January 17, 2007
EIE Applauds MySpace on Efforts to Provide Additional Safety Measures for Parents
Statement from Enough Is Enough® President Donna Rice Hughes on the Efforts of MySpace to Empower Parents with Additional Safety Measures
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
"Enough Is Enough® (EIE) is pleased to recognize the recent efforts of MySpace.com to open the lines of communication between teens and parents with plans to create free software, Zephyr, that will help parents safeguard their teens on MySpace, as well as hold teens accountable to tell the truth about their age. MySpace is responding to the call from parents, law enforcement and Internet safety advocates for much-needed additional child safety measures. The increased access child predators and pornographers have to children has clearly defined a greater need for parental outreach efforts. Our society has come to learn the difficult lesson that where kids play, predators prey. Social networking sites have become a predator's dream come true.
As an advocate for safeguarding children from online dangers, EIE has encouraged social networking sites to create a win-win tool that would promote parental involvement and teen responsibility, and MySpace is responding to this call. This software tool, coupled with the effective implementation of other software tools and Internet safety rules, is geared toward that end and will allow parents and guardians to become better equipped to protect their children from online sexual predators. There is no silver bullet, yet Zephyr is a giant leap forward in the ongoing battle to protect children online from the ever increasing dangers of those who wish to sexually exploit them.
In the meantime, parents should still install monitoring or keystroke capture devices software to help manage where children go online. Monitoring software gives parents and guardians the ability to view activity on the Internet and identify their child's online buddies. These programs give parents and guardians a better understanding of what their child is doing online, where they are going, and empowers parents and guardians to set online boundaries for their children."
Enough Is Enough® (EIE), a non-partisan, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, emerged in 1994 as a national leader on the front lines to make the Internet safer for children and families. Since then, EIE has pioneered and led the effort to confront online pornography, child pornography, child stalking and sexual predation with innovative initiatives and effective communications. Donna Rice Hughes is an internationally know Internet safety expert, author of Kids Online: Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace, and a former Child Online Protection Commissioner.
For more information, visit: http://www.enough.org or http://www.protectkids.com
Contact:
(888) 744-0004
communications@enough.org
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