Telstra Safe Social™ service – Protecting Kids Online
Filed under: BigPond, consumer, cybersafety, social media
We launched Telstra Safe Social™ earlier this week. The best thing about the tool is that it can help make it easy for parents to start a conversation with their kids about who they are chatting with online and stay aware of potentially risky situations.
This step-by-step guide takes you through how to sign up and use Telstra Safe Social™ service.
Telstra’s top 10 tips for parents to help protect your kids in the online world:
- Understand the sites and technology your kids use and know who they’re talking to.
- Create a list of online ‘rules’ with the family e.g. time limits, list of OK sites to visit.
- Educate your kids so they know not to give out personal details online without parental knowledge.
- Make sure your kids know what to do and where to go if they encounter cyber-bullying.
- Regularly sit with your kids when they are on the internet. Let them know you are interested and keen to understand their online activity.
- Advise your kids to take extreme caution and keep online friendships online, and to never agree to meet their ‘online’ friends without parental supervision.
- Talk with your family about the risks of internet use, particularly in chat rooms.
- Reinforce positive behaviour and values, such as being respectful of others.
- Don’t ignore new technologies – kids and teens will use them, if not at home then at their friends’ houses or in the schoolyard. Ask your child to give you a lesson on sites or internet gadgets you may not be familiar with.
- Install software or subscribe to services that can filter content and block offensive websites. Visit BigPond.com for more information and to find a suitable product.
Censorship 101…
Welcome to the real Orwellian age where kids aren’t even able to communicate with others of their own age without big brother peering over their shoulder 24/7.
FYI Parents: Facebook allows a user (your child) to remove applications (e.g.: Telstra Safe Social) from accessing their data whenever they want to.
IMO it’s a slick invasion of personal privacy to any child – this would more then likely put them on a deadlier path then any cyber-bully would be able to.
Hi Tom,
Telstra Safe Social is a hands off service.
It’s for parents who may be concerned about their children or anyone else who may be concerned about the sort of messaging which they might receive on social networks. It certainly doesn’t require any peering over shoulders, and is entirely opt in by both parent and child.
Just like parents do when issues arise in offline situations, we like to think that Telstra Safe Social helps them resolve issues which arise online by giving both them and the child the information they need to allow them to discuss and resolve issues together.
Come on Tom, since when are parents not suposed to give guidance to their children, especially when they are using contentious sites such s Facebook etc.
I have a pretty level headed 14yo son, but when I see the subject matter and rough/adult (!) language of many of the girls and boys in his connections, then I can only be disappointed that you would support that undr the banner of “anti-censorship”…
Controlling what sub-16yo kids do on the Internet is not censorship, it is healthy parenting…
I think this is a great idea, especially with all the cyber bullying that’s around at the moment it could help alert the parent that their child is in trouble because most children don’t know what to do if its happening to them.