Blog Blocker : The Blog

The Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) wants YouTube to close up shop and shut down.

The PAT claims that YouTube is encouraging cyber-bullying by not immediately removing videos that the PAT claims to be inappropriate.

YouTube counters that it is but a tiny minority that break the site rules, and videos flagged by the community as inappropriate are reviewed and then removed when a violation is found.

I think that the PAT has their hearts in the right place, but they’re going about it the wrong way. Calling for the shutdown of YouTube and other similar video sites is an extreme position and they won’t get far with that attitude. They should instead encourage an active dialog with kids, parents and teachers.

For the first time in history, kids have been given a voice that can potentially travel around the globe with a few clicks. For parents, this can be a frightening thought especially for those that are unfamiliar with technology. Encouraging a public, open dialog is the best way to encourage positive use of this new technology.

Now, what to do about the food fight videos…

Remember back in January when MySpace said they had something called “Zephyr” in the works that would allow parents to monitor their child’s MySpace usage?

Well, the public beta has arrived, and they’re calling it ParentCare. Let’s just say that parents hoping for a quality product will be sorely disappointed.

The only thing you’re going to get from ParentCare is your child’s display name, location (which you would already know), and the age that they put in their profiles. That’s about it. Their Profile ID is given, but you better hope they have a public profile, ’cause if they don’t, the ID is useless.

Finally, sorry Mac users, but this software is Windows only.

I’d post a screenshot but the EULA prohibits that. In fact I probably shouldn’t even be talking about it. Brandon at IMSafer handled the Fight Club references that I wanted to make regarding this ridiculous policy.

But since it’s a PUBLIC beta, feel free to check it out for yourself. Here’s the ParentCare FAQ and the direct download link to the software.

… And any other sites their kids might be getting into as well.

This article on Canada.com does a fine job of outlining the need for parents to keep a vigilant eye on what their children do on social networking websites. Some stats from the article:

• 58% of parents know where to download parental control software, but only one-third actually use such programs
• Only 49% of parents know the online aliases their children use
• 26% of parents are unfamiliar with YouTube (Wiki Article)
• 33% of parents are unfamilar with MySpace (Wiki Article)
• 41% of parents are unfamiliar with Facebook (Wiki Article)

Article was originally discovered via JustMySpaceStuff.com

A few days ago news broke that MySpace found a whopping 29,000+ sex offenders using the site.

With an estimated 600,000 registered sex offenders in the United States, this means that 5% of all of America’s sex offenders were stupid enough to put in personally identifiable information in their profiles. How much do you want to bet that more than 5% of sex offenders are on MySpace?

I was unable to discover what exactly MySpace used to identify the offenders, but a comment on MyCrimeSpace claims that MySpace uses facial recognition software to identify predators. I was unable to verify this, but this story about a false positive hints that they may be using recognition software, since the woman falsely accused was pictured with a man who was a registered sex offender.

Update: As commented below, MySpace does indeed use facial recognition technology provided by Sentinel Tech. 

Neil at The Interactive has some food for thought. While MySpace is still ahead in terms of eyeballs looking at the site, current trends indicate that Facebook is gaining, and fast.

The culture at Facebook is more tightly knit, whereas the fake profiles, spammers, and corporate profiles on MySpace are pushing users away.

Linda at The Social Networking Weblog has a different take. She feels that in order for Facebook to make significant gains on MySpace, they’ll have to start making their profiles more customizable, as MySpace pages currently are.

I personally think that the site that ends up with the most kids, wins.

Facebook is driving hard for the younger market. With new widgets like Fluff Friends, it makes you wonder: What 10 year old girl could resist a cute furry creature for their Facebook profile?

MySpace isn’t slacking in the battle for your kids eyeballs either. Just yesterday the entire MySpace homepage was pushing the new Simpsons cartoon movie.

Regardless of which site wins, parents need to be aware of both sites and know just how hard they’re trying to get your kid to sign up.