Task Force Recommendations
for best practices for child online safety.

Recommendations for
Best Practices

Children worldwide are presented with unprecedented opportunities and challenges in today's digital environment. All stakeholders - parents, teachers, child advocates, health professionals, providers of Internet access and content, law enforcement officials, and other concerned citizens - have a shared responsibility to ensure that a child's use of digital technology, and particularly the Internet, is as safe and enriching an experience as we can make it.

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The Internet, and in particular the “World Wide Web,” began life as a novel - and by today's standards - static venue for researchers. It has since morphed into a massively interactive and dynamic “cyber domain” for all comers that has added a new dimension to our social structure. The world is now connected as never before, featuring the ability to learn, create, engage and participate 24/7 on a global scale and in a way that has transformed communications, personal relationships, and business transactions.

Yet with the Internet, a marvel of our age, come many age-old problems. The same social issues -bullying and other inappropriate behaviors - that exist on the playground or in the mall also take place, and in some instances can be magnified, on the Web. Most adults, who have grown into the use of Internet-based communication tools, products and services as they were created, understand these issues, and the potential pitfalls and even dangers that can exist with them. But today's children encounter these issues in digital space without the adult mediation and instruction that occurs more frequently in offline situations. And some children who are more at risk offline, are also at greater risk online. Therefore, it is essential that there be multiple mechanisms to help them gain an awareness of the pitfalls and their consequences, as well as the behavior and social skills to avoid them.

Our task as adults is to understand our responsibility for helping children reap the full benefits of the Internet, while at the same time ensuring their safety. This task is challenging in the cyber world, where changes occur by the hour, borders and boundaries are sometimes warped, and parents and kids can operate in different universes, with different expectations and assumptions about technology. Reaching common understandings therefore can be difficult. But just as adults share responsibility in the physical world for helping children make the best of opportunities while ensuring their safety, they need to understand the shared responsibility in the digital world. As Dr. Tanya Byron has written:

I believe that alongside new technology we need a new culture of responsibility, where all in society focus not on defending our entrenched positions, but on working together to help children keep themselves safe, to help parents to keep their children safe and to help each other support children and parents in this task.¹

In short, there exists an “ecosystem” of shared responsibility where each aspect of the network and its users are represented, and the perspective of each stakeholder involved with ensuring that children use the Internet in rewarding and safe ways is taken into account.

A Child's Digital World

Today's children are digital citizens from day one. In the digital world, we document their birth on video, and share photos by mobile phone, email, Web sites, and social networks. Our digital kids watch DVDs, listen to CDs and play digital learning games as toddlers. We keep grandparents and other family members in touch digitally with emails, videos, and photos. In elementary school they become participating cyber citizens, part of the 250 million North Americans regularly online.² Parents check on them via mobile devices, they research school projects online, and submit homework to teachers' Web sites. They connect with each other using text messaging - which has to a large extent replaced voice and email contact among youth - and within their new community, by social networking sites, which are used weekly by 71% of youth ages 9 - 17.³ Their entertainment includes creating and uploading content and downloading and remixing that of others, or entering imaginary worlds to play games of logic or skill, all the while listening to an iPod or other MP3 device, watching TV and carrying on multiple online conversations. All told, kids and teens spend more than 6.5 hours per day in front of media screens.⁴

What specifically are children doing online? Youth participation differs depending on age, ability, and the availability of technology. The research staff of the Center on Media and Child Health (CMCH), Children's Hospital, Harvard compiled the following examples.

Internet use and online environment by age group:

Young kids (ages 3-6)

This age group is learning to use the computer and is often on the Internet with parents, siblings, or teachers. Children are familiar with digital screens from television, but now are able to explore new interests that are challenging, exciting, and creative as opposed to the passive relationship with a TV show. They can:

• Watch video-sharing sites with their parents to explore interests and access things that appeal to them but are inaccessible in their own communities,
• Follow their TV interests onto the Internet through the connection between TV shows and associated Internet sites, reinforcing their relationship to characters, and
• Utilize educational games and activities that are divided into categories that focus on many of the skills designed to prepare preschoolers and Kindergarteners for formal schooling.

Middle kids (ages 6-10)

This age group is facile with a computer and the Internet. Children are online every day for school assignments and recreation, including:

• Advergaming (e.g. branded games),
• Pure recreational gaming and free flash games,
• Moderated chat situations in walled garden sites,
• Expanding interests with new information rather than simply exploring established topics, and
• Homework.

Tweens (ages 11-13)

To all of the above, new and more portable technologies are added for these youngsters:

• Cell phones and texting,
• Chat situations, which are not always moderated,
• Heavy video/computer gaming, and
• MP3 devices such as iPods and music downloads.

Teens (ages 14-18)

All available digital and connected technologies are in use by teens:

• Social networking sites,
• Viewing, creating, and posting content on user-generated content sites,
• Downloads of music, videos, and TV shows,
• Writing code (e.g. widget, programs, and blogs), and
• Mash-up sites.

At the same time that adults help youth develop the technical skills to participate in this society, children must also be taught how to build the necessary habits and ethics to interact with respect towards others. Appropriate digital citizenship includes topics such as etiquette, communication and literacy, security, health and wellness, and rights and responsibilities.

It is also critically important to understand that a child's online actions produce a trail of digital footprints -- public information that can enhance or degrade their reputation and influence the course of their lives. For example, college admission administrators and potential employers scan the Internet to review applicants based, in part, on the sum of their postings online. For an instructive diagram of the responsibilities that face youth in the digital world, see Appendix D.

Perspectives of Stakeholders in the Ecosystem

As discussed in the preface, in June 2008 the PointSmart.ClickSafe. Summit was convened in Washington, DC by iKeepSafe, Common Sense Media, Cable in the Classroom (the cable industry's education foundation) and NCTA. Focusing exclusively on child online safety, a variety of participants drawn from stakeholder groups - including leading child safety advocates, parents groups, Internet service providers, online content providers, software companies, educators, law enforcement officials, and federal policymakers - shared their perspectives and discussed “best practices” for online safety, marking the first time such a broad cross section of online safety stakeholders came together for such a discussion. The PointSmart.ClickSafe. Summit was organized around four “panels” of stakeholders: 1) parents and parenting groups; 2) members of the education community; 3) representatives from the public health and safety community; and 4) representatives from companies providing online content and/or Internet access. The following outlines the perspectives offered during these panels. For a full summary of the panels, their key findings and recommendations, see Appendix A.

Parents and Parenting Support Groups Panel

This panel restated the basic principle that parents are, and should always be, the primary protectors of their children. Parents and caregivers teach their children how to take care of themselves, most likely using the same examples and processes that their own parents used. That works when parents are familiar with the issue (e.g., crossing the street safely), but it is evident that many parents are insecure about the use of Internet technologies. The panel showed that parents:

• Need to be empowered with tools to become familiar with the digital world,
• Lack awareness of the convergence and mobility of technology,
• Are less clear about their parenting role related to technology, and
• Do not have equal skills and/or commitment to children's education and safety.

In addition, a 2008 iKeepSafe survey, The Parent Project,⁵ in collaboration with CMCH at Harvard Medical School, was one of the first studies about parents and the Internet and offers key insights. It revealed that parents have strong feelings and real fears about what their children encounter online, and what education they would like leaders to provide for safety and security:

• 89% - How to protect kids from online predators
• 81% - What parental controls are available and how to use them
• 79% - Information about how predators lure children
• 77% - How to implement Internet safety practices at home
• 71% - Kids and chat/social networking sites
• 70% - Links to Internet safety resources in each state
• 69% - Kids and instant messaging

Education Panel

Education, by its nature, can play a positive role. Schools already teach students to use technology as a tool for learning. In addition to technical skills training, schools are in a position to provide safety information and the ethics perspective that children need. The panel had these observations:

Teaching:

• Improvement is needed in Internet safety education in schools, including professional development for educators and dedicated space in the curriculum.
• Appropriate online behavior and expectations should be taught across society to students, parents, and adults.

Policy:

• Education is governed at the state level but implemented at the local level, resulting in a disjointed effort, and
• Decisions are made far away from the classroom and often become a barrier to teaching.

Technology:

• Schools are often required to use filtering, but it is an imperfect tool and schools sometimes over-rely on it to the detriment of teaching youth about safety and responsible online behavior, and
• Filters are limiting because they sometimes block harmless and legitimate content and also fail to address quality and/or accuracy of information and skills.

Involvement and Access:

• Educators need cross-sector involvement with all stakeholders, and
• There are access equity concerns (e.g., Is Web 2.0 available to students both at home and at school?).

Public Health and Safety Panel

Health professionals see first hand the need for children to acquire those skills that lead them to become positive contributing members of society. They recognize the impact of technology and its influence on youth in the following ways:

• Youth have a sense of community within technology that adults lack,
• How youth use and interact through digital products affects how they feel about themselves, and
• Health professionals want youth to become responsible, ethical, and resilient cyber-citizens.

Internet Industry Panel

A number of best practices for online safety are currently employed by many individual companies and organizations in the Internet sector, either as a part of their overall corporate responsibility efforts or as a part of brand protection and extension, and many of these were put in place primarily in response to strong consumer demand. Indeed, the panel noted that there are continual innovations to online safety practices as companies compete to provide the best tools and resources for parents and families. The panel also noted that practices tend to include multiple components, such as the provision of parental controls or other tools, information about the use of the controls, information about media literacy, and partnerships with expert third party and/or non-profit advocacy groups.

A number of challenges for developing tools and information for parents and other consumers were noted. These include the proliferation and rapidly changing nature of platforms; the fact that the Internet “knows no borders;” and that no one “silver bullet” solution seems to exist. There was also the acknowledgement of the tension between wanting to provide truly empowering tools to parents while at the same time avoiding censorship or undue restrictions.

(Footnotes)

1. Byron, T., Safer Children in a Digital World, 2008.
2. Internet World Stats, www.internetworldstats.com, 2008.
3. Gruenwald Associates, Creating & Connecting - Research and Guidelines on Online Social and Educational Networking, Web Wise Kids, 2007.
4. Roberts, D. Foehr, U., Rideout, V., Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-olds, Kaiser Family Foundation Study, 2005.
5. The Parent Project, iKeepSafe, funded by the Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Award Number 2006-MC-CX-K016, 2008.