Internet Safety Tips For Teens & Parents - Filters & Monitoring Software

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The big problem with internet filters is that they can not think. Rather, they can only sift through the textual information included with a given web page, video, or image. For example, if you visit my sample page and video showing how badly filters fail, you will see that a filter provides a very false sense of protection! My sample page shows that a video or image that is explicit in nature is only detected if the author or publisher chooses to label it as such with text titles and tags. (Don't worry, the sample items I have only feature text with no slang terms, not images) There is no such thing (yet) as a filter that has the ability to recognize and identify individual images or videos as being explicit. If you are lucky, the internet filter will block the page that the image or video is on because of other text on the page that triggers the filter. Do you want to rely on luck? Filters can't think, they can only read words.

I have tried a lot of different approaches to internet safety, but the only sure way to guarantee safety is to use software that only allows hand-picked sites to be accessed. One of the best commercial filters that allows this option currently is BSecure. This filter allows a whitelist of sites only, but also if your child must access many different sites for school and a whitelist is not practical, Bsecure will keep track of the domains your child accesses and you can adjust the filter online from any computer! We have Bsecure on my oldest son's computer since he must visit a large variety of sites. It is working very well and serves as both a filter and a monitoring device.

Did you know that you can set up the same type of "White List" for free if you have Windows Vista? You simply set up users accounts for family members and then implement the Parental Controls to allow access for Allowed Sites only. And you designate the sites. I have set up a step by step tutorial on how to do this - see Setting Up White List Internet Filter on Windows Vista. Do you have Windows 7? If so, you must create a Windows Live Family Safety account and need a hotmail email (this is free) in order to create a whitelist. For more info, see http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Protecting-your-kids-with-Family-Safety.

Here are some good guidelines for keeping your children from viewing objectionable internet sites:

Use a whitelist if you can that only allows children to visit sites on a predetermined list. To do this follow the instructions above.
If a whitelist is not practical, get a good filter that also monitors your childs activity and allows you to adjust the filter from any computer by logging in with user email and password. Bsecure is such a filter. This is what we use.
If you choose to trust your filter, place your family computer in an open area of the home rather than in a remote room.
Use a computer password to shut off access to your computer when you are not around. Or at least use a filter that allows you to shut off internet access.
Consider using a monitoring software program like Spector. This will take screen shots of sites visited. Letting your kids know that "you know where they have visited" can be a great deterent in itself! Although in my opinion, the OFF button is perhaps the best deterent! Note that Bsecure will report back the sites visited, but it will not take screen shots like Spector will.
Chat rooms and other areas of the internet where kids interact with strangers are always an invitation for trouble. In our internet filter, we can make such sites off limits. Email for older teens is OK, provided it is email sent/received to/from friends that are well known.
If your child is on Facebook or other social network, require them to include you as a "friend". This will allow you to see what other friends are posting in their space. We do this.

If you have CyberPatrol, see Setting up the CyberPatrol Yes List for instructions on how to set up their whitelist.