BlogSafety.com: An Online Social Network About Online Social Networks

by Andy Carvin, 1:23PM

This week, noted Internet safety experts Larry Magid and Anne Collier launched BlogSafety.com. The website is intended to be an online social network about online social networks - and how to ensure that teens use them safely.

As all of you who’ve been following this blog know, online social networks like MySpace have been getting a bad rap as of late. While there’s nothing inherently dangerous about online interactivity, there have been enough high-profile cases regarding online predators and the like that have caused a sense of panic among parents and policymakers alike.

BlogSafety.com intends to raise the level of debate and offer concerned individuals a place where they can discuss practical methods for improving online safety and using Web 2.0 tools responsibly.

The site isn’t intended as the anti-MySpace. In fact, it’s receiving backing from MySpace and a who’s who of companies involved in online social networking and blogging. AOL, Bebo, Facebook, Friendster, Hi5, LiveWorld, MySpace, SixApart/Livejournal, Tagged, and Xanga have all signed on as partners in the project. “These companies,” said BlogSafety advisory board member and Mayo Clinic
professor Dr. Daniel Broughton, “have put aside their competitive
differences to support an essential cause: protecting children through education and awareness.”

Even though the site has only been online for about a week, more than 100 people have already signed up, launching around 50 different discussion threads. The most active discussion so far has centered around the question, “Should social networks ban users under 16?” You might think a site about online safety would rally behind this idea, but the responses have been quite nuanced and thoughtful. One user, named amcowiti, disagreed with the idea, noting that kids would simply find other tools for hanging out online:

The kids are looking for friends. If you kick them out of SN, they will find some other places to hang out, probably more destructive. Simply encourage the [social networks] to protect them more.

Another participant, IamKC, points out how easy it is for kids to get around age restrictions because there’s no simple way to verify a user’s actual age:

It’s hard for social networks to ban users younger than 16 for the fact that they could lie about their age. Take Myspace for example. That is the most popular and used site among teens and adults. They don’t have really good rules and they dont keep teens 15 and under all that safe. Even though those 16 and older can’t view their profile, it takes a matter of changing your age to 15 or younger to view that profile. How do you think all those pedophiles are finding these young kids on that site?

Larry Magid, one of the founders of the site, offered his own insight:

Interesting idea though I would worry that it might not be reliable in all cases. Seems to me that if we were to do age verification one solution would be to have Departments of Motor Vehicles issue IDs. Of course, that brings up all sorts of issues and might be considered a path towards a national ID which is quite controversial. Still, I’m not at all convinced that people under 16 should be banned from social networks. Anne and I attended an all-day session in DC recently where a couple of Attorneys General suggested this. What convinced me that it’s a bad idea was a comment from the head of a suicide prevention group who pointed out that MySpace is the largest sources of referrals of high-risk kids to his hotline. Could it be that social networks are actually SAVING lives?

Along with the discussion forums, BlogSafety.com has a nice collection of articles and advice for parents and teens on online safety, including information on safe blogging advice for teachers and so-called predator panic - this current spate of media hysteria regarding predatory behavior.

Of course, the site is still a work in progress. It’s missing a lot of the details you’d see on other online social networks, such as the ability for users to upload their own multimedia content, or RSS feeds, which allow users to subscribe to content streams without having to visit the site again and again. Given the companies that are backing the site, though, it’s probably just a matter of time before the site reflects some of the best practices being used by the better blog tools and online social networks. So rather than wait until these features appear, I’d strongly recommend checking out the site, creating an account and diving into the conversation. To paraphrase Metcalfe’s Law, the value of an online social network increases based on the number of people participating in it…. -andy

Filed under : Blogging, Cool Tools, Social Networking