CanadaNews’ Reporter Notes

The Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) met yesterday at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Centre here in Washington, D.C. The conference: Rights And Responsibility: Child Protection in a Web 2.0 World, was the first conference of its kind ran by FOSI. It was listed as ”…the only conference that unites the world’s greatest minds and most innovative technologies to raise awareness and provide solutions for threats to online safety…”

Several organisations such as Google, Microsoft, AOL, Comcast, CTIA, and Symantec sponsored the conference. And FTC, Internet Education Foundation, Crisp Thinking, BSafe Online, and AT&T were just a few of the exhibitors. An AT&T representative said they [AT&T] has had a long-standing commitment to protecting children online and safeguarding their Internet experience.

AT&T has a program called The AT&T Hometown Tour where they visit communities across the country educating children on Internet safety. They produce a series of lessons, programs and workshops that are specifically geared toward elementary-and middle-school aged students. To date, they have visited more than 125 communities and assisted more than 20,000 students cross-country. The ‘hometown tour’ focuses on emphasizes keyboard skills and potential dangers associated with social networking. They also have lessons on stranger-danger and cyber-bullying.

For parents, AT&T has introduced a comprehensive website of parental controls designed to educate and empower parents called AT&T Smart Limits. This brings together information for parental-control features for the full suite of AT&T services. The suite [ www.att.com/smartlinks ] provides information and directions on how to use parental controls for wireless, Internet, video and home phone services from AT&T.

Stephen Balkam, CEO of Family Online said, “The purpose of today’s conference is to raise awareness of the extraordinary challenges facing parents, teachers, industry leaders, legislators and kids in our new digital world, while highlighting a range of evolving solutions.”

The highlight of the conference was the conversation between U.S. Ambassador David A. Goss, U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy at the State Department and Dr. Vinton Cerf, Vice President & Chief Internet Evangelist with Google. Cerf is widely known as a ‘Father of the Internet,” and is a co-designer with Robert Kahn of TCP/IP protocols and basic architecture of the Internet. Dr. Cerf said, Google navigates you to a document; but what we really want to do is deliver you to an answer.”

With the unfortunate suicide death of Missouri teenager Megan Meier, there has been world-wide attention to the growing problem of lawlessness throughout the web. Meier committed suicide just days before her 14th birthday as a result of cyber-bullying.Since Megan’s death, city officials from her small Missouri town, unanimously passed an ordinance making online harassment a misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine and up to 90 days in jail. Other area towns are also considering similar legislation.

Unfortunately, Meier’s case is not unique. Other suicides have been attributed to electronic bullying.

With the need for more security via the Web, oddly enough only four House of Representative congressional members sent people from their offices. Even more interesting, only two U.S. Senators sent staff members - Sens. Lieberman (I) and Brownback (R).Family Online Safety Institute also produces an annual State of Online Safety Report, which is a performance review of online safety around the world.

For parents who are interested here are some tips for protecting your kids:

• It is important to discuss cyberbullying issues with children in an open and honest fashion
• Studies suggest children are reluctant to tell adults if they have been cyberbullied
• Insist schools have a zero-tolerance policy for all methods of bullying, whether the bullying occurs online or off
• Insist schools have an anti-cyberbullying policy in place. Does yours?
• Contact legislators and governing bodies requesting the enactment of cyberbullying laws

For more information regarding electronic bullying, read What is Cyberbullying and Cyberbullying-The Warning Signs.