Second Life is the latest reason our kids are doomed
By Christopher Dawson | May 8, 2008, 2:48am PDT
Summary: I’m kidding of course, but U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) apparently isn’t. According to the Chicago Tribune,
Kirk sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission requesting a consumer-alert warning about its dangers….Kirk said he knew of no cases in which children were targeted by sexual predators on Second Life, but he said he [...]
I’m kidding of course, but U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) apparently isn’t. According to the Chicago Tribune,
Kirk sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission requesting a consumer-alert warning about its dangers….Kirk said he knew of no cases in which children were targeted by sexual predators on Second Life, but he said he considers the virtual world an emerging danger.
Ars Technica provides a nice counterpoint, however:
First up, Kirk is running for reelection in a hotly-contested district, and using technology as a scare tactic to get parents on your side is an easy move. Second, Second Life has age-verification technology in place that meets, and in some cases, exceeds the legal requirements. Third, and perhaps the most importantly, there are far easier ways for predators to find teens in much greater numbers.
I’m inclined to agree. MySpace has roughly 110 million users. Facebook has 60 million. Neither is as tough on age verification and, unlike Second Life, neither provides a teen area off limits to adults. The age limitations can be circumvented, but are relatively robust, as are the algorithms for detecting whether youngsters are using the adult Second Life area.
Do we need to keep our kids safe online? Of course, but chances are, by the time they hit college, they’ll be taking a class or two in a virtual world like Second Life. Perhaps Representative Kirk could take some time and think about funding online safety education or technology integration in schools so that kids learn responsible use of the Internet, rather than targeting a convenient and sexy scapegoat.
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Chris Dawson is a freelance writer and consultant with years of experience in educational technology and web-based systems. In 2011, he became the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network SaaS provider.
Disclosure
Christopher Dawson
Christopher Dawson is the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., by day and a freelance writer and educational technology consultant by night. Well, most of his colleagues at WizIQ are based in India, so really he's working with them whenever he can stay awake. He has worked for his local school district as a teacher and technology director, for the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, and for Biogen, Inc. (now Biogen-IDEC, Inc.).
He has also consulted with STATNet and Cytyc Corporation and retains close ties with X2 Development Corporation (now owned by Follett Software, the supplier of the student information system he administered for several years). Follett is paying him a monthly honorarium to act as a presenter for their "SIS Voices for Student Achievement" community (he produces occasional blog posts and hosts a monthly webinar on the use of student information systems to inform data-driven instruction and school-wide change.
He regularly purchases and/or recommends Dell hardware. This is because Dell makes good hardware and has truly committed itself to education in innovative ways, particularly with their "Connected Classroom" initiative. It isn't because he has dealings with the company through his role at WizIQ (which he does) or because they have provided him with long-term loans of a variety of equipment for in-depth testing (which they have).
Intel (reference designer for the Classmate PCs he has implemented in his local schools) has provided him with long-term loans of Classmate PCs for testing, as have Dell and Lenovo with their educational offerings. He may report on any of these companies as his experiences with them have direct bearing on educational technology; positive reports are not necessarily an endorsement and he receives no direct financial compensation from these companies or any others.
Intel paid all expenses for his attendance at the 2009 Intel Classmate PC Ecosystem Summit which he attended as the sole representative of the technology press. He was invited to attend in 2010 but his wife would have killed him if he spent 3 days in Vegas geeking out and left her home alone with a new baby. Acer provided him with a 50% discount on an Aspire One netbook in early 2009 after he tested it for 30 days through their educational seed program. He liked the netbook at the time but it has since broken and sits unused in his office. Canonical sent him Ubuntu lanyards, t-shirts, and mousepads for his kids. He stole one of the lanyards and proudly hangs his keys from it and occasionally features his 8-year old wearing an oversized Ubuntu t-shirt on his Facebook profile. Gunnar Optiks sent him a pair of computer glasses to evaluate for a holiday gift guide. He is wearing them now as he types this because they never asked for them back and they rock out loud. Seriously - they work brilliantly and make it much easier to spend 20 hours a day staring at an LCD. If they ever asked for them back, he would fork over the $99 and buy a pair.
Microsoft gave him 2 free copies of Office 2010 professional, a desktop clock, and a useless book on Office 2010 when he attended the launch of Office/Sharepoint 2010. He occasionally uses the SharePoint lanyard they gave him instead of the Ubuntu lanyard for his keys, but feels dirty afterwards.
Adobe provided him with a pre-release version of the CS5 Master Collection for evaluation and ultimately provided a full, licensed copy for ongoing testing of educational applications of this admittedly expensive software. Like the Gunnars, if the license expires or they come out with CS6, he'd actually go out and buy it himself. Which is saying something, because he's actually pretty cheap.
Any other companies wishing to send him cool things to evaluate, wear, or otherwise adorn his kids are more than welcome to; he promises to disclose it here if he keeps any of the stuff.
Finally, because WizIQ is a virtual classroom and learning network provider, Chris, as VP of Marketing, frequently interacts with, seeks out deals with, and directly or indirectly competes with a whole lot of LMS, SIS, and other Education 2.0 companies. In general, he'll limit his reporting about these companies to news that does not impact his relationship with them or with WizIQ. If he reports on them, it's because what they are doing is newsworthy or worth the attention of his readers and not because he's trying to broker some deal, damage competition, or otherwise advance his position in his day job. LMS and SIS companies, along with other online learning communities, are a pretty important part of Ed Tech. If he stops reporting on them completely, there won't be a whole lot left. He'll be sure to call out any overt conflicts of interest if they are unavoidable.
Finally, Follett Software Company pays him a little tiny honorarium every month to present on their SIS Voices webinars and to write the occasional blog or discussion thread for them. Since Follett recently bought X2 (maker of an awesome web-based SIS that Chris just happened to have used, served in advisory groups for, and frequently reported on), this is probably also worth disclosing.
Biography
Christopher Dawson
Christopher Dawson grew up in Seattle, back in the days of pre-antitrust Microsoft, coffeeshops owned by something other than Starbucks, and really loud, inarticulate music. He escaped to the right coast in the early 90's and received a degree in Information Systems from Johns Hopkins University. While there, he began a career in health and educational information systems, with a focus on clinical trials and related statistical programming and database modeling. This focus led him to several positions at Johns Hopkins, a couple-year stint in private industry, teaching high school math and technology, and 2 years as the technology director for his local school district. Most recently, he started his own consulting business and is now the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network provider.
He lives with his wife, five kids (yes, 5), 2 dogs, and a hateful cat in a small town in north-central Massachusetts. Although he is no longer teaching, his roles with WizIQ and ZDNet allow him to continue helping students and teachers add value to education with technology rather than merely adding to the bottom line.
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Thank you for commenting on Mark Kirk's scare tactics. He always finds something like this around election time so he can fake up some family values when everyone knows he always votes against them when it comes to issue that matter like the economy and the war. Kirk is all for taking away middle class security in favor of his campaign contributors, credit companies, health care giants and oil companies.
Shouldn't keep telling people to get a life . they have...a second one.
And while we're at it we can start hanging the traitors.
Maybe somewhen he could suffer a seizure and become a terrorist/rapist or whatever word finished in -ist...
I've seen Second Life in action, and I must say - BFD! Other then sex and gambling, it is pretty boring (actually those are boring too). At first, things look "cool", but it soon turns into the virtual equivalent of hanging out at the mall. Do people really do this stuff for hours? What the heck are they doing? Big yawners.
Virtual property development and sex organs apparently. Give me World of Warcraft anyday.
If I remember correctly, my parents told me not to talk to strangers. Does the internet mean that rule no longer applies?
We are all talking to strangers on this talkback. But most of us wouldn't sneak out to meet each other for some excitement. I recently talked to my 16 year old students about https in the context of financial literacy classes, and was amazed at how little they knew about things like trojans, key loggers, phishing, etc. The majority really didn't know you can attach things to flies or rename files before putting them up to be downloaded. They thought that if the thing they clicked on said "Free Game" they were getting a free game, and nothing else.
Also, they all know stories about bad things happening to someone who met someone on the internet. Bu they also ALL have heard that those stories are just put out by adults to keep them from having fun. And too many of them give both ideas about the same weight in their decision making process. There are plenty of them that are not idiots, but the ones that ARE sure do make one wonder...
You may now feel free to talk to strangers and to move about the cabin.
"First up, Kirk is running for reelection in a hotly-contested district, and using technology as a scare tactic to get parents on your side is an easy move."
First of all, an ad homeneim accusing him of scare tactics. This is why I really don't read Ars Technica anymore. Between the occasional good articles is a lot of opinionated junk with no real substance or logic.
"Second, Second Life has age-verification technology in place that meets, and in some cases, exceeds the legal requirements."
Really? I'm sure every e-commerce site on the Internet would be interested in this technology. I'm guessing otherwise.
"Third, and perhaps the most importantly, there are far easier ways for predators to find teens in much greater numbers."
I don't think an online predator does an in-depth analysis before going online and engaging in their twisted behavior. They just grab whatever seems to be popular. And Second Life is on that list.
"Perhaps Representative Kirk could take some time and think about funding online safety education or technology integration in schools so that kids learn responsible use of the Internet, rather than targeting a convenient and sexy scapegoat."
I would agree that better education helps, but pretending that education the only possible solution is silly. Yes, we should educate. We should also look into other ways of dealing with the problem.
"...most importantly, there are far easier ways for predators to find teens in much greater numbers."
It only takes one case of assault to turn a theoretical possibility into a tragedy. This is a wonderful app for adults and college age student, but teens or younger still need the guidance that an adult should provide. And in many cases that guidance should be no access. Remember that Facebook & Myspace, while wildy popular with teens today, was not made for them but for college students/adults. The protections needed for youger children/teens still are not there, thereby risking those children not only from being found by predators, but from them posting/saying something that could stay for them long after they have grown up.
which means he will only consider increased funding for things which increase his own funding or influence.
Daley(Sr.)...Ryan...Rezko...Levine...
Blagojevich...the list goes on, and it matters not the political party.
Both Democratic candidates spent childhood time in Illinois, so it is no wonder there is so much dirt on them now as adults. They grew up learning how "the machine" lines its own pockets with government money.
Hello how many republicans are in jail, and how many lies will it take before we elect some caring people?
get all my points and develope the same take on an issue that I do! It leaves me nothing to say...
Thank you for commenting on Mark Kirk's scare tactics. He always finds something like this around election time so he can fake up some family values when everyone knows he always votes against them when it comes to issue that matter like the economy and the war. Kirk is all for taking away middle class security in favor of his campaign contributors, credit companies, health care giants and oil companies.
