Safety advice for parents

Social Networking is a term given to the type of communication that happens between a community of users on social networking websites.  People can register on social-networking websites and add profiles of themselves.  Their profile is a description giving information on their age, gender, hobbies, school etc.  Users can post photographs and videos and update their profile like an online diary to give a picture about who they are as a person.  They then begin to communicate with other people either direct friends (private profile) or with the wider unknown public (public profile). 

Social networking enables O2 customers to stay in touch with their friends,  access information, capture and share pictures anytime and anywhere they want all at low cost.  From a mobile phone your child will be able to:

• Log on and browse Facebook and MySpace on a customised version of the service to fit a mobile screen
• View and update their Profile
• View other people’s profiles
• Receive an alert when someone posts a comment on their profile
• Reply to and send comments
• Upload photos

• Report inappropriate content on their page

• Block a user from contacting them

• Source safety information

Access to Facebook and MySpace costs your standard date rates for browsing.

There are a number of important steps you can take to ensure your children have a positive experience in using these sites:

1. Become familiar with the sites
2. Encourage your children to keep their profiles private
3. Be careful about what information your children are sharing on the sites. You may know all their friends but you may not know all their friends friends.
4. Encourage children to think about who they want to add as a friend. Encourage them to only add friends they know in the real world.
5. Make sure your children know where to go for help if they feel uncomfortable, and make sure they feel happy talking to you about the negative as well as positive experiences.

You might also want to encourage them to think through these things:

• Only upload pictures that you’d be happy for your mum to see – anything too sexy to be passed round the dinner table should NOT make it on to the web, as it could encourage sex-pests to contact you
• Don’t post your phone number or email address on your homepage. Think about it – why would anyone actually need this info when they can message you privately via Myspace or Bebo?
• Don’t post pictures of you or your mates wearing school uniform – if dodgy people see your school badge, they can work out where you are and come and find you
• Adjust your account settings so only approved friends can instant message you. This won’t ruin your social life – new people can still send you friend requests and message you, they just won’t be able to pester you via IM
• Tick the “no pic forwarding” option on your Myspace settings page – this will stop people sending pictures from your page around the world without your consent
• Don’t give too much away in a blog. Yes, tell the world you’re going to a party on Saturday night. But don’t post details of where it is. Real friends can phone you to get details, and strangers shouldn’t be able to see this kind of information.

And most importantly if you want your children not to access these services use parental control to block access to these sites:

protectourchildren.o2.co.uk

If you want more information these sites have lots of great advice:

http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk

http://www.facebook.com/help.php?tab=safety

http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=help.safetytips