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Editor's Notes

1. As well as racist sites some sites can also be misleading or include blatant inaccurate content. For example: Spoof sites are those that pretend to be the real thing but in fact are mere imitations, often taking positions that are the opposite of those that the real site supports. Then there are URL mimickers who register a URL that is slightly different to one that attracts a lot of traffic eg dinsey.com and most famous of all whitehouse.com rather than whitehouse.gov. A local example is class95.com – a porn site rather than the Singapore radio station. Web sites can offer inaccurate material that rewrites history – the illustrated site – www.martinlutherking.org provides a very inaccurate view of the great man’s life. Such inaccuracies can be very important if they concern topics that impact on personal safety and well being e.g. health information. Kids should be advised to be very careful about medical information online. �� Smart tips suggests that ways of checking out sites are to look for who published them – the source; when they were last updated (in case the information is out of date); who is linked to the site – you can search for this in google with link: and then the URL. Links provide evidence of third party endorsement; and finally any references on the site – corroborating information and its source.
2. Many adults think of the Internet primarily as either a tool for e-mail or for finding information on the web. Children are huge users of a third Internet application – interactive services. The difference with these forms of service is that they are in real time i.e. you are in touch with people who are online at the same time as you are. Under this heading I want to talk about CHAT – for having a conversation with a large number of people - very widely used sometimes from well known web sites (eg singnet) and sometimes using software you can download called IRC – Internet Relay Chat. Instant Messaging – this is for talking one to one usually to people you know. Like Chat there are commercial programmes from companies like Yahoo!, AOL, and Microsoft and also more general software called ICQ – which stands for I Seek You . Games – with wonderful acronyms like MOO, MUD and MUSH, use chat as a means of allowing interaction between players Mobile phones – SMS text messages are very popular with teenagers and now you can chat using your handphone as well Cybersex – this is a particular use of interactive services, especially messaging, to fantasize about sex
3. There are some very useful tools on the computer which can help you. Internet favourite folders. – Sometimes it is possible to access inappropriate sites through mis-spelling website addresses. – A very powerful example here is www.whitehouse.gov (Home of US president) and www.whitehouse.com – (porn site). Encourage your children to store the websites which they regularly use in their “favourites” folder or bookmark. For very young children you might want to restrict the sites they visit to those you have pre-selected and put in their favourites folders. – You can personalise these folders so different children have different sites. You can look at the History or Temp folder on the computer to check what sites have been accessed. This is a sensitive point because you may feel it not appropriate to monitor your children’s online use and check in this way – however simply informing your children that you can check might help them to be more careful as to what they access. Hotmail accounts (those e-mail accounts which you can access on the web) are notorious for junk and SPAM. Talk to your children about what e-mail systems they use and consider signing them up for one from a respected ISP. Consider using a filtering tool for your machine at home but remember although they may block out a lot of inappropriate content they are no substitute for good parental involvement. A smart kid can often disable the filtering product and other computers which your children may access (such as in an Internet café or friend’s home) may not have filtering enabled.
4. Pornography has been available for many years, but the Internet has made it much more available.Indeed the porn industry has led the way in internet technology – (credit card purchasing, streaming and webcams, pop ups and “toaster adverts” etc. Reality is that people can now access more pornography – without leaving their own homes; without paying for it; and they can keep pictures stored in a place others may not find it. �� Say that the two examples are www.whitehouse.com - remind people how close this is to the www.whitehouse.gov site they looked at earlier. Just three letters difference. Shows how children can access it by mistake. The other example is of a bizarre site called www.nakednews.com on which news readers read serious news but take their clothes off as they are doing it. �� Many parents can be shocked when they first go on the Internet because they think that some material such as pornography should be illegal. Because the Internet is an international medium, and in many countries pornography is openly allowed, most of the material is perfectly legal in the country where it originates. But that does mean that it doesn’t cause harm and that it is accessible by children. But why should we be concerned if our children see pornography: Porn is not about beauty or seeing women or men as a whole – just about the physical vital statistics. Therefore it encourages a false and unachievable fantasy about sex with women or men at any time, in any place, in the way you want it. Porn can be used by pedophiles to make young children think that they too should undress and engage in sex. And porn can be addictive. �� The SMART tip here illustrates that a good filtering package can help block a great deal, but important to stress that lots of porn can come as attachments in hotmail accounts and that some children can get around filtering packages. Also be careful to use favorites files and type in correct website address !