Rebecca Newton on FOSI 3rd Annual Conference, Washington, D.C.

The Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) held its 3rd Annual conference in Washington, D.C. last week on November 4th and 5th. eModeration couldn't be there, so our good friend Rebecca Newton from Crisp kindly agreed to use our space to let us know what went on. You can see the official conference video here. Here's Rebecca's take on the conference:

The FOSI conference had over 400 registered attendees and 89 speakers, plus over 30 exhibitors set up booths (hence, lots of fun swag). It was, by my standards, a smashing success in every aspect.

FOSI, the clever vision of Stephen Balkam, is an international organization that “works to make the online world safer for kids and their families by identifying and promoting best practice, tools and methods in the field of online safety, that also respect free expression.” In other words (mine), let’s not over-regulate the internet or the people who use it. Let’s take an approach that people around the world can be responsible netizens. And let’s work together, globally, to figure out constructive, creative ways to deal with the small percentage of people who would abuse the net.

This post is about those speakers whom I found interesting, dedicated to the collective cause as opposed to their own self-promotion, and genuinely inspiring.

To be honest, I don’t get inspired much by speakers at conferences. There is the usual infomercial thing going on and then the count downs … titles like “5 Things You Should Know…” “The 2 Biggest Reasons People …” and the cute titles such as, “Using Your Fingers to Count 10 Reasons to Keep Your Customers in YOUR Hands” . Mercifully free of all this was danah boyd, a Social Media Researcher at Microsoft Research New England. I’ve been following danah’s research for a few years and was really looking forward to hearing her at FOSI 09. She embodies what listening to good, clear, educated, concise, passionate speakers is about. They make us think. They make us challenge our own belief systems and then we want to be them - until we get on to the next session.

danah discussed several points about youth and online safety. They included:

1. Teens play a big part in their safety online via their behavior choices.
2. Young people share their passwords with each other at significant rates (some of us in the Moderation business have been acutely aware of this for many many years..)
3. Access to problem content such as pornography – the number one correlation is that kids are seeking it out. A lot of kids are living in environments where parents or guardians are watching R and X rated films in front of their kids...
4. Youth Generated Problematic Content – simply making images disappear (via government control for example) is not going to cure the problem.

Kids who come from unsafe homes are engaging in attention-getting behavior online. Many of the at-risk kids online are taking care of their parents offline (because of drugs, alcohol, etc.). The people who read this blog for instance, are not the typical at-risk personality we’d find on the web. And we know that crime statistics show about 5% of the population commits crimes. That means 95% behave within the confines of the laws in their nation or state. We’ve found the same to be true online – 5-6% misbehave – yet the other 94-95% who behave just fine are often restricted from creating content, communication, learning and sharing because of the badly behaved 5%. (we’ll get to this subject again when we talk about the rock star, Tanya Byron).

“This is a community problem” according to danah boyd. I think many of us in the online community business agree. As danah pointed out, in physical environments we’ve moved to gated communities, we choose to live with people who are like us, we set up boundaries. This presents more of a challenge online, though it still occurs in the form of virtual communities. My takeaway from danah’s discussion was that we, the people who read blogs and live on twitter, are not typical young users online and therefore we forget we’re not really at-risk. It’s very important to understand that the at-risk youth online are also at-risk offline. It’s a community problem and not one that can be fixed via censorship. History has shown us censorship is ineffective. Mentors, communities of adults, are essential to help at-risk kids.

To read danah’s work, go to her blogs here and here.

The panel was a power panel with wonderful information and not too much self-promotion ... Carly Shuler (another Harvard grad) shared some interesting research. In particular, battling cancer in a video game has shown to have a positive effect upon young people battling their own cancer. And she pointed out a somewhat alarming fact – of the top 100 educational apps on iTunes (iTunes> apps > education) nearly half (47%) are targeted to pre-school children. PRE-SCHOOL CHILDREN – I just had to type that in caps. When asked “When should we start to address digital literacy?” Carly Shuler responded with “the 1st grade”, followed by the statement: ”Digital literacy is just as important as learning math.”

You can read more on Carly’s report at www. Joanganzcooneycenter.org. Joan Ganz Cooney founded the Sesame Workshop and CTW (Children’s Television Network)

Across the pond lives one Dr. Tanya Byron, the author of “The Byron Review” and many other publications. Tanya Byron is a noted child psychologist, a rock star in the academic psychology world. Tanya presented us with several formidable quotes.

First, Dr. Byron noted that “we’re raising our children in captivity.” I totally agree. She shared some scientific reasons as to why we’re not helping kids online by protecting them from every possible harm that could come their way. As she said “we used to fall over a lot” but we’re not letting our children fall over anymore. Consequently, they are not developing properly. And most importantly, she noted that kids can’t grow up properly if we base everything, every policy, every decision on “the most vulnerable child.” I don’t believe children can be creative under the restrictive guidelines some lawyers, legislators, and “concerned citizens” propose. Dr, Byron’s credo was, “let’s teach them how to be safe.” Linda Criddle has been carrying this banner for years. We teach them how to cross the street, let’s teach them how to be online safely. Dr. Byron’s pithy closing line referenced Elvis of Graceland, when she declared “A little less conversation, a little more action.”

My notable speakers list also includes:

Alec Ross, Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. I particularly liked his statement about government and the net when he said “Obama and Clinton want to know how can we empower rather than overpower in our administration.” It was most definitely an “amen” corner moment. The other “amen” or more appropriately “right on” moment was when Larry Magid stood up and pointed out that we’d been asking the same question for at least 40 years “How do we reach the parents?” I agree with Larry Magid; that’s not the question of the hour. The question is: how do we reach the kids and teach them to be responsible? We’ve been asking the “parent” question forever and nothing has changed.

The Attorney Generals Rob McKenna (WA.) and Patrick Lynch (R.I.) were informed, articulate and candid. General Patrick Lynch reminded us to “pick up the phone” and not wait to be contacted to help the cause. There was an excellent panel with physicians and psychiatrists regarding why kids behave as they do online.

I want to wrap up by pointing out what I believe is the most important factor in the two day conference. The conference wouldn’t have been possible without the sponsors, the FOSI staff (they did an outstanding job!) and all the participants and speakers. During these economic hard time, many people came together to share important information. It was not a dog and pony show, and for that I’m grateful. I am most impressed that Stephen Balkam had the vision and the determination 3+ years ago to turn an idea into a full-fledged, international organization of very smart people, sharing a common goal. Well done to him and those who have supported him and the FOSI family along the way. I look forward to next year’s conference and really do hope for “a little less conversation, a little more action”.

Rebecca Newton is the Head of Safety at Crisp, the leading provider of online child safety technology. After 16 years in survey research and computer application & design, she chucked it all to join the net culture. She has been an online community professional since 1994. Rebecca has also been a professional musician since 1976. She is the Chair person for Girls Rock NC, a non-profit organization that empowers young girls 7-17 through music. Rebecca likes children, dogs and most people, in that order. You can follow her at Twitter: @RebeccaNewton