PG-13 Online
Keeping my kids safe online has always been a goal for me. I researched five different sources of information to try and figure out how I can accomplish this goal and have found three strategies, education, law enforcement and internet filters, that if used together, may work.
Educating our children is the first part of making our kids safe online. Emily Sohn, Author of “Internet Generation”, wrote “Without guidance from adults, young kids usually don’t know much about how the internet works” (Sohn 3). We need to talk to our children and teach them the proper way to use the internet and the things that can be harmful that they need to avoid.
The next part of the equation is law enforcement. Dick Thornburgh stated in” Youth, Pornography, and the Internet”, “Effective and vigorous law enforcement can help deter internet pornography and diminish the supply of inappropriate sexually explicit materials available to children” (Thornburgh 44). Online sexual enticement can be a felony in many states but can also be classified as a misdemeanor in fifteen states. The thing that surprised me the most in my research was that Massachusetts is one of the fifteen that allows predators to be charged as a misdemeanor (Punishment).
The final part of keeping kids safe online is using filters. There are filters right on your own computer or there are many products that you can purchase. In 2001, Congress passed The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). It has been challenged but the Supreme Court upheld the decision. The CIPA forces libraries and schools that receive federal funding to filter all computers that are accessible to children. Congress allows the libraries to interpret the Act for themselves as Katherine Miner author of “Discriminatory Filtering”, states “The status fails to define specifically what this ambiguous language signifies (Miltner 3). One solution is that, libraries could have an adult only section for computers, and the computers there would not need to be filtered.
I found that the article by Kathy Miltner was the most valuable even though I felt it was obvious that she did not like the CIPA law that was passed. She had a lot of information in the article that could be used by both sides of the issue. For example, when she quoted Chief Justice Rehnquist “ ”protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors” outweighs any temporary inconvenience to adults” (Miltner 5).
The information that I found on the web was straightforward. I put key words into Google and did a lot of reading to decide which source I would chose. The two sources that we were given to choose from on the library database were also easy to find. I just needed to decide which article would best fit my ideas for my paper. The first source that I needed to search the library database for started to get a little more difficult. I experimented with many different key words and phrases. The second source was the most difficult. I went into the issues and controversies databases and searched around but never really found anything that I could use to go along with my paper. I tried to pull up an article that was from The New York Times but the article was not available. Within the EBSCOhost site, I chose different databases to search which brought up different types of information.
In trying to keep my kids safe online, I feel as though educating kids on what the internet is all about and how to navigate is the key. When the kids were younger, I would only allow them to be online when I was home. Now that they are all teenagers, I can no longer take this approach. I try to talk with them often about what information should not be given out online and try to talk to them about current issues in the news about predators. I hope that the future will bring better technology and filters to protect children online but also allow them to use the internet to expand their knowledge.
Works Cited
Descy, Don E. "Keeping Kids Safe Online." TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning 50.5 (2006): 3-4. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 5 Apr. 2010.
Descy talks about the ways that we can keep our kids safe online. He gives a number of ways to watch out for our kids. He explains the way to filter the three most popular search engines, Google, Yahoo, and MSN. He also talks about other software that you can buy as a second layer of protection. At the end of his article, he offers many references where you can look up more information.
Miltner, Katherine A. "Discriminatory Filtering: CIPA's Effect on Our Nation's Youth and Why the Supreme Court Erred in Upholding the Constitutionality of The Children ` s Internet Protection Act." Federal Communications Law Journal 57.3 (2005): 555-578. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 7 Apr. 2010.
Katherine Miltner graduated from Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana. She dedicated this article to her mother who was a Middle School Librarian in Ohio for more than 30 years. She talks about the issues Librarian’s have in setting filters for children and how they are able to clear the filters for adults. She gives both sides of the issue of whether we need to protect our children or our first Amendment Rights. In reading her article, it is obvious that she is against the CIPA act that was passed and she gives alternatives to filtering content on the internet.
“Punishment of Internet Predators Varies Greatly By State”.The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.Web. 06 December 2006. 04 April 2009 <http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/NewsEventServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US&PageId=2947>.
On the web site of The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, I went to the press releases, where I found this topic. It names the states that are more lenient on child predators. I was shocked to see Massachusetts as one of those states. They would like all the states to follow the federal guidelines and all have the same punishment for the crime.
Sohn, Emily. "Internet Generation." Science News for Kids (2006): 1. Primary Search. EBSCO. Web. 9 Apr. 2010.
Emily Sohn is a staff writer for Science News for Kids. Science News is a weekly news magazine and has an online site that is updated weekly. In this article Ms. Sohn quotes three different sources; Patricia Greenfield, a psychologist from the University of California, Los Angeles, Justine Cassell, a media specialist from Northwestern University and Zheng Yan, an Education Professor from the University at Albany, New York.
Thornburgh, Dick, and Herbert Lin. "Youth, Pornography, and the Internet." Issues in Science & Technology 20.2 (2003): 43-48. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 6 Apr. 2010.
Dick Thornburgh is a former Attorney General of the United State and Governor of Pennsylvania. Herbert Lin was the National Research Council’s study director for this project. In the article, there is a study by the Girl Scouts which reports that 30 Percent of girls have been sexually harassed in chat rooms. They talk about the ways we can use technology, law enforcement and teaching to help protect kids today, we need to use them together to make it work.
