11/12/07 Keeping the Internet Safe Part 2

Keeping the Internet Safe Part 2. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Last week we began a conversation with Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna about internet safety. October was proclaimed Internet Safety Month by McKenna and used that to get the message across that parents need to be more involved in their children's computer usage. MCKENNA: Paying attention is the threshold step. If you are not thinking about these issues and you are not starting to talk to your kids about them, obviously nothing else is going to happen. You're not going to make any progress because you have to figure out what your child's life is online and then having the conversation with your child about the dangers and about what the family can do to keep everyone in the family safe. In addition to massive amounts of inappropriate material, there are predators out there looking for unsuspecting young adults. McKenna says there are several things you should be doing. MCKENNA: There are a number of steps that families can do to increase safety. For example on social networking sites like Myspace.com you can make the choice not to allow the child to use Myspace.com and that's certainly a reasonable choice to make but it isn't absolutely necessary. It is possible for a young person to use a social networking site and to be safe if they take certain steps. Among which, the most important of which are; the child not letting anyone look at their Myspace page that they do not personally know. Most of the popular social networking web sites offer features like this. I have always been fairly computer savvy when it comes to setting up protections but there are many kids out there who know far more than even some of the most knowledgeable computer technicians. MCKENNA: Another thing parents can do, especially for younger kids who are not likely to figure out how to work their way around the barriers, some teenagers are sophisticated enough to get around filters and other limitations but if you have younger kids I think it is a very good idea to set up filters and to block their access to certain websites just as you may already be blocking their access to certain TV channels. And McKenna says there are lots of places that parents can get assistance. MCKENNA: There are loads of available resources available online for parents who take the time to go and look. Lots of advice, lots of free software. If you have a Microsoft operating system that's fairly current has a number of features on it designed to help take parental control. AOL and other ISP's provide certain levels of parental control. One great place to start is the Attorney General's web site at www.atg.wa.gov and click on Protecting Youth. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.