Online Child Safety

The Internet is both a source of promise for our children and a source of concern. The Internet provides convenient access to a highly diverse library of educational resources, enables collaborative study, and offers opportunities for remote dialog with subject-matter experts. It provides information about hobbies and sports, and it allows children to engage with other people on a near-infinite variety of topics. Through online correspondence, their circles of friendship and diversity of experience can achieve a rich and international scope.

Yet press reports have suggested to many that their children are vulnerable to harm on the Internet. While only a small fraction of material on the Internet could reasonably be classified as inappropriate for children, that small fraction is highly visible and controversial.1 If the full educational potential of the Internet for children is to be realized, such concerns must be reasonably addressed.

At the request of the U.S. Congress in 1998, the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council assembled a committee with expertise in many fields. Based on a wide range of information sources as well as the committee’s own expertise, this report seeks to frame the problem in a legal, educational, technological, social, and societal context and to provide information useful to various decision-making communities–e.g., parents, the information technology industry, school boards, librarians, and government at all levels–about possible courses of action to help children be safer in their use of the Internet.

A report on the topic is available here

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 1st, 2005 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Internet Safety, Parents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.