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Social Networking

Social networking sites, such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook, are fantastically popular with children - even with children as young as 8 & 9. 

These sites allow children to be incredibly creative online, keep in touch with their friends and express themselves using a whole range of different media, such as video, photos, music, message boards etc.

However, it's important to recognize that while this can be fun, there are potential risks including cyberbullying, contact by adults with a sexual interest in children and the misuse of personal information.

There are tools on social networking sites that can help you stay in control of the information you post. 

Perhaps the most important of these are the Privacy settings.

You can set your profile to private, where no-one can see it. 

To friends - where your profile is private to everyone except those friends you allow.

Or to public, where anyone can see your profile.

It's really important that you talk to your children about these settings and help them think about the consequences of giving too much personal information and who they could be disclosing this information to, both now, and also in the future. 

There are also tools to help you block contact from people you don't want to hear from.

And tools to allow you to check or approve comments others are posting on your pages before they go up on the site.

As a parent or carer it's really important that you too get to know these services.

Why not set up your own page and understand the appeal.

You can also then go through these 6 tips with your children so that they know how to better stay in control. 

The Social Networking providers have produced a good-practice guide which you can access in the INFO centre 

Childnet's Digizen website also has some great information to help you evaluate these services.

(Go to www.digizen.org to find out more.)

Tips for parents:

  1. Get involved: become familiar with social networking sites. Ask your child about them, Create and account, find out about what it is about (it is free). Some sites have information and advice for parents.
  2. Know how to use the safety tools on the service – privacy settings and how to block, for example
  3. Agree on responsible use – agree on what is OK and not OK to post, always respect others, ask permission of those in photos before you post them.
  4. Agree on rules – make sure your children know the safety tips. Know the SMART rules about giving out personal information and meeting up with people you don’t know.
  5. Know where to report abuse and get help.

Tips for children:

  1. Check or set your privacy settings.  Be in control of who can see your profile, or send you comments or copy your photos by setting the privacy settings.
  2. Think before you post - Whether photos or text, whatever you post online can be made public very quickly and could stay online forever.
  3. Respect your friends and others - Remember you can’t see the impact your words or images has on other people, so its important to show respect to people and be careful what you post.
  4. Know how to use the safety tools – know how to block or pre-moderate comments for example.
  5. Remember to respect copyright – using or sharing copyright material, such as music, without permission on your social networking pages, is breaking the law.
  6. Know where to report and seek help – check you know where to report abuse to the service provider for example.