June is Internet Safety month. For that reason, this week we updated our eGuide issue on MySpace.com, Facebook and other social networking sites. See Justice Department Internet Safety Month

What you need to know about MySpace and Facebook

MySpace and Facebook are social networking sites where teens share interests, gossips, rumor, photos, pictures and even videos with friends, and, potentially, the entire world. If you have never been to a MySpace page, stop and link to this week's other resources before you read further. Although children under 14 are supposed to be banned from the site, there is no age verification system in place, and, until this year, none were planned.

This January, MySpace.com and the Attorneys General of 49 states and the District of Columbia (everyone but Texas) reached a landmark settlement in which MySpace agreed to significant steps to better protect children on its web site, including creation of a broad-based task force to explore and develop age and identity verification technology. See www.ct.gov/ag/cwp/view.asp?Q=404000&A=2795

MySpace acknowledged in the agreement the important role of this technology in social networking safety and agreed to find and develop on-line identity authentication tools. The Attorneys General have advocated age and identity verification, calling it vital to better protect children using social networking sites from on-line sexual predators and inappropriate material.

Other specific changes and policies that MySpace agreed to develop include: allowing parents to submit their children's email addresses so MySpace can prevent anyone using those addresses from setting up profiles, making the default setting "private" for profiles of 16- and 17-year-olds, promising to respond within 72 hours to inappropriate content complaints and committing more staff and/or resources to review and classify photographs and discussion groups.

Facebook reached a similar deal in May. See newsletter/vol6_iss36. Facebook, the world's second-largest social networking Web site, will add more than 40 new safeguards to protect young users from sexual predators and cyberbullies, attorneys general from several states said. Original MSNBC article here. The changes include banning convicted sex offenders from the site, limiting older users' ability to search online for subscribers under 18 and building a task force seeking ways to better verify users' ages and identities.

While this will eventually make social networking sites "less unsafe" for teens, it is by no means a panacea. So what does a parent need to worry about?

First, there are predators lurking on MySpace, Facebook, Xanga and any other social networking site, just like there are anyplace where large numbers of children congregate. In July, 2007 MySpace booted over 29,000 registered sex offenders from its site. (See newsletter/vol5_iss47) And that's just the ones who used their real names and addresses. Initially, MySpace even fought efforts by eight Attorneys General to subpoena sex offender information (See newsletter/vol5_iss35.), although they quickly relented. (See newsletter/vol5_iss36.)

There are other potential dangers inherent in a social networking environment. How your child behaves online is the best predictor of their online safety, just as it is in any other situation a teen faces.

Children need to understand that the Internet is a public forum. Everything posted there, thanks to sites like the waybackmachine at archive.org (the internet archives), is available for quick view by anyone forever. Nothing on the internet is truly private, and nothing truly private should ever be posted there.

And parents need to understand that way children interact with each other has changed dramatically in the last dozen years. Cell phones, text messages, instant messaging and social networking sites are the "normal" ways teens and tweens interact with each other on a daily basis now.

You not only need to know if your children have a social networking site, you need to visit it regularly. The three big dangers are: your children can meet people they shouldn't meet; will post things for public display that they shouldn't post; and will be exposed to things to which they shouldn't be exposed. Teens' sites should be set to private. If you can find it easily, that's a problem. If it is set to private, and your child doesn't just "add friends" just because they've requested it, you have somewhat mitigated, but not completely eliminated, the first problem. (People can still get to your child's site from a friend's site, but won't see pictures or other things not on their "profile" page unless your child "adds" them as friend.)

Everything posted on the site, from blog entries and pictures, to videos and mood descriptions, should be thought of as if they were publicly posted. You and your children should understand that college admission officers and employers will look at MySpace pages. Is there evidence of law breaking (underage drinking for example)? Are there inappropriate pictures? If your child would be embarrassed to have you or a grandparent see anything he or she has posted on MySpace, it shouldn't be there. The easiest way to make that message hit home, is to create your own MySpace page (Billy'sDad42) and comment about things on your child's site.
(To see how to do this, visit CT AG myspace.pdf)

The final hurdle, your child being exposed to inappropriate material, is the hardest to cross. "Friends" will send inappropriate "bulletins", pictures and videos, even if your child would rather not have seen a partially naked picture of a classmate he or she barely knows. Just as in life, the key to limiting the risk of exposure to this danger is to know your child's online friends as well as you know the ones she meets with IRL ("in real life"). They are probably the same friends your children see at school, the mall and sports events–and if they're not, it's often because they are filtering the ones they expose you to.

If your teens are like mine, their MySpace and AOL's Instant Messager accounts are open anytime they are home. If you took our previous advice and their computer is an a public area of the home like the kitchen or the family room, you should easily be able to click from one friend's site to another to see what is there.

Tonight, ask you child to show you their MySpace, Facebook or other social networking site. Most will happily do it.

Reminder of the week: Experts often talk about getting to know your child's friends. It is equally important for you to know their "online friends" as well. Who is listed on your teen's MySpace page as a "top friend" and what's on their page? Visit every one of their sites. Ask questions about "friends" who you are unfamiliar with. Then go one step further, look at top friend's top friends' sites. Is it the same group of friends? Do you see anything troubling on their sites?