Well, I checked out the 5 Fun & Safe Social Networks for Children and I found pros & cons with all of them. While they all looked fun, I'm not convinced that they really are safe. I'm still not comfortable joining any of the adult social networks, so I'm sure I would be hesitant for my kids (if I had any). Togetherville required the parents to create the child's profile and invite their friends for them. There's no ads, no outside links and no unapproved friends, which I thought provided some security and encourages the parents to participate. They offer preset comments, discouraging cyber bullying and inappropriate language, but all the child has to do is agree to a code of conduct and they'll be allowed to send original messages (a bit too easy in my opinion). What's What uses facial recognition software and a photo ID taken with a webcam to provide a secure log-in. The site only allows the child to "friend" kids that are within one grade above or below them to encourage interaction only with other kids in they're own age group. Also, they have a feature that encourages users to "Report it!" which reminds me of a neighborhood watch system. The parent and child sign up together using the parent's credit card information and a temporary password. But, I wonder how easy is it to change the password as soon as the child gains access to the site and their profile? Also, once the password has been changed, does the parent still have access? ScuttlePad didn't allow much exploration without signing up and I was not interested in doing that. But, it looks like they ask for a lot of personal information from the user to register. Also, they only allow preset comments which I believe is a bit restrictive to the older kids (above 6 or 7). The Barracuda Web Filter denied access to giantHello. Skid-e Kids seemed pretty cool because it has educational games, full age appropriate movies and they are continuously improving. They rely mostly on human moderators for their security features, but who are these people and why should we trust them? This one doesn't require as much parental control as some of the others, which gives the older kids a little more freedom, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. But, still the reviews were all very good.
Obviously, each parent has to research the idea for themselves in order to decide whether or not to allow their children to become involved in social networking. But, if it were me, I think I would discourage it at least until they were a bit older. Besides, between social networking, television and gaming... it's no wonder our kids today have issues with obesity!
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