Child Internet Safety

[grandadofsix]

Child abuse never seems to be out of the news these days, and we are always shocked and appalled by it. But a lot goes unnoticed because it is "inconvenient". One of these is the internet. This week Google executives were found guilty by an Italian court for allowing an inappropriate video to be shown on YouTube. Google said it removed the offending video as soon as it received a complaint from the Italian police.
How many inappropriate videos go unreported?! How many millions of young children are seeing inappropriate material on the internet. Google is relying on others to police YouTube, it would not be cost-effective for Google to check and censor every video itself, because its profits would be reduced - "inconvenient"!
There is so much dodgy internet material which can be accessed easily by young children and under 18's, yet there is no responsible policing and censoring. If the Chinese authorities were able to block internet material they were unhappy with during their Olympics, why can't we?!
Too inconvenient - too much money and profit at risk!!

Just been burned badly and feel very guilty about not putting parental controls on my 11 year old daughters laptop. She put sex in as a search on you tube and lesbian sex scenes appeared. This led to other links, I am mortified that she has seen things like this at such a young but my husband was quick to say that if she didn't see it in our house she would probably see it elsewhere like other peoples mobile phones or computers. I'm going to talk to the school so they can raise awareness for parents to set safe controls on computers and talk to each parent she visits to check on their controls....at the risk of losing friendly relations with other parents!

Hi 5beauties.

We had the same problem with our dd. Have you heard of The Learning Bubble? We have it at home, its pretty good - allows us to restrict where she goes and comes with very nice featres which helps her with her homework too. If you google it you should find it quite easily.

I must admit I need to put some sort of parental control on our computer. DS goes on utube to find run throughs of his favourite DS/Wii games, so if he gets stuck on a certain level its explained how to progress. I am aware he could find something inappropriate by using utube, and I try to monitor what he looks at, but would like some sort of censor.

What do you use?

5beauties.
theres loads of great software outthere to limit google searches etc.
ooh, and if your child uses itvplayer, 40d and bbciplayer, i think all 3 of these have a way that you can set them up so age restricted stuff is only accessible through a password.
im sure you've done this, but maybe a chat with your daughter about why you musnt search those things? hopefully she'll be so embarassed you caught her out she'll never do it again!
i find embarassment and internet history a great combination to be honest!

As 5beauties points out, there are quite a few software programs out there.
2 that spring to mind are K9 (free) and Net Nanny (about £20). As with most software you get what you pay for - so Net Nanny does more such as monitoring Instant Messaging as well as the usual website filtering (and alerts the parent if the child has been trying to access dodgy things!)

Over reacting alert!

Plus any intellectual modern child can brake safety barriers.

Oh no! Children saw something that they will do themselves when growing up! GASP!

Actually Mumsnet has some excellent advice on internet safety - check this page: www.mumsnet.com/internet-safety/primary-school-children

I work in digital and my advice would be: go on the same sites they go on so you know what's going on, use Google Safe Search and a net filter, and discuss things with your kids. You cna't protect them from a crazy world but you can help them put it into context/learn to rationalise any crazy stuff they encounter online

Hi All,

I have been looking through these posts and noticed that no one has mentioned the internet browsers available for children online.

There are a number of Internet Browsers for Children available, such as:

Zinoko, KidZui and Rocket Browser.

Zinoko comes with an Online account so you can analysis your children's usage while they use the browser, the website is www.zinoko.com

KidZui is similar but they have built their own controlled Internet environment.
It is fully controlled by teachers and editors but it is not the full internet experience. But it is good none the less.
The site is www.kidzui.com

Not to sure about Rocket Browser, you can search for it on Google.

Give them a try.