The latest trends in social networking have brought pressure to the sites that heretofore seemed to be little more than a free for all to anyone who wanted to participate.
MySpace, Facebook, and various other sites are feeling the pressure to lay down guidelines that protect younger users and they are seeking to meet these expectations to the best of their abilities.
As long as there are kids online, there will be predators targeting them. Parents must realize that their teens may start out using the Internet for homework help or research purposes, but before long they will get involved in the world of social networking as well.
Facts about kids and Internet safety reveal that many times neither the kids nor the parents understand truly how sophisticated online predators have become and how little software is actually going to protect a younger person.
Since social networking sites are here to stay, parents will be wise to work with their kids to help them make good choices when it comes to interacting with friends and also strangers on these sites. To suggest that kids should never enter into discussions with those whom they do not know might be sage advice, but it is entirely unrealistic. To this end, parents applaud the new Internet safety policies on Facebook, especially since the site is seriously seeking to eliminate objectionable content and also posters.
There are various Internet safety software recommendations every parent should know. First and foremost is the kind of software that will monitor, filter and restrict a child’s access to sites featuring predetermined content; this kind of software is commonly chosen by schools and other institutions of learning where children are expected to utilize the computer and where such safeguards stand between the child and the vastness of the ‘
Net with its pornography, solicitations and other objectionable materials.
If you believe that it is sufficient to assist law enforcement agencies in their efforts of catching online predators, you are sadly mistaken. For each and every online predator that is apprehended and convicted, there are plenty of others ready to step up and take their places in the chat rooms, message boards, forums, and social networking sites frequented by teens and even younger children. Sure, catching online predators is a start, but the only true way of keeping children safe as they are online comes with training them how to act when they might come under attack.
With Facebook increasing and enhancing its safety features and other social networking sites quickly following suit, it is not surprising that many a parent is convinced their kids are safer online than they ever were before. If online predators were not evolving alongside the technology designed to keep them away from kids, this might be a true statement, but as it stands, Internet safety software recommendations do not make up for parental supervision.
