It was the 2024 version of public shaming – relentless on-camera questioning designed to send a message rather than hear answers. It seemed the lawmakers already had their answers. I get their frustration that... social media platforms can't just "install" the digital version of car seats and seat belts or create product labeling like on a cigarette package these companies and their … [Read more...] about What child online safety really needs, senators
Privacy
Datafied Childhoods the book
A grabbier headline for this post might be “Screens are watching us back,” but that would be like so many scary news headlines parents are subjected to. More importantly, it wouldn’t do justice to all that this important new book – Datafied Childhoods, by Profs. Giovanna Mascheroni in Italy and Andra Siibak in Estonia – offers us. It provides…. Preparation not only for handling the new tech … [Read more...] about Datafied Childhoods the book
New ‘Privacy Toolkit’ for youth, co-created with youth
“What do children know, and want to know, about where their data goes?” is the all-important question that leads the Children’s Data & Privacy Online project’s blog post about its just-released report. I say “all-important” because it’s a fundamental right of children to form and express their views on matters that affect them (see Article 12 of the UN Convention of the Rights of the … [Read more...] about New ‘Privacy Toolkit’ for youth, co-created with youth
6 takeaways from 20 years of Net safety: Part 1
I usually write about other people's work – especially that of the researchers I've followed through the years. But now that I've just passed the 20-year mark in writing about youth and digital media (yikes!), I thought I'd share with you my own top takeaways as a participant observer of Internet safety's early years (1997-now). Here's Part 1 (Part 2 on this page): 1. A generalization about … [Read more...] about 6 takeaways from 20 years of Net safety: Part 1
The real privacy dilemma: Private or convenient?
When I read this sentence in a New York Times review of the Apple Watch, I thought of the privacy spectrum of the digital age: Apple "seems to be pushing a vision of the Watch as a general-purpose remote control for the real world, a nearly bionic way to open your hotel room, board a plane, call up an Uber or otherwise have the physical world respond to your desires nearly … [Read more...] about The real privacy dilemma: Private or convenient?