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FTC Says Virtual Worlds Bad For Minors
eldavojohn writes "A new report from the FTC is claiming minors have access to explicit content via online virtual worlds such as those found in online games. The report makes five recommendations to keep little Johnny away from the harms of Barrens chat: Use more effective age-screening mechanisms to prevent children from registering in adult virtual worlds; Use or enhance age-segregation techniques to make sure that people interact only with others in their age group; Re-examine language filters to ensure that they detect and eliminate messages that violate rules of behavior in virtual worlds; Provide more guidance to community enforcers in virtual worlds so they are better able to review and rate virtual world content, report potential underage users, and report any users who appear to be violating rules of behavior; and Employ a staff of specially trained moderators who are equipped to take swift action against rule violations."
Or parents could be parents. Don't want you kids looking at something? Act as the filter don't let them buy/play games that expose them to things you don't want 'em to see....
Take some responsibility here folks!
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
All this is necessary because kids never hang out with older kids in REAL LIFE and hear those words from them! How about just teaching your kids what is and isn't appropriate -- eventually they are going to have to learn to cope with these bad influences anyway.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
If you are a parent with children, you have to be aware that the internet is not a child-safe place. Is it possible for a kid to abstain from porn and other explicit stuff online? Sure. Will they always be able to avoid all of it? Probably not.
It's not really the job of these virtual world companies to constantly police their worlds and take out everyone that says a naughty word. If you let your kids use the internet, they are going to see things you don't want them to.
Get over it.
Segregation would make everything fail. Its a fact.
People act like asses on the web because they can, and it is a good thing. It is also a good piece towards humor.
And most online games are "bad" to an adult, since the servers are filled with swearing ninjalooters most of the time. Or we could play EVE online, where we got 101% more backstabbing and bitching than other games, and this one is closer RL than most of the MMO's in WoWs style.
So i question this blatant joke of a research.
However they may be right for different reasons.
Ice Cream has no bones.
Are they going to take the kids out of public schools as well? Online chat is nothing compared to what's talked about in the hallways of our middle schools and high schools.
Surely seeing profane language and a few distended assholes is much worse than smoking cigarettes, sneaking booze from your parents liquor cabinet, hearing older kids use profane language, and looking at some stolen porno magizines...
Kids have, and will always be kids. They will hear and do things before their parents willingly expose them to it... all except the distended assholes. That is definitely an unfortunate consequence of the internet.
Champions Online would let my daughter create a cat themed hero, but wouldn't let her name it "Pussy Cat"... I haven't tried naming a character "Dick Cheney" yet.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I would much rather not have to deal with other people's children or silly rules to protect them. Build kiddie pools and throw the little snots and the content filters in them.
We already know the details of nanny government and all that jazz... but when are the businesses going to stand up, pool their money and fight being pushed into becoming nannys themselves? They may think its cool now to have a little power, but soon they will start getting sued by parents for not keeping their little dissident children in line. It won't be facebook, craigslist, and myspace being sued. It will be the companies that run games like WOW, Everquest, EVE, and the rest getting sued for the GM's and Dev's not keeping predators out of the game world.
People are a sleep at the wheel here!
If they can figure out how to get an MMO up installed, port forwarded and running with good FPS and low lat, you might want to also try asking your ISP to not allow them to download anything else to "My-book-reports-and-class-notes" which happens to be over 1gig in size...
I always thought that gold minors were an important part of many virtual wolrds.
The Real World (TM) ain't too good for them, either. Of course, I have to no clue what FTA is about, nor does it faintly relate to the title.
Parents telling the government to 'think of the children'. Parents not knowing what their children are doing online.
Dear Parents,
You gave your kid a computer and access to the Internet with little or no supervision or restriction. What the FUCK were you thinking?
Sincerely,
Someone who's thinking of your children for you!
p.s. If you thought the zombie box was bad 20 years ago, you're in for a world of hurt with the Internet.
I'm pretty sure that is impossible to build effective age restrictions into the internet. The one article mentions that some of the worlds set it up so that if you enter a birthday that says you are too young they block you from creating an account with a different birthday from the same computer. This only hurts households with multiple users and only needs to happen on one world for the kids to learn that they need to enter that they are over the legal age the first time.
the most irritating people in these virtual worlds are the damn teenagers - I'm all for separating out the populations or at least allowing me to filter out messages from kids. Most adults have at least some level of decorum.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I wonder if this was in any way brought about by my 200-story-tall penis avatar that I built in Teen Second Life.
I'm of the opinion that the "real world" with all its war, police brutality, marketing, religion, fear and suffering is worse.
Really... are sex and swear words that bad?
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
I'm convinced that most adults, especially those who claim the mantle of "protecting the children" forget what it's like to be a child.
I mean, come on. Don't you guys remember the ribald jokes told as early as the first grade, and the whole fascination with that mysterious, taboo subject that nobody who talked about it really understood, and nobody who understood it talked about it?
I am a parent of a five year old, and I'm far more concerned about advertisements and commercials than I am worried that he'll overhear a reference to boobies or weiners. Exposure to "adult subjects?" Please. Like you never told a joke about headlights or train tunnels when you were six, or sung the "Miss Lucy" song.
And as for chat rooms and other "predator" hangouts, well, that's another level of threat... one that the media has a whole other set of objectivity problems with. (And common sense and involvement with your child is all it takes to manage that threat.)
I can see the fnords!
FTC: "You can't do that in public" Woman: "Huh?" FTC: "You can't nurse a child, THEY MIGHT SEE A BREAST"
I've been in Second Life and wandered innocently (naively? probably.) into some places that I didn't want to be, much less want a minor to be.
I remember when I was a minor on the internet I had access to explicit content.
You know what they're really missing here? Teenaged boys are looking for explicit content and you'll never be able to stop them from finding it.
This whole segregation thing is crap. 95% of interactions between a child and an adult are positive. Segregation leads to 'Lord of the Flies' inbreeding of immature thought. Mixed company is the proper company for a child to have to learn how to grow up to be a sane, responsible, rounded individual.
Look at our history... children didn't grow up in segregated 'child only' areas... they grew up working with their parents and community members. They were exposed to life.
I'm of the opinion that over 95% of interactions between a child and adult are positive. How many of you have grouped with an obviously young kid, and helped them through an instance? Asked them to please be more polite, or type neatly, or don't ninja all the loot? Grouping, chatting, and talking with more mature players is what helps children learn maturity (at least in the context of an MMO).
Perhaps some of the other points of the article have merit, but I'm quite against age segregation. We are a community... act like it.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
[...] minors have access to explicit content via online virtual worlds [...]
Minors have access to "explicit" content in the real world, too. How is this any different? Are these concerns merely puritanical in nature, or is there evidence that this is actually harmful?
Who needs terrorists when children are doing such a great job of destroying our society?
...; Seal little Johnny away in a hermetic reality bubble lest he experience anything that might alarm him or his parents; ...
A friend and I were out at Ikea buying some furniture and as we it onto the cart he drops it on his foot and says "Fuck!" Some lady we hadn't seen up to that point says "Excuse me, there are children here." My friend turns around and as politely as possible and says, "The world isn't censored"
My point being that more people need to realize that the world isn't censored, it will never be possible to censor the world and if you want your kids to not swear you need to teach them it is something you don't like so that they learn to hide the fact that they swear like a trucker when you aren't around.
Either make the .kid domain with strict regulations/requirements and legal fines if you don't follow them.
Another radical idea would be for parents to do their job of parenting and just stop annoying us with all of this. The internet is just like the real world, not all places are kid-friendly. Parents should know that.
Even age itself, for adults, doesn't quite cut it. Some people just can't handle some types of content while others can.
Damn -- you beat me to it.
Okay, mister smarty pants. I'll see your brain chip, and raise you a remote-control kill-switch.
-kgj
Is "profane" language really such a concern anymore? Every I know who is under 40 tends to swear quite freely... having kids turns them into a hypocrite about the subject or what?
These concerns have always struck me as very unsophisticated... a belief in magical "bad" words seems pretty backward even by general religious standards... and if you're not religious, than what possible justification is used for the belief in "bad" words? Tradition?
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
From the movie...
Cartman: Damn! Shit! Respect my fuckin' authoritayyy!
[shocks Saddam]
Saddam Hussein: You need to watch your mouth, brat.
Cartman: Dog-shit taco!
Saddam Hussein: Quick Satan! Do something!
Cartman: Try this on for size... Blood drenched frozen tampon popsicle!
Saddam Hussein: Hey, buddy! I know I was mean before. But don't worry - I can change!
Cartman: OK... not! Fuck, shit, cock, ass, titties, boner, bitch, muff, pussy, cunt, butthole, Barbra Streisand!
I, for one, welcome our new children overlords with electro shock abilities.
Mess not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
just remember, the US was founded in part by the Puritans, people so stuffy that the ENGLISH couldn't stand them.
The belief that there are certain things which it is of vital importance not to appear to condone.
Why does the Federal *TRADE* Commission give a fuck what is going on with kids in online settings? Isn't this the domain of the FCC?
There is a war going on for your mind.
Imagine that, a group that regulates content calls for stricter regulation of content on a new medium.
I guess they are just as into job security as the rest of us.
Children just can't be left unsupervised on the internet until they are old enough to make proper decisions. I don't understand why parents (and governments) feel that the internet needs to be made child-proof; it just isn't and it never will be. Computers need to be left in common rooms with access restricted whenever the parents aren't home.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
REAL WORLD via your six o'clock news is OK.
The U.S. is a joke.
Yours In Yasnogorsk,
Kilgore T.
I've got four kids and I've taught them that there is not such things as bad words. Words are a tool of language; its how you use them that matters. There is nothing wrong with the word bitch, especially when used in the proper context. Our genitalia have proper anatomically correct terms, penis and vagina. There is a proper place to use words, you don't talk about penises and vagina in proper company or in public places, the words are not bad, but it is rude because it might offend or embarrass others. The idea that a word is naughty or bad is just as wrong as saying that sex is naughty or bad. None of us would be here without sex, including test-tube babies since at some point in history their grandparents or great-grandparents weren't test tube babies.
Censorship of thoughts and language of any kind is a bad thing. If you censor a word or call it bad, it will just be replaced by an innuendo or another innocent word will acquire its meaning. Language is like the internet, it too views censorship as damage and routes around it.
*facepalm*
Got to love government mentality, find a problem with an insanely simple answer, and complicate it beyond all logic. Their called "Parents", if they aren't doing their jobs you've got a lot bigger problem their kids seeing some dirty words or even a little porno online. In a sane world I could understand every site/game/virtual world having a self applied voluntary rating tag, but if it was ever required by law I could just see it being used for ISP level filtering, harassment of host companies, ect. The internet has grown so successfully for one reason above all others, Freedom (of information). Its a pity that whenever governments see "freedom" and "successful" used to describe any one thing they get the uncontrollable urge to regulate.
Second Life manages perfectly well to keep child safe areas alongside the most disturbing furry wtfery without mixing the two.
If you are a parent and you are truly that worried, then stop paying for your kid to play WoW. Don't filter a MMO and downgrade it for us. It starts with filters and then just expands and makes the good online games dull. If you don't want your child to do something, don't let them. It is not Blizzard's or SOE's fault little Timmy showed his wang to his class, it is your fault. Maybe you should have taught him that is not acceptable to do. Not all parents are like this. Some parents out there still do a great job parenting, but the parents that want to censor games instead of just not letting their kids play them, GRR! (that is my way of not getting flagged for flamebait and stopping).
The world is how you make it
Sounds like someone at the FTC got ninja looted by a minor.
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
I think this one needs a no shit sherlock tag (and perhaps a pedobear icon)....
but yea...there's plenty of cursing in the game world...not just virtual worlds in MMOs.
But then again...if you consider the fact that in MMO's...you're hacking or slicing or using magic or something to kill and destroy....yea....at the very least, it should be rated "PG-13"
The best internet troll ever. Not long after it was originally posted (back in '01) it appeared here. So many Slashdotters fell for it that the sheer number of comments (mostly bites on the troll) crashed the server.
It was awesome.
Best Slashdot Co
A friend and I were out at Ikea buying some furniture and as we it onto the cart he drops it on his foot and says "Fuck!" Some lady we hadn't seen up to that point says "Excuse me, there are children here." My friend turns around and as politely as possible and says, "The world isn't censored"
On the flip side, when your friend goes to the store and has to put up with someones kids who are running around yelling, screaming, and crying, he should remember that the world isn't censored.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
It's actually pretty bad. I used to play an online Flash game that was heavily used by kids. This game had an auto-loading chat room on the side. I remember there were times when some of the users would repeatedly say some very disgusting sexual things in the chat room. Over and over again, going into extreme detail. The chatroom, at the time was very clunky, and not at all easy to set the ignore function. I remember feeling pretty nauseated that these kids (I'm guessing some were 9,10,11,12 based on what they were talking about) were subjected to this kind of trash.
If your argument is that internet porn is no worse than porn magazines, you are very wrong.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
I just want to point out that a lot of the acts the FTC is aiming to protect children from are actually perpetrated by the children themselves.
Whenever I see or hear racial slurs, or comments I would consider inappropriate for public forums, they always seem to be spouted by those with the language comprehension of a 3rd to 9th grader. Most adults who pay their own subscription to these worlds aim to do better things with their time then spamming trade chat with inappropriate or blatantly offensive messages.
That said, I'm all for it. Get the little buggers off my virtual lawn and let them have their own sandbox.
there is a difference between censorship and the expectation of polite behavior in public. While the quick response cursing due to injury is NOT unexpected, the lady wasn't out of line with her comment either.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Y'know, I remember when I was going online in my early teen years. I remember chatting with people online about all manner of things. Yeah, I went into a few cybersex chatrooms for the thrill of it, I hung out in adult discussion channels.
I learned from it.
I talked to 25-year-olds and 35-year-olds about philosophy. I spectated on public cybersex, and learned things about human behavior and desire. I watched people wiser and smarter than I was make good decisions after good decision, then fuck up, do something stupid, and recover from it.
Humanity learns from its elders. That is the way it has always been. The older ones teach the younger ones, the younger ones mull over what they've been taught and improve it, the younger ones become the older ones, the cycle continues. Why are we trying to break this? Children today are kept in the dark more than in any point in history - should we lock them in a small steel box, isolated from human interaction, until they're 18 and magically an adult?
I was emotionally mature early. Everyone I talked to said so. They said that at 16, I was wiser and smarter than a lot of their peers. And now I look back on who I was then and realize I knew nothing, but, indeed, I was still far ahead of the curve. Today, I give out advice to people, just like I was given advice to back then, and I know for a fact I've helped the lives of many people, I've given them a philosophical kickstart and pushed their lives onto good tracks.
And in twenty years, they'll be doing the same thing as I did, only even better because they'll have started from a better position, thanks to my efforts.
These recommendations are actively dangerous to the progression of humanity.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
My 14-year old cousin transferred to my realm and sometimes is on vent with us. The conversation drifted off into the sophomoric-put-down gutter and some of the digs had me raising an eyebrow about my cousin being in channel until I saw he was commenting in raid chat "haha - that was awesome. LOL! Oooooh - snap - I'm going to use that on my brother!"
In any case, unless all forms of communication are removed except strict emotes... the problem's not solvable.
All the kiddies play alliance :P
Develop a gatekeeper that, rather than asking for an age or birthdate, actually tests emotional maturity based on some signal criteria. If you test out as mature enough for the subject matter, you're in. If not, you get redirected to something appropriate for your maturity level.
PROS: Emotionally mature users would be admitted, and others blocked, regardless of age. Advanced tweens and stunted twenty-somethings could both be dealt with appropriately.
CONS: Where exactly do you draw the line? Chronological age may still need to be used as a deciding factor in borderline cases. Also, some sites might find it beneficial to develop a gatekeeper that identifies other factors not directly relevant to emotional maturity--high susceptibility to certain forms of advertising, for example.
Hey, it's just a thought.
If your argument is that internet porn is no worse than porn magazines, you are very wrong.
That was not my argument at all. I just meant to say "No shit," if you don't watch your kids they will expose themselves to everything possible. The internet is new, kids and parenting are not.
Because segregating kids from the "adult world" and then suddenly plunging them into that world on their magical 18th birthday is a great way to raise capable, well-adjusted adults.
- - - -
The real Tetsujin 28 is a giant robot.
Personally, I don't think the "adult content" is the biggest problem. Immersion in a virtual world can be damaging to your sense of reality, parents (and children to whatever extent that's possible) need to be aware of it. Frankly, I'd be more worried that my kid wants to spend all his free time and all his money in a virtual world, then I would if he wanted to get off watching virtual sex.
Slashdot is not a game, Slashdot is not a game. Crap, I just lost points.
I spent today in a discussion about video games, free speech, and how hiliary clinton is a c-muscle for supporting jack thompson like legislation. I'm on the side of putting to death all those who attack the 1st amendment... and I hate almost every thing that screams protect the children because it almost always ruins life and freedom for others. But i do think that segregation is a good idea, and that some sort of parental approval to allow children to interact with adults in online gaming is a good idea for all involved. If you have ever played online... the racism... the sexism... man... those kids are rough... THEY ARE WORSE THAN ADULTS. Here and there you want to hunt one of them down... The MMOs... I imagine them being like the IRC in the 90s... again... there is a need protect adults from horny under aged girls... Heh, I think the adults actually need protected from the kids. I dont think I want to see the legislator getting involved, I think I want to see the industry decide how to sort this out themselves.
all except the distended assholes. That is definitely an unfortunate consequence of the internet.
I don't know - freaks were around before the Internet. I was in high school when the internet was just starting to catch on but still uncommon and some of the things I heard the seven-year-olds talking about on the bus were far worse than what the teenagers were talking about. One day I heard slices of two conversations on the same bus:
Teenager: "So they're fucking without protection? Oh my God, she really thinks he's gonna stick around? His parents are divorced and no one knows where his mom lives. She misses by a DAY and he is GONE."
Little kid: "I dare you to stick a pencil up your pee-hole."
As much as I loathe gossip, I listened closely to my fellow teens in an effort to not hear the little kids.
Parent is on topic, all this is just to stop little billy from hearing someone drop an F-bomb... A daily occurance in most parts of the country
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
As a parent, I take great pride in knowing exactly what my son's doing in World of Warcraft. He knows that if I get home home from work and my dailies haven't been run then there's going to be hell to pay.
I think it's much better for our children to be smoking virtual crack rather than the real thing.
Why not just ban them from the internet? Seriously, that appears to be what everyone wants. Take away a wounderful resoure from the children. It is for their own good!
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Enhance "age-segregation"? Have "community enforcers" decide what anyone is allowed to see and report people suspected of being disenfranchised? Use "specially trained moderators" to harass the non-conforming? "Language filters" which censor the oldspeak which is not allowed in the brave new world?
Seriously, you Americans are batshit insane. Just because the kids' communication is less private these days doesn't mean that they should be forced to always toe the Politically Correct line at that age so that any (indirectly) snooping ageist adults won't have their sensibilities offended. The kids' "not acting adult" may be offensive to ageist adults, but it's just normal for the kids, you know. Remember all the things you were not supposed to say when your parents could hear, etc.? It's polite fiction for parents that their kids don't do that, and it was OK when the kids only had to deal with it when the adults were around. The problem is, on the Internet they are always "around", even (and especially) in places that are supposed to be for the kids! Funny how you have to "be adults" very strictly in those places, compared to the adults-only ones.
These "measures" are just more and more elaborate ways of yelling "get off my lawn!" (with an ever-expanding lawn), or to pay someone to yell that for you with a bullhorn. It's discrimination, pure and simple, the placing of the rights of adults above those of the kids' (particularly teens - the younger ones don't care). There isn't even real "age segregation" when the moderators are adults. They will always be pushing the agenda of the enfranchised group.
They have no say in the matter. Constitution says so. End of discussion.
that most people who agree with this sentiment don't have a problem with the government making their health care / lifestyle choices for them? "I don't want to be an adult, but you damn sure better be one!"
Besides, this is easier said than done when we live in a world where Obama's Safe Schools czar is giving fisting advice to 14-year olds and when I can't even check out of a grocery store without seeing at least 5 magazine / tabloid headlines about the latest celebrity sex news. Face it - the best a parent can do is try to explain the context of the f'ed-up world we live in where immediate and unrestrained sexual gratification is the supreme goal, and where people no longer are humiliated by debasing themselves to animal-like levels.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Here is my proposal.
Have NIC go and make a .kid toplevel domain, and let the OS makers have an option to turn a box into a kiddie box that doesnt let anything but .kid resolvable back and foth domains to happen. THEN go and police the .kid domain all the fuck you want.
Google can go and provide the google.kid with all the decency that the most conservative taliban/ultrachristian demand, then all the search engines the same, and for christ sakes, leave the rest of the world a-fucking-lone. Same for the online games and online worlds and any kind of service that is INTERESTED in tending to children.
NO SIG
[friend] drops it on his foot and says “Fuck!”
[someone’s] kids who are running around yelling, screaming, and crying
Which of those is more likely to have management request that the person get control of the situation, or leave?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
The Windows registry and the *nix style of .conf files everywhere are both equally shitty.
What you guys need is some sort of regulator that will regulate everything by assigning new regulators every once in a while.
[/sarcasm]
Yes, it's sarcasm. Deal with it!
I've enjoyed playing WoW for several years and during that time I've seen things like people typing the word Anal and then linking a character skill, such as the warrior ability Rampage. I've seen this go in in /2 trade chat, which is visible in all cities, for as long as it is 'funny', which can be about 30 minutes. No moderation is done and to get someone in trouble you have to open a ticket and complain. This went on across many different servers and lasted for months before I heard of anyone getting banned for it. Profanity is tossed around rather frequently as well.
In other words, it is basically just like the real world, which it is basically futile to try to protect kids from. My concern is simply for parents who are naive about what their kid is getting into. I personally don't see a huge problem with this. I was a latch key kid, found my dad's stash of Hustler mags at an early age, and I'm a normal adult with a young family etc. I rode my bicycle all over town, bought cigarettes from a machine, yada yada yada.
I remember in college I learned to prey upon girls who had been aggressively sheltered all their lives. Once they got to college they were just looking for a guy to go crazy with. I was determined to be that guy for as many beautiful young women as I could find. So really, as a parent, ask yourself, is it really the best thing to own a helicopter?
Reality News writes:
"A new report from the Internet is claiming minors have access to explicit bullshit via FTC such as those found in Slashvertisements. The report makes five recommendations to keep little Anonymous Cowards away from the harms of Barrens' lies: ...
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I'll admit to having only skimmed the FTC posting, but I didn't see anything saying that could be construed as "virtual worlds are bad for minors." They said that minors have ACCESS to virtual worlds, but any conclusion of harm is based on prior assumptions, with which many of us would disagree.
On the issue of kids faking their birth date after being initially rejected, Game Politics said:
I responded:
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
I'd kill for servers that didn't allow anyone under 30. It'd probably cut way down in the idiot racist/homophobic bullshit and cheating.
The cake is a pie
No, but her concern was misplaced. If she was truly concerned about "other people" she would have asked if he was alright. She was more concerned with trivialities than the actual state of her fellow human.
Pretty much. I'd like to know what sort of psychological mechanism makes (some) adults entirely forget the sort of raunchy, crazy things they did and talked about as a kid.
I think we already do too much age segregation. While mixing adults and children can lead to some problems, it can also have extremely beneficial effects on both. I would also prefer a school system that included children of all ages, in addition; having 3rd graders in the same school as 12th graders gives the younger kids more guidance, and the older kids more of a sense of responsibility (assuming that social behavior hasn't already completely broken down). Keeping people primarily isolated to their age 'tier' doesn't seem healthy, and can promote 'lord of the flies' type behavior to a certain degree.
The same applies with mixing senior citizens in with younger people; both benefit.
I can see a lot of truth in many of the comments posted here.
I know one of the problem I continually face is in trying to let my kid "go out in the real world and BE a kid". Personally, I'm a big proponent of what Penn & Teller were trying to say in one of their episodes of "Bullshit" .... that the world is NOT more dangerous for kids today than it was in previous generations. In fact, statistically, it's more probable that your kid will randomly be struck by lightning than become a victim of a predator, while playing outside. But my own beliefs and opinions don't dictate what the rest of the community believes either.
As one example, my girlfriend's 3 year old wanted to play outside, a few weeks ago. We live on a dead-end street, where there are at least 4 other families around with young kids. In fact, the people next-door to us have a 3 year old who loves playing with her 3 year old. So she let her go play, since my daughter and her 6 year old son were already playing outside anyway. Seems reasonable enough, right?
Well, not more than 10 minutes later, I get a frantic knocking on my front door. One of the neighbors a few houses down was basically demanding I run out and get her kid, because she was standing outside, on the sidewalk, in front of his house, with no other kids around! When I went to get her, she looked a bit puzzled, and didn't even want to come back in. She was simply standing around because she WANTED to, and was in no danger I could see. (Apparently, the 6 and 7 year olds decided to play in a neighbor's back yard, and didn't want her to go with them since she was "too young" to play whatever they were playing.)
This isn't the first time I've dealt with this sort of thing, either. On several previous occasions, my kid was outside playing, only to be taken by the hand, by an angry parent, and led up to my doorstep. Basically, they tried to tell me I was being irresponsible, because I let my kid play outside and their kid(s) had to go in for dinner, or because they were leaving to go someplace, or what-not. It never occurred to them it might actually be OK for my daughter to walk up and down our street and find her own way back home, when she wanted to come home!
This is in a low-crime, middle-class suburb, mind you .... I do find it interesting that when I used to live in a rougher, lower-income part of town, I *never* saw these issues. Whether it was because parents were too busy to be bothered with hovering over their kids constantly, or because they just had more common sense and less fear of the "real world", I don't know? But kids of all ages played outside, both during the day and even after dark, on a street that WASN'T dead-end and had no sidewalks -- and everyone got along just fine.
how about, grow some ba!!s and be a parent.
I have x3 kids and I will and do monitor what they watch on TV and on the internet.
It's not just video games, and it's not just for children. I recently spent several hours trying to find out how to disable the child protection restrictions on my parent PVR so they could watch their recording of "Downfall", which had been rated 15s. Their complete inability to figure out how to watch a restricted program is I think pretty typical of most users. In short, these restrictions are not just for children. They are for everybody. Like the Great firewall of China, if you can get 90+% of people to just give up on watching what you don't want them to watch, your measures have been a success.
I should note that the "Downfall" program (criticised as being sympathetic to the Nazi's), was the only program they had ever recorded which had implemented such a restriction. One of the Die Hard films sat on right there on the same screen, completely unrated. Downfall was being broadcast on a British television station, at around the time when far right elements like the BNP were on the rise in England, so I'm fairly suspicious of the whole affair.
Censorship is not just for kids. It's for everyone too busy or too unskilled to get around it.
May the Maths Be with you!
Well if that's your argument...I agree with you :p
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
The parent of today have all been raised with excessive amounts of dirty pictures in dirty magazines and we all know how badly they all ended up. They're just trying to prevent their children from growing up as the messed up, immoral, foul-mouthed, rapist maniacs that they grew up as.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Or parents could be parents. Don't want you kids looking at something? Act as the filter don't let them buy/play games that expose them to things you don't want 'em to see....
Take some responsibility here folks!
Or perhaps we could look at some of the positive aspects of virtual worlds on kids. Thanks to Ultima Online - years ago - my kids learned to type and read at a very early age.
They learned social skills and one of my kids is now a very good writer. It really helps reading comprehension. My daughter could type her name before she could write it.
They also were able to learn some very important life lessons without really any risk. (UO had a 'safe' world where you stared and a full player-vs-player wild west type world you
could go to) There were always people who lied and would try to 'lure' you to the PVP world and kill u. They learned first hand 'not to trust strangers' and be skeptical of something too
good to be true. I remember once my young son was so sad- he had associated with another character in game and some of the other characters 'bad' karma rubbed off and
his in game karma also deteriorated. In that game - karma determined the title you were given in front of your name. His changed to 'Notorious' - when he asked me what that
meant- and I explained it. He was upset. You hang with that type of person- thats what you get. Another lesson.
Granted - UO does have one of the nicest player base you will find these days, many other games...not so much.
Yes parental supervision is key and you should make it clear what they will encounter.
You and your friend are both making assumptions. While reading your story, it did not occur to me that this woman was trying to "censor the world" in any way.
The simple fact is that your friend offended this woman, and probably offended the children as well.
Not every child grows up swearing "like a trucker", or wanting to.
While we're at it, not all truckers swear "like a trucker".
When I was ten years old, I wouldn't have walked up to a stranger and asked them to please stop swearing, but I would have appreciated an adult I know doing that for me.
Tolerance is not a one way street to your house.
He swore, in public. What did you expect, a big high five?
I'd be more concerned with what sort of effect being plugged into a virtual world does on brain development, physical coordination, compulsive behaviours, addiction, muscle tone and face to face socialization.
The focus on dirty words makes this whole thing a stupid joke.
I agree totally, we must join together in our effort to protect barrens chat from Little Johnny!
--- As to make my comment seem, by comparison, more intelegent... doodie doodie doodie poop poop poop!
Cool.
We can finally shut down the MMRPG called "religion".
Where are my mod points?
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Any moment now, someone will try to label this as "ZOMG TEH FASCISTISMS" or "big brother". Nevermind that the FTC is just releasing recommendations for parents in this one, and not actually regulating, restricting, or enforcing anything. How dare a government agency observe something and then make a tremendously obvious recommendation based on those observations.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Of cause, there are some successes in filtering words in MMOs. Case in point, Toontown Online.
(Granted it's done by only allowing a small subset of preset phrases, but at least it works. The closest to vulgarity is the spamming of "You stink!" phrases.)
No he expected the mother to explain to her children why the man swore and to tell them it's inappropriate for them to repeat it for x, y or z reasons. Instead the children learned it's ok to tell others how to behave.
Pretty much. I'd like to know what sort of psychological mechanism makes (some) adults entirely forget the sort of raunchy, crazy things they did and talked about as a kid.
Part of the nostalgia system, I imagine. Childhood becomes a time of innocence, best friends, summers too short, and 100% awesome cartoons.
How many people have told a kid "these are the best years of your life"? What, don't you REMEMBER those so-called best years? If it's been all downhill since grade school, your life has sucked.
After years of running a large scale message board myself, one thing I have learned is that you simply can't quantify every situation enough to objectively make the correct decision every single time. An automated system can either be inadequate and unintrusive, or, draconian and inefficient. Using a team of humans is even more chaotic, because each one ultimately ends up falling back onto their own experiences to determine right from wrong. This can vary greatly from person to person, leading to either being too lax or too iron fisted. Both extremes have their own consequences and effect upon the community being watched over.
Even a system like Slashdot's setup, where the community polices itself, isn't free of flaws. A community that polices itself will ultimately normalize with whatever the averages deem "appropriate", for better or worse. In addition, any attempt to override this average will often be met with opposition from the community when the operators' trust in the community gets put into question.
No online system will ever be perfectly safe for children. But neither is the real world.
The only real way to protect children both online and off is for the parents to be more involved in their kids' lives. Talk to them. Keep the video games and computers out in neutral parts of the home where you can actually see what's going on, rather than putting them in the bedroom. Furthermore, don't violate your kids' trust in you by monitoring their actions from behind the scenes using keyloggers or VNC servers. You can be just as effective by watching their actions out in the open when you walk by. If they make a sudden knee-jerk reaction like turning off the monitor or closing windows, you know their up to something and your actions immediately after should be enough to put the fear of god into them when they know they're doing something they shouldn't be doing.
Want your kids to grow up "right"? Then don't let others do your job for you!
8==8 Bones 8==8
You see he's had a near terminal dose of Barrens chat. He'll be making annoying Chuck Norris jokes for weeks now.
I am so very sorry for your loss
I saw this somewhere as a joke, cant recall where: "Parental Advisory: Parenting may be required."
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
I wonder how the FTC will react once it learns the explosive truth: the real world is bad for minors.
When I was a 'minor', the last thing I'd have wanted to do in most games was get segregated in an area with kids of my own age. It would have led to a dull, boring, and ruined gaming experience as they all messed around. Hell, I'm 25 now and I wouldn't want to be segregated in a game with half of the 25 year olds I know for exactly the same reason!
As people have said, you can't control every little thing that kids see, hear or do. I've got an 18 month old and we're going to be relaxed, logical and sensible with his up-bringing. Certain things have their place, but both me and my wife know what kids are like and won't go crazy if he starts viewing porn at age 14, and language will be explained.
How about putting more onus on the parents in order to control their children???
Does the fact that making wine , we should ban wine because of the alcohol content that children
seem to have access to anywhere in europe (legal for children to drink wine in france and italy)....NO
The parents teach the children how to moderate their drinking of wine from an early age,
so as to understand that it is not to be abused! There are alot less alcoholics in europe then here in north america!!!
Same with pot, legal in many countries in europe....and you do not see the country falling part now do you?
So if we teach our children about what bad things that can happen, and educate them (a job much
lacking in the parent department these days), you will get children that know when they should not get into
games that promote killing women for bonus points, or crashing your car, then stealing another.
I see no point in this practice, as in fact I understand , and from a young age too, that scraping
cars is not environmentally friendly decision, as well violence never went without consequences.
Can today's children say they understand these points?
Can you say today's parents drive home these points and spend time (like a dog)
to reinforce these points constantly?
My point exactly. Let's ban the video games, let's ban alcohol, let's ban sex, let's ban life altogether!
Little kid: "I dare you to stick a pencil up your pee-hole."
Pfff. Lame. Done it already.
Awesome. The Government is finding another way to step in and take power. Next thing you know the EPA is going to try and get control of all the water. Oh wait, they already are. http://www.fabricsofas.org/