Great Stuff from Net Family News

• Much-less-social media on Facebook’s 20th birthday February 4, 2024
  Facebook turns 20 today, but the platform is nothing like what it was in 2004 – or, more comparably, in 2008, when it overtook MySpace, it was open to all (not just uni students) and it had the reputation of being a “safe space,” Forbes reports, because everyone had to sign up with their real […]
  Anne
• What child online safety really needs, senators February 2, 2024
  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 […]
  Anne
• Welcome to 2024! January 2, 2024
  Happy New Year, dear readers! It was quite a year last year, eh? I’m sure that, like me, many of you are glad to move on. More on what we’re moving into in a moment, but first let’s use one of the biggest news stories (not just tech stories) of 2023 – generative AI – […]
  Anne
• Supporting the youngest witnesses of this humanitarian crisis October 13, 2023
  Sometimes we parents feel so helpless when our children come to us hurting as much as us when they see something awful happening in the world. In her email letter to our community, my friend, colleague and fellow parent Michelle Lipkin wrote, when her 19-year-old daughter asked her to explain what’s going on, “I tried […]
  Anne
• Should our kids learn how to use generative AI? Well… October 9, 2023
  A teacher in an international school in Panama asks her students to critique essays “written” by ChatGPT, while others have their students fact-check AI material, according to Time. University of Pennsylvania professor Ethan Mollick requires his students to use generative AI while holding them accountable for the information in whatever they produce with it. These […]
  Anne
• The missing piece in US child online safety law September 7, 2023
  US kids and parents need a toll-free number to call or text for help in getting harmful online content taken down. After studying various kinds of help like this that youth and parents in Europe, the UK, Australia and New Zealand have, we at The Net Safety Collaborative piloted a proof of concept for this […]
  Anne
• Generative AI: July 2023 freeze frame July 29, 2023
  It’s feeling like I need a large language model brain to write about safety with large language models. [I certify that I only wish I had such a brain, and I am a human.] So let’s freeze the film for a moment and see where we humans are with generative AI safety. First, so that […]
  Anne
• Threads: The new social media kid July 6, 2023
  “Picture Twitter but with a lot less Elon Musk” is how the Wall Street Journal is describing Threads, Meta’s new app. That right there is good news, maybe unusual where tech is concerned. I’ll give you a list of reasons in a moment, but first it’s only fair to state (or rather link to) my […]
  Anne
• Surgeon general’s advisory: Let’s take stock June 16, 2023
  US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy advises that “we are experiencing a youth mental health crisis.” Based on the data, there’s no question about that. Where there is a question is whether tech and media are the cause. Some scholars simply assert they are (see the sidebar below), but neither the surgeon general nor the American […]
  Anne
• Lawmakers, controlling and banning kids doesn’t help May 17, 2023
  The “control paradigm” around child online safety, which researchers on three continents have been calling out for at least five years, is in full bloom now. The term comes from a 2019 book by four Australian scholars about how control and surveillance have come to define digital safety, inclusion and citizenship. (Does that give you […]
  Anne