Child Protection&Online Safety
24 March 2007
us: Judge overturns US web porn law BBC
A US federal judge has overturned a law designed to protect children from viewing internet pornography, saying it violated the right of free speech. The law made it illegal for websites to provide children access to "harmful" material, but it was never enforced.
23 March 2007
uk: Bullies use iPods and networking sites to wage hi-tech campaigns The Independent
Playground bullies are deploying iPods and social networking sites such as MySpace and MSN Messenger to wage increasingly hi-tech campaigns against victims, according to new research.
13 March 2007
uk: Brown unveils classification system for new media The Guardian
A "labelling" system for media content is under way to help parents protect their children from unsuitable content in the digital age, Gordon Brown revealed. The chancellor said that Ofcom, the industry regulator, has agreed to introduce a media content rating scheme to provide better information about websites, TV programmes, computer games and other media.
09 March 2007
YouTube bans don't work: Vint Cerf Sydney Morning Herald
Vint Cerf has cast doubt on the efficacy of recent attempts to curb cyber bullying by blocking student access to video-sharing sites such as YouTube. ... Instead, he said, students should be taught about social responsibility.
02 March 2007
au: YouTube ban for Victorian schools The Age
Australian Education Union Victorian branch president Mary Bluett said a ban on video-sharing website YouTube in state schools is likely to have little effect.
25 February 2007
uk: Worlds apart - poll finds parents out of touch The Guardian
This Guardian/ICM poll and resulting special report shows parents knowledge of what their kids get up to isn't that great. Regarding the internet, "Of children who say that they have looked at pornography online, 60% of their parents think that they have not done so, or did not know either way. The poll shows that 15% of children say that they have talked about sex online. Only 3% say they have met a stranger they encountered on the internet - but of those, only 1% of parents are aware of the meeting."
23 February 2007
Internet safety gets powerful champion The Guardian
A new web safety thinktank launched in Europe today with the backing of major tech firms including BT, Verizon and Microsoft. The Family Online Safety Institute is a non-profit organisation funded by membership of technology, telecoms and content firms and chaired by Nick Truman, head of internet security at BT.
us: CDT Analyzes Data Retention, Other Proposals For Protecting Kids Online Information Week
The Center for Democracy and Technology recommends education and filtering tools to prevent what it calls an unfair burden of liability on content and communications providers.
22 February 2007
uk: Police failing over internet paedophiles The Observer
Police are failing to investigate thousands of people who are suspected of accessing paedophile websites because of lack of resources, say child protection experts.
15 February 2007
MySpace to launch video filtering system (AP) USA Today
MySpace said Monday it will experiment with a video-filtering system designed to block clips containing copyright materials. MySpace is licensing technology from Audible Magic Corp to compare with vectors stored in a database. Video can be blocked from appearing on MySpace when there is a match.
14 February 2007
The elusive world of child porn dealers BBC
The alleged international paedophile ring smashed in Austria highlights the ease with which criminal gangs have been able to exploit the internet to make money out of child abuse.
12 February 2007
us: RSA panel addresses Net threats to children CNet
The amount of unwanted sexual material that teens and preteens are exposed to on the Internet has skyrocketed in recent years, yet only a fraction of those children are likely to report it to an adult.
Senator to propose surveillance of illegal images CNet
A forthcoming bill in the U.S. Senate lays the groundwork for a national database of illegal images that Internet service providers would use to automatically flag and report suspicious content to police.
09 February 2007
at: Vienna busts huge child porn ring BBC
Austria has uncovered an international child pornography network involving more than 2,360 suspects from 77 countries, the interior minister said.
Net safety day marked worldwide BBC
Efforts to make the net less risky for children are being marked by the fourth Internet Safety Day on 6 February.
07 February 2007
uk: Paedophiles jailed for hatching plot on internet to rape two teenage sisters The Guardian
Three paedophiles who met in an internet chatroom have been jailed for using the web to hatch a plot to rape two young sisters.
06 February 2007
Rising number of kids exposed to online porn Sydney Morning Herald
More children and teens are being exposed to online pornography, mostly by accidentally viewing sexually explicit websites while surfing the internet, researchers say.
us: Exposure to online porn common TVNZ
About four in every 10 US youngsters age 10 to 17 report they've seen pornography while on the Internet, two-thirds of them saying it was uninvited, according to a study published on Monday. Many of the encounters with online pornography, both sought-out and accidental, were related to use of file-sharing programs to download images, the report from the University of New Hampshire in Durham said.
02 February 2007
au: Kids bombarded by online porn as filter delayed news.com.au
Up to 2.5 million Australian families are still waiting for the Federal Government to deliver on a promise to protect children from online pornography by offering every household in Australia free internet filtering software was expected to be running by the end of last year.
30 January 2007
Building a Safer MySpace Business Week
News Corp.'s online social network has come a long way in setting safeguards to protect minors, but the work is only starting
These men are unforgivable The Times
One of the things that really disgusts the author of this piece about users of child pornography is that we probably all know at least one. Internet sites featuring the abuse of children are practically two a penny: the laws of supply and demand suggest that people's appetite for them is vast (the author doesn't buy the feeble Pete Townshend-style argument about "curiosity". Most "curious" people don't need to see what children look like while they're being raped).
25 January 2007
us: MySpace to send U.S. users missing-children alerts ZDNet
Popular online social network MySpace said Tuesday it will begin sending online alerts to users in certain U.S. regions to help find missing children as part of an expansion of plans to expand safeguards for users.
19 January 2007
First ladies urge joint attack on child abuse International Herald Tribune
Their husbands may not always agree but when Bernadette Chirac, Laura Bush, Lyudmila Putin and Suzanne Mubarak met here on Wednesday to discuss the fight against child pornography and pedophilia, they spoke with one voice.
us: MySpace developing parental-notification software International Herald Tribune
Under fire from both the U.S. government and parental organizations, MySpace.com has announced that it is creating software to give parents a window into what their children are putting on their online profiles.
MySpace developing parental-notification software CNet
Under fire from both the U.S. government and parental organizations, MySpace.com has announced that it is creating software to give parents a window into what their children are putting on their online profiles.
