"If our American way of life fails the child,”

“…it fails us all.” -Pearl S. Buck

Strange quote for such a topic, but stay with me a second…

The Washington Post reports that a Texas judge dismissed a $30 million case against MySpace for their role in a child assault case. 19-year old Peter Solis lied about his age on MySpace to gain the confidence the confidence of a 13-year old girl. The judge ruled, ‘To impose a duty under these circumstances for MySpace to confirm or determine the age of each applicant, with liability resulting from negligence in performing or not performing duty, would of course stop MySpace’s business in its tracks and close this avenue of communication.’”

Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters

So, perhaps I should explain the choice of quote a little further, hmm?

As a community manager, I deal with user interactivity with the pre-13 set every day. It is my job to protect them as best I can from my remote location. I am the head of a set of moderators, and I am controling the tone/vibe/safety of the site. I do my best to predict errors and missteps possibly taken in the future. I cannot, however, be a lie detector.

Now wait– I can predict that kids will lie. But I cannot assume that everyone will lie. Majority rules.

Our team sets up as many hurdles for kids as we faithfully can (faithfully because we cannot alientate our community with overwhelming difficulties). If they choose to lie, I can respond to it in the aftermath. I can survey & eagle eye. But I cannot accuse without proof.

The American way of life is to educate children and help them lead the best, most successful life possible for them. In my opinion, that includes family-based education. If a kid lies, perhaps there is a little more education needed at home. Especially, ESPECIALLY when it’s an 18-year-old lying to get in contact with a 13-year-old!

So even though it would be easy to paint Myspace as the bad guy (that’s a mighty big bandwagon), I can’t. Lying Liars have to ruin it for everyone else! At least this time it’s the liar that gets the full brunt of the blame.

"We worry about what a child will become tomorrow,…”

“…yet we forget that he is someone today.”  -Stacia Tauscher

Today’s children are consummate multi-taskers. They watch television, play a handheld computer game and read a comic, all at the same time. According to the Keiser Family Foundation - a US-based health information and research charity - over a quarter of eight to 18-year-olds consume two or more forms of media simultaneously at any given time. Multi-tasking is, in part, a product of the sheer abundance of child-oriented media. Until 15 years ago, most children had access to only four terrestrial channels that showed children’s programmes at specific times. Today, according to Ofcom, 63% of family homes have digital TV, giving children a choice of over 20 dedicated channels, many of which broadcast throughout the day. And, in these homes, 66% of children’s viewing is of non-terrestrial channels, compared to 47% of adult viewing.

News: The future belongs to the kids - MarketingWeek

The funny thing about the Community Next conference was that NO ONE addressed the matter of children.  Kids are the ones that are going to be on all these sites, knowing how to hack, how to manuever, how to conquer the site better than ANY adult either on or running the site. 

I’m not going to name names, but I actually had the CEO of a family community site tell me that children 7 & 8 years old do not know how to type…. Yes. He said, point blank, that kids 7 & 8 do not know how to type.  No matter how many times I repeat it, I’m still baffled. 

Is this the mindframe of many social networks out there? Kids aren’t worth the time because they’re incapable of motor skills? I certainly hope not.  Clearly they’re creeping up as a HUGE media-consumer.  People have got to address the elephant in the corner, before it plays hopscotch on everyone’s faces.