Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Keeping Kids Safe From Online Internet Dangers

The internet can be a valuable resource for children. They can use it to do research for school, to play interactive games, and to communicate with their friends and teachers. With one mouse click a window of information is at their disposal. Just how safe is the internet for kids? There is a down side to this multitude of online information. One could identify it as internet dangers. The web is a wide open forum for free expression. There is online content that children have access to most any parent would agree is inappropriate. Pornography and violent content are just to name a few of the hazards children can be exposed to online.

Any child with unrestricted Internet access can view adult pornographic images. Either intentionally or unintentionally, any computer literate child can view free teaser images posted by Internet "pornopreneurs". These are pictures posted on websites designed to solicit new subscribers. They could easily stumble across sites containing images from Playboy as well as porn prosecutable as obscenity. There are various ways that this can happen unintentionally. Through misdirected searches, a child can key in his or her favorite search terms and porn sites pop up along with the sites that were searched for. Innocent word searches such as "boy" or "toys" on popular search engines can lead a child to numerous inappropriate sites. Your child can type in legos, with one missed keystroke "leg" is entered and is directed to sites focused on legs- some of which contain porn. According to a recent study in England, 26 popular children's' characters such as My Little Pony and Action Men revealed thousands of links to porn sites .

There are many forms of violent and hateful content all over the internet. Hate promoters use the internet to look for vulnerable youth to attract to their community. There are sites which contribute to an online culture where cruelty to others is considered acceptable. Some impressionable kids move from sites where kids are mocked for their personal appearance to sites where minorities are attacked. The hate promoters may use misleading tactics by offering harmless activities, crafts, or links to other respected kids sites. For example, martinlutherking.org is a site which would appear to be a tribute to the civil rights leader but in fact is a hate site derived from a white supremacy organization.

Parents do their best to protect their children - that should include protecting them from internet dangers. There are some effective ways of protecting children from inappropriate content on the internet. Keep the lines of communication open with your kids - ask them to show you where they go online and what they like. Establish clear guidelines of what they can do on the internet. It's a good practice to keep connected computers in a highly visible area especially for kids under 10. Investigate online protection tools such as filtering software.

source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Keeping-Kids-Safe-From-Online-Internet-Dangers&id=4576741

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