internet, which is hardly life threatening. And even if you were infected, it isn’t that hard to fix the problem.

To put this in perspective, I dug up a 2007 article from New York Times columnist Tara Parker-Pope, who laid out the odds of dying from a variety of causes. It turns out that the odds of some really scary things happening are a lot higher than the chances of being knocked offline by DNSChanger.

For example, the odds of dying in a car crash are 1 in 84 over an 80-year life span. There’s a 1-in-218 chance of dying from falling over that same life span, and a 1-in-1,100 chance of drowning. And of course, we all have a 1-in-1 chance of dying from something.

In 2009 the property crime rate in the U.S. “declined to to 127.4 crimes per 1,000 households,” according to the Department of Justice. That’s still a 1 in 8 chance of being victimized, which is far higher and more consequential than many online crimes. And by the way, violent and property crime rates in 2009 were at the “lowest levels since 1973.”

I’m not trying to scare people. I’m trying to put this persistent techno-panic into perspective. Why is there so much hype about bad things that can go wrong with technology when the odds are higher that worse things will happen to us in the nondigital world?

Other techno-panics
DNSChanger was far from the only example of a techno-panic. There have been virus stories in the news for decades, sometimes featuring spokespeople from anti-virus companies with dire warnings of impending doom. Many of my fellow journalists — especially my colleagues in the broadcast media — love to dramatize these stories. I know because I’m often called upon to comment on the air and sometimes I get the sense that the person interviewing me is a bit disappointed at my relatively relaxed attitude.

I wasn’t always that way. In 1992, I was one of the journalists who quoted John McAfee when he said that millions of PCs would fail to startup on March 6th of that year — Michelangelo’s birthday. But the hype over the Michelangelo virus was far worse than its bite.

One question that was raised back then and keeps coming up is whether all the pre-publicity prevented the problem. The same claim was made for the Y2K scare, which also fizzled. It’s certainly true that raising an alarm about potential threats causes people to take precautions, but there are ways to accomplish that without going out of your way to scare people.

It’s not just malware. We’re worried about all sorts of technology-related catastrophes. In 1994, I wrote “Child Safety on the Information Highway” because I was genuinely worried about how this newfangled online world would affect our children. I’m still promoting Internet safety, but I’ve since learned that kids are less vulnerable and more resilient than I once feared.

For years NBC Dateline’s “To Catch A Predator” feature scared Americans about online pedophiles. But I don’t recall the program ever pointing out that children who are sexually abused are many times more likely to be victimized by a family member or an acquaintance than by a stranger they met online.

Predator panic, though still with us, has diminished slightly, but now we’re panicking about cyberbullying, even though school bullying is far more prevalent. Last year, a leading pediatrics journal published an article about “Facebook depression.” But the Journal of Adolescent Health last week reported no correlation between social network use and depression in older adolescents.  Likewise people panicked about sexting with stories that one in five kids were sending around nude pictures of themselves until a credible study from the Crimes Against Children Research Center found that only found that only 1.3% had sent or created an image of themselves that showed breasts, genitals or “someone’s bottom.” A somewhat higher number (2.5%) sent images where they were either nude, partially nude or in a sexy pose, even if fully clothed.

We worry about Internet privacy but how many of us bother to shred confidential papers or think twice about the information we’ve turned over to financial institutions, insurance companies and even supermarkets?

“Cell yell”
I do think we need to worry about cell phone privacy, not because they’re easy to bug (they’re not) but because we’re using them out in public where strangers can hear what we say.

For some of the best thinking on techno-panics, see Technopanics, Threat Inflation, and the Danger of an Information Technology Precautionary Principle from Adam Thierer and Why Technopanics are bad from my ConnectSafely.org co-director Anne Collier.

Here’s an interesting slide show with some data about how teens (and adults too) are using social networking, cell phones and other technologies. And here’s a summary from CNET.

Like a lot of young girls, singer/songwriter Rachel Crow knows what it’s like to be bullied, having been called “weirdo” and “freak, according to an interview on the AOL Music Blog.   The 14 year-old former X Factor contestant wrote and recorded Mean Girls as the lead song of a five song EP .  You’ll find the lyrics below the music video.

Lyrics

Do you ever go to lunch with no one by your side
Cause the moment you arrive they leave the table
Calling me everything but my name
Need I remind you again just call me Rachel
How would you feel if you running home crying
Lock yourself in your room, don’t want anyone to see ya
While everyone’s having fun outside, and you’re telling yourself

I won’t let it get to me no more
I don’t wanna feel this way
I can’t believe I let it go so far
No no, it’s not okay
What do you know about me?
Do you wanna know what I think?
Mean girls, mean girls
I’m a just comb you outta my curls
Mean girls, mean girls
You no longer run my world
Mean girls, mean girls
I’m a just comb you outta my curls

How would you feel every time you go to school
Someone’s looking at you weird calling you a loser
All these girls wearing bubble-gum pink
Guess I didn’t get the memo
Cause they’re laughing at my blue shirt
Well I hope you feeling good about you treating someone you know like a perfect stranger
Cause it’s easier than standing by my side

I won’t let it get to me no more
I don’t wanna feel this way
I can’t believe I let it go so far
No no, it’s not okay
What do you know about me?
Do you wanna know what I think?
Mean girls, mean girls
I’m a just comb you outta my curls
Mean girls, mean girls
You no longer run my world

Who do you think you are
Loud mouth, cafeteria star
Maybe somebody was cruel to you
So you think that’s what you’re supposed to do
One day, it might be you
When you need a friend, but you no longer cool
When everyone leaves when you walk in the room
I just hope they forgive you

I won’t let it get to me no more
I don’t wanna feel this way
I can’t believe I let it go so far
No no, it’s not okay
What do you know about me?
Do you wanna know what I think?
Mean girls, mean girls
I’m a just comb you outta my curls
Mean girls, mean girls
You no longer run my world
Mean girls, mean girls
I’m a just comb you outta my curls

Mean girls, mean girls
You no longer run my world

by Larry Magid

Common Sense Media just published a report that paints a mostly positive picture of social media’s impact on teens’ social and emotional well-being. Social Media, Social Life: How Teens View Their Digital Lives (PDF) points out that “Many more teens report a positive impact of social media use on their emotional well-being than a negative one,” and pretty much debunks the myth about “Facebook depression” with the conclusion that “Very few teens think that using their social network site makes them more depressed.”

Among the 75% of 13- to 17-year-olds with a social
networking profile, percent who say social networking
makes them feel more or less: (Source: Common Sense Media)

Not surprisingly the report found that 90% of teens have used social networking and that 75% currently have a social networking profile. More than two-third of kids (68%) are on Facebook, compared to 6% for Twitter and 1% for GooglePlus and MySpace. More than a third (34%) visit their favorite social networking site “several times a day” and 23% are “heavy” social media users.

The report is based on an online survey of 1,030 13-to 17 year-olds conducted between February and March of this year.

Social-emotional well-being

The study found that teens are much more likely to say that social media has a positive impact than a negative one on social-emotional well-being. About three in 10 (29%) say that social networking makes them feel “less shy” and “more outgoing” while 20% say it makes them feel more confident. About the same number (19%) say they feel more popular and 19% also say they’re more sympathetic to others.  The positives far outweigh the negatives with only 5% saying that social networking makes them feel less outgoing while “4% feel worse about themselves, less confident, and less popular after using their social networking site; and 3% feel shyer,” according to the report.

The report concluded “Among all teen social network users, only 5% say using their social networking site makes them feel more depressed, compared to 10% who say it makes them feel  less depressed.

Though use of social networking seems to help a lot more kids than it hurts, when it comes to social-emotional well-being, most kids (83%) say that social networking doesn’t make much of a difference to whether or not they feel depressed or better or worse about themselves (81%).

Sharp contrast to the naysayers

The report stands in sharp contrast to some naysayers who worry that Facebook might cause social and emotional distress, depression or social isolation. In  fact, more than half (52%) said that “social media users say using such media has mainly helped their relationships with friends, compared to just 4% who say social media use has mainly hurt their relationships.”

And, despite what some pundits have written, social media hasn’t diminished teens’ desire to maintain face-to-face relationships. Just under half (49%) of teens said that their favorite way to communicate with their friends is in person, followed by texting (33%) with social networking (7%) just slightly ahead of talking on the phone (4%). Still, there are some kids (43%) who agreed that they sometimes wish they could “unplug.”  The survey reported that “Most teens feel that, on balance, using social media has  helped rather than hurt their relationships. About half of all teens (54%) say social networking has helped them feel more connected with family and friends (2% say it’s made them feel less connected, and the rest say it hasn’t made much difference one way or the other).”

(Source; Common Sense Media)

Dark spots

There were some findings that raise the caution flag. For example, 44% of teens say that “they often or sometimes encounter sexist (44%), homophobic (43%) or racist (43%) comments online and 24% they they “often” encounter some type of derogatory speech.  But it’s important to put this in context. Just because someone finds negative speech online doesn’t mean that most or even a substantial portion of people are posting it. A single negative post could be seen by a great number of people. Besides, there is no evidence from this survey that online use encourages negative speech, it simply reflects it as it reflects all good and bad aspects of life.

Surprising results for ‘less happy teens‘

The study broke down responses between the roughly 90% of teens who are “in good emotional shape” and the 10% who fell into the category of “less happy teens.” Among those teens who are “less happy,” 50% report that social networking makes them more outgoing compared to 17% of the “happiest teens.”  Less happy teens are also more likely to feel more popular (34% vs 15%), less shy (49% vs.21%) but at the same time  these less happy teens are also more likely to report negative feelings such as “worse about myself (15% vs. 1%) and more depressed (18% vs. <.5%). These same less happy teens also wish their parents would spend less time on their and other devices (42% vs 17% of happier teens).

One size doesn’t fit all

The survey doesn’t attempt to explain why less happy teens have both positive and negative emotional reactions that differ from happier ones but it does reinforce the fact that how people respond to social media is very individual and personal which makes it very hard to generalize and even harder come up with a “one-size-fits-all” type of explanation or solution for any perceived problems.

The report illustrates that social media, while mostly positive, can have some negative impacts on some people, but that’s true for anything in life including watching movies, reading books, eating certain foods, playing sports or even going to school. We live in an increasingly complex world were generalizations and sound bites — while increasingly common — are increasingly irrelevant. That’s why it’s so important for parents as well as teachers and others who look after kids to consider the needs of each child individually. While it’s reassuring to know that the vast majority of kids are doing really well on social media, it’s also important that  we take extra time to support those kids who may be struggling.

(Disclosure: I’m co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization that receives some of its funding from Facebook).

by Larry Magid

The conviction of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on 45 counts of sexual abuse of children has, once again, put child sex abuse on the front page.

Like the vast majority of child sex abuse cases, Sandusky’s crimes took place in the physical world — they were not Internet related.  And, while parents do need to remind children about the potential dangers of talking about sex with strangers online, the fact is that in most cases, the victims and perpetrator have met each other prior to the start of the abuses.  Like Sandusky — it’s not uncommon for the abuser to be someone in a position of trust and authority.  That’s one of the reasons why child safety experts educate children not so much about dangerous types of people, but dangerous types of behavior.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) has numerous online resources for parents including a Child Safety FAQ that advises parents to educate children to “Say no if someone tries to touch you, or treats you in a way that makes you feel sad, scared, or confused” and to “get out of the situation as quickly as possible.” Kids are also advised to “tell a parent, guardian, or trusted adult if you feel sad, scared, or confused.”

“Stranger Danger” is a myth

NCMEC also reminds parents that “stranger danger” is largely a myth: “In the majority of cases the perpetrator is someone the parents or child knows, and that person may be in a position of trust or responsibility to the child and family.”  The organization suggests that “It is much more beneficial to children to help them build the confidence and self-esteem they need to stay as safe as possible in any potentially dangerous situation they encounter rather than teaching them to be ‘on the look out’ for a particular type of person.” (I serve as an unpaid member of NCMEC’s board of directors).

Warning signs

Stop It Now! has a web page with warning signs of possible sexual abuse in children and adolescents and although one sign doesn’t necessarily mean that a child is sexually abused, “ the presence of several suggests that you begin asking questions and consider seeking help.”

Some of the warning signs, says the organization include unexplained nightmares or other sleep problems,  a child who is distracted or distant at odd times and a child with changes in eating habits. The organiation also warns parents and caregivers to watch out for “sudden mood swings: rage, fear, insecurity or withdrawal” or if a child ‘develops new or unusual fear of certain people or places.”

For Internet related safety advice, see ConnectSafely.org, where I serve as co-director, or my other site, SafeKids.com.

by Larry Magid
This article appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

When you go to download Skout on an iPhone, the tagline is “flirt, friend, chat,” and you’re invited to “join the fastest growing FREE social scene with millions of guys and girls waiting to meet you!” Skout’s iPhone icon is a heart. And, thanks to the phone’s location awareness, you can even find people who are nearby.

There is nothing wrong with services like this as long as they’re used with appropriate safeguards, and Skout does offer safety tips for meeting people offline. But there have been three reported cases of teenage users being raped by adults — posing online as teenagers — who found them on Skout.

After the reports surfaced, the service quickly suspended its teen services and, for the time being at least, it’s only open to people over 18. In a blog post, Skout CEO Christian Wiklund wrote “Under our zero-tolerance policy, we immediately ban users for inappropriate or suspicious behavior. Also, unlike many location-based apps, Skout provides general rather than specific location information, empowering each community member to decide if, when and where to meet in person.”

But he added, ‘it’s become clear to us that these measures aren’t enough. In recent weeks, we’ve learned of several incidents involving a few bad actors trying to take advantage of some of our younger members.”

Skout was initially set up for adults only but added teens about a year ago. Wiklund wrote that “we thought long and hard about how to set up a safe network for teens,” which included efforts to separate teens from adults on the service.

That strategy hasn’t been entirely effective. Some adults have apparently lied about their age to hang out with kids and it wouldn’t surprise me if some kids lie about their age.

I don’t know a great deal about Skout, but as founder of SafeKids.com and co-director of ConnectSafely.org, I do know a few things about Internet safety. And one of them, as noted by Crimes Against Children Research Center (CRCC), is that “talking about sex online with strangers is a big risk factor for encountering problems,” as is “interacting indiscriminately with a lot of unknown people online.”

Research has also shown that adults sexually abusing children they first met online is relatively rare and that, in most cases, adults don’t lie about their age or, if they do, it’s by a few years. Although it happens, it’s rare for a 40 year-old to claim to be a 16 or 17 year old. We have also learned, from several studies, that aggressive behavior can lead to risk. When there are issues, they often arise when young people are going out of their way to engage in online sexual banter with strangers.

According to CRCC Director David Finkelhor, “even if an adult does show up at a teen site to troll for kids, the adults typically clarify their age at some point in the conversation.” Finkelhor stressed that “An important component of safety messages should be to help teens understand why it’s a bad idea to have a romantic relationship with an adult.”

It’s important to remember that Skout is designed for flirting, which is often accompanied by sexual banter. So, without knowing a lot of details of the reported cases, I can nevertheless see why there could have been problems associated with this service.

It’s not clear to me how Skout’s location-aware features may have contributed to the alleged crimes. On its website, Skout says that it “provides general rather than specific location information” which should minimize the risk of a stranger actually tracking you down. Still, as a general principal, when you combine location awareness with sexual conversation, the risk does increase.

Skout was smart to suspend services for teens, but there remains the possibility that some teens will lie about their age to join this and similar services. Finkelhor questions whether Skout should resume its offering for teens.

“If we’re going to have teen dating sites, they should be designed and managed by people who do only that and (should) be connected to functions other than just hooking up,” he said.

But it’s not entirely clear that trying to separate teens from adults is a good strategy. Kids are more often harassed by other young people and, with the exception of flirting services, there could be legitimate reasons for kids and adults to interact online around topics of common interest.

While caution is always wise, it’s important that parents not freak out, overreact or generalize what happened on Skout to other social networking services like Facebook or Twitter. According to Pew Research, about 74 percent of American teens are on Facebook, yet the number of reports of Facebook-related sexual abuse of teens and children are extremely low. But, once again, it’s time for parents to sit down with their kids and have “that talk,” not about the “birds and the bees,” but about the “bits and the bytes,” helping them understand how to safely use the Internet and mobile phones.

Nationwide, 32.8% of students had texted or e-mailed while driving a car or other vehicle on at least 1 day during the 30 days before the Centers for Disease Control conducted its 2011 Youth Risk Survey (PDF).  That percentage jumped to 43% for 11th graders and 58% for high school seniors.

In a seperate report, the CDC found:

• In 2009, more than 5,400 people died in crashes that were reported to involve a distracted driver and about 448,000 people were injured.
• Among those killed or injured in these crashes, nearly 1,000 deaths and 24,000 injured included cell phone use as the major distraction.
• The proportion of drivers reportedly distracted at the time of a fatal crash has increased from 7 percent in 2005 to 11 percent in 2009.
• When asked whether driving feels safer, less safe, or about the same as it did five years ago, more than 1 in 3 drivers say driving feels less safe today. Distracted driving—cited by 3 out of 10 of these drivers—was the single most common reason given for feeling less safe today.

There are apps for cutting back on texting while driving, but no silver bullet

The Associated Press looked at several smartphone apps designed to cut down on texting while driving and found that “The industry doesn’t have a surefire cure.”

Videos

The following “Mom Gone Wild” video is part of a series from ConnectSafely and AT&T. Others in the series are Parent Behaving Badly and It’s Legit to Quit.  All videos are designed to encourage parents to be not only safer drivers but also better role models.

Two years ago — long before there was much public discussion about Facebook admitting children under 13 — I had the opportunity to interview Mark Zuckerberg. But, before I did, I asked a group of educators, Internet safety advocates and youth risk experts to suggest questions.  Two experts suggested I ask him about whether Facebook would consider creating a safe environment for kids under 13, not because they had any vested interest in helping Facebook open a new market, but because they knew that millions of young children were already on Facebook and they wanted to see if there could be a way for Facebook to create a service that could safely serve younger children.

In the interview, Zuckerberg said “It’s something we’ve talked about a little bit, but the restriction and regulation around it make it very difficult so it’s just never been one of the top-of-the-list of things we’ve wanted to do.” (Click here for that segment or the entire interview from May 27, 2010).

More than a year later, in July 2011,  Zuckerberg told an audience at the NewSchools Venture Fund’s Summit that he would like to see kids under 13 on Facebook, because  ”my philosophy is that for education you need to start at a really, really young age.”  He said it would “be a fight we take on at some point,” but neither he nor anyone else at Facebook ever revealed specific plans to change the rule that requires people be at least 13 to get a Facebook account.

But in Monday’s edition, the Wall Street Journal reported that “Facebook is developing technology that would allow children younger than 13 to use the social-networking site under parental supervision.

 The Journal called Facebook’s move “a step that could help the company tap a new pool of users for revenue but also inflame privacy concerns” and shortly after the article went live on the web, Common Sense Media CEO James Steyer, who was quoted in the story,  issued a statement that Facebook “appears to be doing whatever it takes to identify new revenue streams and short-term corporate profits to impress spooked shareholders.” He added that “there is absolutely no proof of any meaningful social or educational value of Facebook for children under 13,” and that “there are very legitimate concerns about privacy as well as the impact on the social, emotional, and cognitive development of children.” He likened Facebook to “Big Tobacco  in appealing to young people – try to hook kids early, build your brand, and you have a customer for life.”

But the Journal also quoted Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler who said “We would like to see Facebook create a safe space for kids,” with “the extra protections needed to ensure a safe, healthy, and age appropriate environment.”  General Gansler echoed my own sentiments from a year ago when I argued that Facebook “should offer special privacy settings, educational tools and parental controls to assure an appropriate environment for younger children.”

What the law says

Legally, it has always been possible for Facebook to allow children under 13, but to do so it would have to comply with provisions of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) that requires commercial sites to “obtain verifiable parental consent for the collection, use, or disclosure of personal information from children.”  But complying with COPPA is difficult and expensive.  Although some child centered sites, operated by Disney and other companies, do go through the hoops to be COPPA compliant, most social networking sites, including Facebook, simply ban anyone who’s stated date of birth indicates they’re under 13.  But because it’s based on what people enter, it’s easy to lie and there is no generally accepted way to verify the information.

Parents help kids lie about their age

Not only do millions of kids lie to get on Facebook, but most are doing so with the knowledge and help of their parents. Last May, Consumer Reports found that “of the 20 million minors who actively use Facebook,” 7.5 million were younger than 13 and more than 5 million were younger than 10.   A 2010 study by McAfee that found 37 percent of 10 to 12 year olds are on Facebook and a study (PDF) released last April from the London School of Economics’ EU Kids Online project that found that 38 percent of 9- to 12-year-old European children used social-networking sites, with one in five using Facebook, “rising to over 4 in 10 in some countries.”

Last fall, a group of researchers from Harvard, University of California, Northwestern University and Microsoft Research published a paper, Why parents help their children lie to Facebook about age: Unintended consequences of the ‘Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, that pointed out that, for kids who were under 13 at the time they signed up, 68 percent of the parents “indicated that they helped their child create the account.” Among 10-year-olds on Facebook, 95 percent of parents were aware their kids were using the service while 78 percent helped create the account.

In an interview, the study’s lead author, Dr. danah boyd, told me that parents “want their kids to have access to public life and, today, what public life means is participating even in commercial social media sites.” These parents, boyd added, “are not saying get on the sites and then walk away. These are parents who have their computers in the living room, are having conversations with their kids, they often helping them create their accounts to talk to grandma.”

FTC Chairman calls it a “complicated issue”

Even the head of the Federal Trade Commission acknowledges that parents should have a role in determining whether their kids should be on the service. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz spoke at the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital Conference in Palos Verdes, California last week and, during the question and answer session, I asked him about the negative unintended consequences of COPPA, including the fact that parents are helping kids lie to get on Facebook.  He acknowledged that “sometimes the parents are actually permitting their children to go on Facebook.”  But, calling it a “complicated issue,” he added “at least they’re having a conversation with their parents and at some level the parents have to be the gate keepers of their young children’s Internet access.” He said that he doesn’t “think the obligations of COPPA are very difficult to follow” and pointed out that COPPA is currently under review by the FTC. In response to my follow up question, he said “yes it concerns me, absolutely” when I commented that  millions of children are being encouraged or condoned to lie,  often by their own parents.

Memo to Zuckerberg: Do it right

I think Facebook should allow children under 13 but, as I said last year, it has to be done carefully and thoughtfully with extra precautions. There needs to be parental involvement and control and Facebook needs to provide extra privacy protections for young children that would include more secure defaults than it has for teens and adults. There are already additional privacy protections for users under 18, but the company needs to be even more careful for younger children.  Ideally, I would like to see children under 13 have an ad-free experience and Facebook certainly must avoid collecting and storing personal information about children other than what is needed to provide them the service.

Do it for the children

Whether we like it or not, millions of children are using Facebook, and since there doesn’t seem to be a universally effective way to get them off the service, the best and safest strategy would be to provide younger children with a safe, secure and private experience that allows them to interact with verified friends and family members without having to lie about their age.

(Disclosure: I’m co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization that receives financial support from Facebook).