Great Stuff from Net Family News

• Supporting the youngest witnesses of this humanitarian crisis October 13, 2023
  Sometimes we parents feel so helpless when our children come to us hurting as much as us when they see something awful happening in the world. In her email letter to our community, my friend, colleague and fellow parent Michelle Lipkin wrote, when her 19-year-old daughter asked her to explain what’s going on, “I tried […]
  Anne
• Should our kids learn how to use generative AI? Well… October 9, 2023
  A teacher in an international school in Panama asks her students to critique essays “written” by ChatGPT, while others have their students fact-check AI material, according to Time. University of Pennsylvania professor Ethan Mollick requires his students to use generative AI while holding them accountable for the information in whatever they produce with it. These […]
  Anne
• The missing piece in US child online safety law September 7, 2023
  US kids and parents need a toll-free number to call or text for help in getting harmful online content taken down. After studying various kinds of help like this that youth and parents in Europe, the UK, Australia and New Zealand have, we at The Net Safety Collaborative piloted a proof of concept for this […]
  Anne
• Generative AI: July 2023 freeze frame July 29, 2023
  It’s feeling like I need a large language model brain to write about safety with large language models. [I certify that I only wish I had such a brain, and I am a human; I’ve read that ChatGPT-4 can tell lies, which supports this certification’s credibility because the LLM probably wouldn’t out itself as a […]
  Anne
• Threads: The new social media kid July 6, 2023
  “Picture Twitter but with a lot less Elon Musk” is how the Wall Street Journal is describing Threads, Meta’s new app. That right there is good news, maybe unusual where tech is concerned. I’ll give you a list of reasons in a moment, but first it’s only fair to state (or rather link to) my […]
  Anne
• Surgeon general’s advisory: Let’s take stock June 16, 2023
  US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy advises that “we are experiencing a youth mental health crisis.” Based on the data, there’s no question about that. Where there is a question is whether tech and media are the cause. Some scholars simply assert they are (see the sidebar below), but neither the surgeon general nor the American […]
  Anne
• Lawmakers, controlling and banning kids doesn’t help May 17, 2023
  The “control paradigm” around child online safety, which researchers on three continents have been calling out for at least five years, is in full bloom now. The term comes from a 2019 book by four Australian scholars about how control and surveillance have come to define digital safety, inclusion and citizenship. (Does that give you […]
  Anne
• New clarity on child sexual exploitation online April 27, 2023
  A lot of important research insights and guidance on the forms and impact of CSE online have been published by researchers on both sides of the Atlantic recently. Here are some key findings pulled together in one place with links to academic sources and resources for better prevention education…. “Stranger danger” is just as problematic […]
  Anne
• Game-changer: Child rights-by-design April 11, 2023
  Even though the United States is the only country on the planet that hasn’t ratified the nearly 34-year-old UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, US-based companies that serve kids and teens around the world no longer have any excuse not to uphold their rights. Why is that the case? Not “only” because young […]
  Anne
• Why I struggle mightily with the new Utah law March 30, 2023
  Apologies. I am late in writing about this just-passed social media legislation in the state where I live, Utah (have to say my home state is Massachusetts). I’m late partly because I’ve been in denial. I can’t believe that laws so disrespectful of teens’ rights of privacy and participation could go on the books. And […]
  Anne