doingthingsthealyway

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KEEP YOUR KIDS SAFE ONLINE!!!!!

This article gives great insight on the parents side of online safety. Not only giving advice on the rising issue, but also providing sympathy for the average parent in this tech-savvy world. The author Amy Fleming goes through some steps of how to keep ahead of any issues arising from children online. She starts off with what I believe is the most important, starting the online safety conversation early with children, even stating advice on how to do this in a not fearful or controlling way. Then, the authors next piece of advice was to in the settings of your WiFi restrict or block any inappropriate sites. After that, Her next two steps are get to know the platforms and check their settings regularly, explaining how this can maintain safety and controls more effectively. Lastly, she says to be a good role model to your children and think about what a good amount of screen time looks like for them on average. The author then gets in to a very helpful section for all parents dealing with these issues “,when they break the rules.” She explains how what will be more effective instead of just saying because I said so, giving advice to ask the child why they felt the need to get around the rules and it may be as simple as a conversation. She then concludes by explaining that it is important to also make sure that children are getting real world social interaction to balance with online. Then she says to make sure never to judge the media children consume because they wont respond well to rules and restrictions if they think that is the sole reason. Any parent should like 10 minuets to read this article. It acts as a very effective way to teach parents better ways to handle these situations.

Currently the most popular online apps/games for children all evolve some form of user generated content and public chatting with strangers. So why don’t parents know more.

Roblox is one of the top platforms for children. And there are many precautions you can take in the setting section of your child’s account. As Roblox describes its parental feature”, Link your account to your child’s to get access to parental controls and insights on your child’s screen time, friends, spending, and more.”

Fortnite is also a very popular form of online media. In the settings section there are also some things parents can do to limit chatting to friends only, or none at all. However you have to make sure to monitor and keep an eye on friends and friend requests as well as chat logs.

YouTube kids is also one for the leading platforms for youth. However, this more is a little blurry. Many up-loaders get past the monitization by giving the video an innocent feel or innocent characters but can depict more adult themes. Make sure to keep an eye on what your child is watching and their history. Another way to keep them from being exposed to things like this would be to make sure auto play is off and outnumber Kids isn’t auto-choosing a video for your child.

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• Children online is getting more and more common each year.

• “In the US, 36.2 million children (ages 0 to 11) are active internet users, exceeding teen (ages 12 to 17) internet users by 11.6 million,”(King, 2024.)

Many children targeted or put in danger chatting with strangers online.

• New AI makes cyber kidnapping scams easier for predators. “Using recordings and online posts to appear real, virtual kidnappers are targeting parents for money. Using AI-generated voices to sound like their kids, kidnappers are after ransom payments. No one is more desperate, fear-driven, or willing to pay than a parent who thinks their child is in danger,”(Schultz, 2024)

• iPad kids, Kids are being fully emerged in technology and media from a very young age. Kids become attached to these devices, but are lacking the parenting and street smarts needed to be safe on the internet.

• Pixie Hollow, a once popular now retired online game bases off the Tinker-Bell movie franchise, meant for young kids to experience gameplay as their favorite fairy and interact with the animated characters from the movie. However, pervs lurked in the chat of this game just praying for a vulnerable girl to manipulate. “A Colorado man drove to Connecticut to kidnap and sexually assault a 14-year-old girl he met in a Disney chat room after plotting out her abduction for more than a year, police and prosecutors said.” (Gologowski, 2019)

Movie Star Planet, Yet another children’s chat room game. Kids could become a movie star and talk to their friends, except the same creeps arose”, An investigation is now underway after an 8-year-old girl alerted her mum to strange messages she received via the app asking her location.” (McStravic, 2017)

• Roblox, A very popular online server where you can not only join user created games but make your own, with the added feature of in game chat, voice chat, and private messaging. Same theme as before the pervs know this is a children’s game and that these children are chronically online and vulnerable. Even having user created games like, “Kidnap or get Kidnapped.”” Darius Matylewich, 27, remains behind bars after officials say he met the victim while playing Roblox, a popular online gaming platform. Police in Wayne, New Jersey were called at around 6:45 a.m. on September 10 for a report of a missing child. She was found soon after.”(Eyewittness, 2023)

Fortnite, Another online game this one for adults and kids. Voice chat and game chat and very very common here and new adaptations have made users able to create games like they do on Roblox. Three children were kidnapped by a man one of them had been communicating with on Fortnite, Illinois police say.”(Stunson, 2023)

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Attention to all parents!!!!!

Online is not a safe place for your young children. Many Games and online pages your children visit each day are the same resource pervs use to find their next victim to pray upon. Many of these online games like Roblox, Fortnite, and even Minecraft online lobby’s all allow kids access to public chat with others in the game. The downside is if you see a sketchy person or stranger in real life you wont talk to them or let your kids talk to them right? Well online there is a stigma that it is different because of the playful animated nature. However, not everyone on these games are just children some of them are the definition of what you call “stranger danger.” So what is this idea that it is different behind a screen? It’s not. Online is just as dangerous as the real world and a lot more confusing.