The Complexity of Regulating Web Access for Kids

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Comment by Konstantin A Lukin on March 5, 2010 at 6:17pm

There are a number of commercial cyber nanny products available but, as you said, there is no perfect technical answer.

Cyber Nanny is an interesting concept, and somehow it rings a number of bells in my mind. First of all, it sounds like the whole cyber nanny market right now is in its infancy stages, as it really has huge potential. For example, I can see how cyber nannies can be used in combination with AI to produce a machine that 'learns' based on previous experiences about each particular environment it is in - in order to help humans with their every day tasks in an intelligent way. These 'nannies' could even 'evolve' one day to look and talk like we do, which is only a science fiction for now, but has very practical applications. I think there is no 'perfect technical answer' because we (humans) believe to be the decision makers and technology is a tool we use to accomplish every day tasks.

In a way, search engines are already becoming our digital nannies by suggesting search results they 'think' are most appropriate. Naturally search engines are evolving because we keep 'feeding' them with information. This could seem quite innocent for now, but could have evolving implications over time. Search engine data warehouses are currently 'collecting' information at growing rates, becoming more 'in tune' with our human functional capacities. Is it possible that machines can actually 'surpass' us in logical reasoning, and, if so, one day start making 'conscious' decisions? (independent from original programming due to 'overflow' of information?)

Anyway, apologies for such a long write-up and a bit off topic, was just inspired by the 'cyber nanny' talk. Thanks for mentioning it :)

Comment by Wendi Kamiya on March 1, 2010 at 11:48am

Thanks for the call and mention Dan. I'm glad to see others agree that real parenting is key...it's not easy (ask our parents!), and likely never will be. Teaching right from wrong while fostering curiosity, and taking those teachable moments...to teach!

Comment by R. Scott Belford on February 28, 2010 at 10:37pm

OpenDNS for the average home parent. SquidGuard and DansGuardian if you want to go the appliance route. Years ago, when the City allowed me to put wifi into parks, I had to assure them that I would filter the drek. I implemented the same solution for Chinatown's wifi before other decisions were made. Proxies can be defeated, too, depending on your upstream URL filtering sources and your port management. You can't be beat parenting, but I put this software stack, including logging, on a netbook.

Comment by Peter Kay on February 28, 2010 at 8:26pm

I think it's precisely because my kids were mouse-clicking since age 2 that I made a really big deal about teaching them about right and wrong line. Thanks for the kind words.

Comment by Daniel Leuck on February 28, 2010 at 8:16pm

Aloha Peter. Thank you for sharing your experience as a parent of kids in this age range. Based on my conversations with educators and education IT specialists it sounds like you are taking the best approach. Dialog and parental involvement trump tech solutions every time, even for people who are tech savvy such as the Kay family :-)

Comment by Peter Kay on February 28, 2010 at 7:47pm

Thanks for writing this post, Dan. As a parent of two girls in early teen/tween years, I can tell you the very best thing that has worked for us is to be highly involved with our children and making them aware of inappropriate activity (and actors) very early in their lives. That is, we made our kids aware of right and wrong especially as it applied to online behavior.

Second, we only have computers in our house in one office/bedroom. No computers or TVs in individual bedrooms. I can't tell you how many countless times we were able to point out inappropriate things to our kids from lewd lyrics and videos on YouTube to IMing friends in the middle of homework to submitting personal data on seemingly benign forms.

Technically, we don't have any kiddie protections installed. My feeling is that if you teach your kids right and wrong and reinforce that with clear examples of both, they will do a much better job of exercising judgement than any software can (at least today's state of the art).

Finally, my belief is that if you don't teach kids right and wrong and instead rely on software to keep them from taking a bite from the forbidden fruit, you're only giving them more curiosity to see what it is you're trying to hide. One of my kids would try to get round controls if only for curiosity. My other one would do it out of spite. Neither works.

Comment by Daniel Leuck on February 28, 2010 at 5:33pm

Hi Kostya - There are a number of commercial cyber nanny products available but, as you said, there is no perfect technical answer. It seems like the best solution is to rely on a combination of these tools and supervised connected sessions when they are very young and, as they reach the threshold where they will inevitably encounter this sort of material, ensure they have the mental tools to deal with it.

Comment by Konstantin A Lukin on February 28, 2010 at 1:22pm

After all, the forbidden fruit is the tastiest of them all!

From my own experience, this is usually the case. But really, I do not think there is a clear solution to regulating web access for kids. For one thing, it could be possible to setup commercial proxy servers and monitor all traffic, including media content, keep a 'live' list of offending sites, etc.. For a monthly fee, one could connect via these proxies, everyone in the family could have an account.

Another thing, I think, is giving proper 'family' education to kids, where they have their own awareness of the quality of information they'd like to participate in and share with others.

I think some balanced/healthy combination of these two points would be a safe enough alternative (at least for my kids) to strict regulatory measures.