New Underage Site Needs A Little Guidance

Guys, need some input here.  MyDatery.Com has made the decision to help out a local individual who recently turned 18 by assisting in building a site for them uses the platform of MyDatery.Com and redoing it in a manner that will work for teens, maintaining all of MyDatery.Com's filtering software to help protect the underage kids. 

Here is the question I have for you guys, who have more experience in this field than I do, which is none for me when it comes to setting up/managing an underage site.  So those of you who have the knowledge it would be greatly appreciated.

The question I have is:  What do I need to keep in mind as this site is set up for the teens (under 18 age group) in order to ensure it's a safe place for them to hang out?  I already have the software to monitor for any over 18's, but would love to know how to stay in compliance with the law on this.

Answers and information on this is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Well... finally a chance to help you out a little lol. I don't have much experience in this area but I was under 18 up until about a year ago lol so I've had some experience on the end-user side. There are some really important issues you need to address when catering to that crowd,

There are quite a few privacy issues you want to acknowledge. You want users to have the option of private profiles and the ability to fully block other users for any reason. You don't want your users to be able to be contacted by someone that they don't know if they'd prefer not to. You also want you users to be able to limit the contact/access of the users they do know. Your users should be able to choose how friends can contact them and how they can interact. Let's say one of your users wants to upload photos but only want to let certain people, not even all their friends, view them. That should be an option. Or they want anyone to be able to view their photos, but only friends can comment. Stuff like that. And also, depending on how young a crowd you're catering to, maybe have profile automatically be set to private for users under a certain age and also require parent permission (via e-mail) to join.

Your "contact us" page is important here also. You want users to be able to contact you and report if they are having a problem and you want to make it easy for parents to contact you too...

Also, have an image or a face to go along with your administration. Check out emoearth.com. It's built using SocialEngine. On their about us page it tells you exactly who started, owns, and operates the site. This is important because your users and their parents are going to judge your site based on who uses it and if you have an image that relates to your target users, it'll let them know exactly who the site is for and who uses it.

That's all I have for now but I'll do some research and get back to you. You've been so much help around here lately and I really hope this helped you at least a little bit.

This is something you will need to familiarize yourself with, if the site is going to have any members under the age of 13.   http://coppa.org/   Most social network sites don't allow members under the age of 13. Of course the little imps soon figure that out and just lie about their age when they join.  COPPA isn't really protecting children, it's just a means by which website owners cover their asses.  Once some 10 year old kid represents themselves as being over 13 years old, COPPA compliance is meaningless. 

I personally wouldn't want to have anything to do with developing a site for underage kids... unless you can be 100% certain that the servers and scripts on the server are absolutely 100% secure.  Getting a childrens website hacked, makes me cringe when I think of the liability that would create.

After being global mod on a friends site dealing with kids as young as 13 and 14, with coppa compliance  the most important thing you can do when dealing in this age bracket is to have constant moderaters. you cant ever have a time when you dont have anybody in charge,So it means getting mods in different time zones so you are covered 24/7.  youve to watch them like hawks, because they are little tinkers some of them, plus youve to watch the nasty eliment (that are older much older if you get my drift who lie to  get on the site to be around kids) After doing this for two years, it wasnt the software that protected the kids, it was having a "on the ball" moderating team who knew how the kids think and what they say, and with experience you can spot the people who shouldnt be there. It will be a bit harder though with ages upto 18, as they can be rather grown up at that age. I must admit, its not an easy task this, depends how young some of them will be, the older they are, the easier it gets...  (unlike parenting, the older they get, the worse it gets. LOL)

Well actually there isnt any laws agaisnt children of any age joining a forum or site. The coppa is solely used for children under the age of 13, and the site that allows such children to join are held under strict guidelines, too strict for most which is why its usual for most forums and site's not to allow children under thirteen to join because of the childrens online privacy protection act, coming under such act, you have to prove what you are doing with the childrens details and how they can be used and more besides. The site also has to be totaly geared towards children in style and content, without exeption. i dont really regard as a site which deals with very young children as immoral, i mean, my little one is a member of the BBC childrens website Cbeebies, so its very acceptable so have places for the children, you just have to know what you are doing thats all as there is no room for mistakes when you are dealing with children of that age, which is why most dont tackle it.

I want to say thank you to you guys for your help.  And your right, we can't rely solely on the software to catch the adults impersonating kids and to protect the kids, but we can use it to help hone in on them.

While I recognize the laws state that 16 is the age of sexual majority in most states/counties, some areas are much younger.  I, as a father, see 18 as the age of sexual majority and see no reason for sex to be on the site at an age under this.  I also understand that is only a dream, as kids will talk about whatever they talk about and find a way around any rule that is created. 

The idea though is to at least protect them from the pedophiles and such that are out there by using the software and as many moderators as we can manage to get to oversee the site but not interfere with the kids using it more or less.  I realize this is an  extremely fine line.  In the end, I am a father and while my oldest will only be turning 7 in a week, I do want them to have a place when they finally come of age.  That's why when I was approached with this idea I jumped on it. 

I've been looking through Coppa and it is a lot of work that has to be maintained, but it's not an impossible task to take on.  In the end, this may end up being a great test for Dolphin if we can manage to get all the laws complied with, actually protect the kids and give them the freedom to do as they want on the site with a minimum of interference from any adults.  What would also be greatly helpful is some input on what the scumbags use to bypass the average sites security when they stroll into a site and try to take advantage of the kids. 

Thanks for all the help on this guys, and please, keep the input coming.  I really do appreciate it.

As if the above mentioned stuff isn't enuf, I have background with a teen writers social forum from years ago.  Drove me nuts.   Something none of us saw coming, teens are incredibly emotionally unstable beings.  Every weekend there was  a suicider or pretending to suicide, this breakup or that breakup, you couldn't ever tell who was in actual real danger and who was talking for attention, but in which case would you not be responsible if you ignored it?

We also had so many uploaded stories and poems of a dark nature, you couldn't tell who was writing stories of sexual abuse as fiction, or did someone need an adult to investigate?  Where is the line? 

You'll also want to let in those pedo-trapping groups and official investigators to clean up the creeps, BUt..  the things those child impostors say to draw out the pediphiles actually set up an atmosphere where the other kids start saying the same things, without the skills to handle what they hook with that bait.

Run for the hills my friend, there is nothing you can do with this that won't make ya loose sleep. 

 I agree 100%   I wouldn't want anything to do with a children's site.  How on earth would you make sure that there isn't predators making use of the private message system?  Then.... things that may be completely innocent, can be perceived as creepy.  That's just how everybody has been conditioned.  Even on this site, there's a few users that use a picture of a child as an avatar, and I have to say, I think it's a bit creepy...... probably completely innocent, nonetheless, creepy. 

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 Then, there's the kids...... referring to them as incredibly emotionally unstable beings, is spot-on.  If you set the lower age limit at 13, you can bet your ass, you'll have a bunch of 10-12 year olds lying about their age and joining up.  Young children are liars... period.   

"Run for the hills"    That's the best advice yet.

I appreciate all the words of wisdom here guys, and all of it is being taken in.  I still feel the kids do deserve a place to hang out and as long as I have people of there age group to monitor it and I only have to oversee from a distance then this project is going to move forward.  I admit, it's going to be a task to keep it all under control, keep the scumbags out, deal with issues that may arise but with a lot of hard work it just might work.  If it doesn't, well I'll get a ton of great data out of it and more than likely a great site to test out different types of mods/hacks on in a true production environment.

Sammie,

I think your missing part of this.  I'm only doing the sponsoring and distant overseeing of the site.  Meaning that the site has to follow at a minimum guidelines that I set.  These will be in full compliance with COPPA and all the other additional regs it needs to stay within.  For me, this is an investment in a market that is wide open right now and has a need. 

The actual site administration, as far as any communication with the members will be done by those who have a better understanding of kids, I really have no experience beyond my own growing up and that was a long time ago and can not even begin to imagine what it's like for them today.  Those who communicate with the kids are/will be trained for that type of stuff.  I've already been in contact with Perverted Justice and asked them for help, which they are offering up in order to make the site as safe as it can be for the kids.  I know I'm no where near qualified to Admin a site like this.  I'm way to old, far to conservative and such to even think about taking it on in that sense. 

As I said before, I am more or less sponsoring and helping to build it, but after that, my involvement is purely an investment for me and if we're lucky, when my kids are finally old enough to be online it will be safe environment for them.  I can tell you, if it turns into a problem site and can not be managed comfortably then it will be shut down.  I don't mind investing the money into the personnel to handle a site like this, I don't even mind it losing money for awhile as it grows, but I will not tolerate something I build being used in a manner that goes against what it is designed for. 

Right now, I look at Facebook, Myspace, Hi5 and so on and can't even begin to imagine a place my kids can go online that I would feel comfortable having them at.  It's dangerous out there and as a father I know that.  But it's also ridiculous to know that we have the technology to prevent a lot of the garbage that goes on and it does not get used for that.  We build these sites that are designed to block the scammers/spammers, create great filtering systems & algorythms to match people up, load and connect into innumerable other sites all in the process of building sites that are aimed at the 18+ plus market, not necessarily adult oriented, but still directed at the adults. 

In the meantime we ignore the very market that we are all supposed to be protecting which is the youth of this world, and we provide no place for them to go, even though we know they spend more time online than any other group (outside of the online daters and the scumbags, no connections between those 2 groups).  Now, building and operating a site such as this does in fact carry with it risk, I'm not arguing that part and I am well aware of the risks, as I am well aware of how to shield myself from them.  But I'm not going to turn my back on a market segment just because it carries more risk than the other segments.  Instead, I'm going to take on that segment and arrange it in a manner that reduces the risk to me and still provides what they need while trying to do it in a safe manner for them. 

This is a sad fact of the world these days, what sammie as said, given the fact that she is a paediatric nurse, but the police feel the need to question her motives (for whatever reason)  The law is so protective of children (and so they should be) but unfortunatly its had the opposite effect. you see a stray child walking about in the shopping center, you'de best have company with you before you go and see if the child is ok or you could find yourself suspected of something, even i think twice before approaching a stray child, and ive worked with disabled kids for more than twenty years, and did a stint with the social services for a while,and level 2 counselling, and it makes me nervous to approach a lost child almost feeling like a criminal for wanting to do so.

This is why there is such a lack of places on the net for our children to go, most people just wont tackle it, its a big job, and god help you if you are a bloke wanting to run a site like this, because you are  judged for having underlying motives. It's the new racism, (if your a bloke, youde best not want to work with kids or you are a pervert in the making). But yet its ok for our kids to pop onto facebook or some such other sites with a lot older kids, men and women.

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Worlds gone mad if you ask me.

It is a world gone mad.  Like I said earlier, many children will lie and think nothing of it.  I knew a case where a problem child accused his step father of abuse.  The accusation was absolutely untrue, but it caused the guy a lot of problems as he came under suspicion of CPS.  Some children can be cruel liars if some adult pisses them off or if they don't get their way, and the world has taught them how to strike back.  Like I said, that "run for the hills", was damn good advice.

Sad but true Houston.  I recently had a weird experience on Barak Obama's old (political) listserv for webmasters.  Without provocation, I got am email from some guy on the list who said. "your site is shit".  Putting aside for the moment whether that is true or not, I thought it was odd that he would express his opinion in such a rude way and wanted to know what kind of person would write such a thing.  I asked him to post his website so I could give a similar critique and naturally he wouldn't do so and a pissing contest developed.  I decided he was a nut case and told him to stop contacting me, but he continued to write insulting emails. I reviewed my log files and after a little research found he was a 16 year old high school student in Vermont.  I responded again and told him to stop writing and stay away from my website, but it didn't work and instead he wrote and said he was going to write all my members and tell them I was a fraud.  This set me off and I told the kid in no uncertain terms that he had now made an illegal threat and I would respond with overwhelming force if he contacted a single member of mine.  Suddenly, he went in to this "I'm just a little boy" mode and strongly suggesting I was trying to do something sexual.  I wrote one last letter telling him that if he made any more contacts to me or my members, I would contact his parents, school principal, his ISP and the local police.  The was not drama I wanted or needed but fortunately it stopped after that.  Kids do lie their asses off and adults need to be protected from this at least as much as they do.   It is a sad situation, but they are well versed in pedophile issues an will use it to their advantage.  As a result, in the U.S. there are almost no male teachers for grade school age kids anymore - guys just don't want to take the chance anymore.

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Rob

Salem Witch Trials...

There was a case in England a few years back where social workers discovered a lot of the children in there care had been abused by their father / brother / uncle. These people were then prosecuted etc. There were so many cases that the police got suspicious. It turned out that the social workers were convincing the kids they had been abused. What happened after that I don't know.

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Hi there. Well, here in Germany the Government, Parents, and local Police really go nuts anytime that something "risky" like the internet involves minors. There's a lot of uproar over a Germany wide site called "SchülerVZ" which not only permits students and other minors, but also because the site openly discourages for parents to participate by permitting memberships only via invitation from an existing minor member. That's why I decided to keep the minimum age of anyone entering our community down to no younger than age 14. In Germany that's fairly safe since the goverment does expect people to use common sense online as well (in court cases too).

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One thing that you need to ask yourself is this ... Just how young or old should a minor be, in order to use the internet without supervision? Here in Germany, if your kid is 10 years old or younger and killing time online, it's the parents who are being held accountable because cops, teachers, and lawyers alike at that point scream:

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"What is your damn problem Dad & Mom?" "Haven't you heard about all of the dangers and predators who are online, looking to contact and/or abuse minors?"

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And with that in mind, the group of minors who need or should have their own place online becomes fairly small. Here, most kids up to the age of 12 are still participating in sports, hobbies with friends, visiting buddies, doing stuff with their parents, etc. etc. etc. Younger kids are busy and generally go to bed an hour or two after dinner time anyway .. so not a lot of time for internet. Here it's only the age group of 12 to 15 year olds where there's some grey area of who can be online alone for themselves, and for how long each day. If you're a parent, look at it from that point of view ... at which age would YOU want your kid to be online by all by themselves unsupervised? How old would you want your kid to be before flying to another state completely on his/her own ... starting with the front door of your home? Same thing with the internet.

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Generally, I think most parents don't let their kids online alone until around age 12. Alone to do what you want is not the same as alone while mom & dad are hanging around. Although, once the site is really huge, you can have lawyers or professionally certified child service people who can moderate and oversee everything to the point of always having someone available 24 X 7. That's what's currently "saving the butt" from that German site, their attorneys and money people. Here, you're not safe because you have moderators. That's not good enough. Here in germany you have to be able to prove that the people who are moderating actually qualify as professionals who've been trained to help children and to recognize the dangers "of the wicked web" as Geraldo Rivera once put it.

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Well, that's my take on that anyway. Probably a lot riskier to do in the USA than anywhere else.

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Greetings from Germany

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Suddenly, he went in to this "I'm just a little boy" mode and strongly suggesting I was trying to do something sexual.  I wrote one last letter telling him that if he made any more contacts to me or my members, I would contact his parents, school principal, his ISP and the local police.  The was not drama I wanted or needed but fortunately it stopped after that.  Kids do lie their asses off and adults need to be protected from this at least as much as they do.

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Yeah, and it's exactly for reasons such as those that it would be inconceivable to me, to try and set up a "child or minor specific community" on the internet. Aside from the risks and legal repercussions, it's also a matter of how badly your own life could potentially get screwed up inadvertently by such lies from younger and older kids ... for years into the future, worst scenario not withstanding a conviction or branding that could follow you for the rest of your life. I'm 48 years old and I was raised with this motto:

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"The truth will always prevail and that's why you should always be honest. Even if the truth isn't pretty, telling it is always better then the consequences for telling a lie!"

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Hah, what a crock of bullshit !!! (although, we I still try to live by that)

Seems like anymore damn near everyone is lying between their teeth ... anonymous chat rooms, sms cell phone messages, dating portals, private online news, blogs full of lies, local television news, international news agencies, not to mention movies, internet gaming, etc. etc. etc. It's no wonder that so many kids are turning into lying little stinkers. Scary shit, if you ask me. What the hell is the world coming to? We have a teenage Son who's on the computer no more than 5 days out of the week ... online no more than 3 days every week ... online no more than max 3 hours at a time ... and the friggen computer is *NOT* in his own bedroom either. Yes, we do trust him, but we do no trust the environment around him as much, in particular the internet.

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We openly promote the fact that everything within our massive online project is both child and also senior friendly, but we also post disclaimers (soon to follow on the community portal) for teenies, parents, and lawyers, reminding everyone that responsibility is needed all around, and not just from the people who are running an online portal. Good luck mydatery!

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Greetings from Germany