INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
Introduction and Summary

Protecting Kids Online:
What Industry and Nonprofit Organizations Are Doing

What can be done to protect America's children online? It's a question that has been asked with growing frequency by diverse and often emotional voices in recent years as computers have become a ubiquitous part of kids' lives in schools, libraries, and homes. This report is one attempt to provide an answer. More precisely, we endeavor to look at what is being done -- right now -- by companies in the online industry and by interested nonprofit organizations to make the Internet a place where kids can learn and have fun without being exposed to pornography or violence. We found that the means exist to make the Internet a safe and enriching experience for kids.

Chairman Bliley's Challenge

On Oct. 28, 1998, The Media Institute welcomed Rep. Tom Bliley (R-Va.), chairman of the U.S. House Commerce Committee, as the keynote speaker at the Institute's annual Friends & Benefactors Banquet. Chairman Bliley spoke of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and how it is offering new opportunities to consumers and fostering a competitive environment in the communications industry.

"My vision for communications policy is quite simple: Government should help, not hinder, the booming electronic marketplace; consumer choices should be maximized; and there should be ample competition," Rep. Bliley said. "At the same time, safety, security, and privacy on the Internet should be protected and advanced." And, he added importantly, "we must do everything necessary to make sure the First Amendment rights of adults are not trampled."

Chairman Bliley then issued a challenge: "Tonight, I am asking everyone in this room and others in the industry to help us come up with effective ways to help parents and children deal with pornography in the digital environment.... I invite your industry and The Media Institute to work on this problem and report back to me and my committee.... With your creativity, brain power, and strong sense of corporate responsibility, I know you can come up with many good ideas."

The Media Institute took Chairman Bliley's challenge seriously. Shortly after we began work, in fact, it seemed appropriate to expand the charge he had given us. For example, many of the organizations deeply involved in activities to protect kids online are nonprofit groups; as a result, this report contains a section on nonprofits in addition to a section on corporations. The shootings at Columbine High School occurred midway through our work, in April 1999. With so much attention focused on the role of the media as a possible catalyst for teen violence, we expanded the project to include online violence as well as pornography. The result, we feel, is a better report that more fully captures the range of organizations working to protect kids from inappropriate and potentially harmful online content of different types.


How We Proceeded

We retained the public relations firm of Fleishman-Hillard to help us identify organizations and to collect information from them. Many, but not all, of these groups had been involved in the 1997 Internet Online Summit and the 1998 "America Links Up" campaign. The process took longer than any of us had anticipated, but by the time data collection was complete we had received submissions from 46 organizations -- 27 corporations and 19 nonprofits.

We make no pretense that this list is comprehensive. It is, however, wide ranging and fairly representative of the online community as a whole. On the corporate side it includes manufacturers of filtering software, Internet service providers (ISPs), search engines and browsers, and kid-safe Web sites. On the nonprofit side it includes groups with an online focus like Childnet International and the Center for Democracy and Technology. Many of the nonprofits, however, are groups with other interests like the National Urban League and American Library Association, or groups with broader child-related missions like the National PTA. All of these, to their credit, have chosen to become involved in kids' online safety.

Through Fleishman-Hillard, we asked these groups to tell us about their programs, projects, and activities to protect kids online since the Communications Decency Act was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 1997. In particular, we asked them to focus on three areas:

  • Technology: Technological advances, both hardware and software, designed to protect kids, as well as information resources and tips on safe online behavior.
  • Consumer Education: Specific education, training, and assistance programs, both online and offline, focused on kids' safety and including audiences of parents, teachers, librarians, community leaders, and/or religious leaders.
  • Law Enforcement: Efforts to improve the quality and effectiveness of law enforcement at every level to protect children from victimization, including training and education programs, best practices, etc.


    What We Found

    The results left us with two overriding impressions: (1) The online industry is offering parents a rather remarkable array of options for shielding children from inappropriate content. There is clearly a market for such products and services, and manufacturers have responded to the demands of that market. (2) At the same time, there is a strong market for kid-friendly Web sites. Here too the industry has responded with an abundance of sites designed specifically to entertain and educate children. Moreover, the Internet community is offering a wealth of educational resources (books, pamphlets, Web sites, videos, classes) to show parents how to protect their kids while giving them an enjoyable Internet experience. Finally, the online community has demonstrated a large measure of social responsibility by developing data-use policies to protect kids' privacy, and by working with law enforcement to crack down on Web offenders who would threaten the well being of children online.

    Much of what parents can do directly to protect their kids involves what the online community calls "tools" -- primarily software designed to filter or block objectionable content, or to steer kids to appropriate sites. Most of the technology options discussed in this report can be categorized in one of seven ways:

  • Filtering and Blocking Software: This is software that parents can install on their home computer to limit access to Web sites, words, or images. Some programs search for key words like "sex" or "porn" while others rate entire Web sites. Still others, like SurfWatch and Net Nanny, combine the two approaches. Parents can choose from an array of software that will limit access to one or more types of specific content, including sexually explicit, hate speech, graphic violence, criminal activity, and other activities (e.g., alcohol, games, advertising, politics, sports). Many programs can be tailored to a child's age, and to multiple children of different ages.
  • Outgoing Information Blocks: This software prevents kids from revealing personal information, such as family last name or telephone number.
  • Filtered Internet Browsers and Search Engines: The most popular Internet browsers (such as Netscape Navigator) give parents the option of filtering objectionable material. Other browsers designed expressly for children are filtered to prevent kids from accessing sexually explicit content. Many popular search engines like America Online and Lycos will, at the customer's option, block access to inappropriate sites turned up in a search.
  • Filtered ISPs: Some Internet service providers (ISPs) screen content before it reaches the home, thereby blocking access to objectionable content without further effort on the part of parents.
  • Time Blocking: This software allows parents to limit the amount of time children spend online, or limit access to certain times of day.
  • Monitoring Tools: Parents using this technology can monitor their children's use of the Internet without blocking access. Such programs typically keep a list of recently visited Web sites and some contain a "lock" to prevent the list from being erased.
  • Kid-Friendly Web Sites: Parents can limit kids' access to appropriate Web sites by using services like "Bonus.com the Supersite for Kids," "Disney's Club Blast," or NetSelector's "SmartZone, " which allow children to visit only pre-approved, kid-friendly sites. Parents can also rely on lists of sites compiled by various groups (e.g., the American Library Association's "700+" list) in lieu of blocking technology. Kids' sites typically offer interactive games, entertainment, and information using language and graphics tailored to different age groups.

    Even as Chairman Bliley was challenging the online community to come up with a plan of action, industry and nonprofit groups were in the midst of developing what is perhaps the definitive educational resource to date for helping parents protect their kids. This far-ranging initiative is called "GetNetWise: You're One Click Away" -- a one-stop resource for parents sponsored by nearly three dozen Internet firms and trade groups. The site includes an Internet Safety Guide, Tools for Families, How To Report Online Trouble, and a Guide to Kids' Content. Launched on July 29, 1999, the site grew out of the 1997 Internet Online Summit. GetNetWise is notable because it is available at all major entry points to the Internet and is only "one click away" for 95 percent of Internet users. (See full description in the Industry section.)

    As Chairman Bliley noted: "Technology can help, but it is not the only solution. We also need to help educate parents about ways to shield their children from damaging material on the Web." GetNetWise is a major effort by the online industry to meet that need. It may, in fact, prove to be the answer -- or at least a big part of the answer -- to Chairman Bliley's challenge for better parental education. (For example, the site presently offers parents detailed information on over 100 "tools" for protecting kids. A list of those tools is presented at Appendix I, along with the introductory pages of the GetNetWise site.)

    When GetNetWise was unveiled, Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) wrote the coalition partners that GetNetWise "exemplifies the part of the shared responsibility the high tech industry has accepted for itself. No law mandated GetNetWise. No politician drove industry to consensus on how to do it. The high tech industry took the initiative and acted on a sense of public responsibility to create GetNetWise."

    Finally, regarding law enforcement, major Internet companies like America Online are working actively with law enforcement agencies to stop illegal activity online. In addition, a number of nonprofit groups are dedicated to protecting children, through education and law enforcement liaison, from pedophiles, pornographers, and others engaged in illegal activity that threatens children online. These groups include Childnet International, I-SAFE America, KIDS SAFE Education Foundation, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and SafetyEd International. Overall, there seems to be a high degree of cooperation between the Internet industry and law enforcement agencies at the federal and local levels.

    Conclusion To those who believe that the only way to protect kids online is government censorship at the source, no amount of industry effort is likely to be sufficient. Government intervention did not seem to be what Chairman Bliley had in mind, however, when he asked the industry and The Media Institute to come up with good ideas for protecting kids online.

    Having surveyed the landscape, we present a report suggesting that there is an abundance of options, and good ideas, out there. One need only look through these pages to see the wealth of resources the industry has made available to help parents do their two-fold job in the online environment: to keep their kids away from objectionable content, and to steer their kids toward safe and enriching content.

    Parents can choose from among literally thousands of kid-friendly Web sites, and can use child-oriented ISPs and browsers to keep their kids' Internet experiences within safe bounds. At the same time, parents can choose from scores of filtering and blocking software products to screen out inappropriate content before it reaches their children. Companies and nonprofit groups, meanwhile, have put a vast array of educational resources at parents' fingertips -- many aimed at parents navigating the Internet with children for the first time -- to help them understand the many options available both for protecting kids and enhancing their online fun. The industry is also working aggressively with law enforcement agencies to stamp out illegal online activity that threatens children.

    Much indeed is being done to empower parents, and the online community can rightly take credit for its efforts in that regard. Does this mean that the industry has done enough? We might as well ask if the Internet has grown big enough or if technology has advanced enough. In the limitless environment of cyberspace there is no "enough." Just as the Internet will keep growing and technological breakthroughs will continue apace, so too must the effort to protect kids online keep expanding. Judging from the industry's performance thus far, we can predict with some certainty that this effort has only begun, and that new ideas, new initiatives, and new products for protecting children will continue to blossom as kids and computers enter the new millennium.

    Richard T. Kaplar
    Vice President
    The Media Institute
    September 1999

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