Blog – Latest stories tagged 'internet'

Chester businesses are being asked to get behind a new WiFi safety campaign and help to make Chester the world’s first porn free city. MP’s, children’s charities, and parenting groups are in full support of the drive to introduce ‘Friendly WiFi’ into Chester City Centre this September.

‘Friendly WiFi’, is supported by Government and has been set up to regulate the public WiFi offered in shops, restaurants, cafes and hotels, to make sure children and families are safe from seeing some of the most horrific websites and images on the Internet. The scheme has been designed by The Registered Digital Institute, who will soon be contacting businesses in the city to invite them to show their support for keeping children and young people safe online.

Chester MP Stephen Mosley is urging Chester businesses to get behind the scheme; “Friendly Wi-Fi is a fantastic innovation to keep our children safe online.” He added; “The Government has introduced a package that empowers parents to keep their children away from explicit material at home. But parents won’t be happy if they block explicit materials at home only for their children to be able to access it when out and about. That’s why I’m delighted to give my support to RDI in their effort to make Chester the first Friendly Wi-Fi city.”

Simon Warburton, Chester Cathedral’s Director of Operations said; “The Friendly WiFi logo serves as a signpost to a safe Internet service whilst parents are out and about with their children. The logo will remove any concerns about safety and allow families to enjoy a worry-free day out”

He added; “Friendly WiFi is absolutely essential for the safeguarding of children and young people online. The scheme blocks access to unsuitable content that children and young people should not be exposed to such as pornography. We fully support this approach.”

Friendly WiFi Director Mike Davies said; “I am excited to be launching our first porn free campaign in Chester. We hope that people visiting Chester and other towns and cities, will soon be able to walk along the high street and see our ‘Friendly WiFi’ logo in shop windows, restaurants and cafes and know without doubt that the WiFi that they provide is safe WiFi, for children and young people to log into without fear of stumbling across illegal and sexual websites and images.”

Chester is the first city aiming to take on the Friendly WiFi challenge and hopefully others will follow. Watch out for the launch of Porn Free Pendle and encourage your students to choose the Friendly WiFi option in your area.

More information can be found at the Friendly WiFi website.

The Cybersurvey is an online survey tool being used in different local authority areas to gather information from young people on cyber abuse and e-safety education. The aim is to use a standard questionnaire and develop baseline data, after which the survey can be repeated from time to time. This will help frontline practitioners in these authorities and schools to evaluate interventions and e-safety education and compare responses between areas.

The advantages of the internet, but also the possible dangers, grow with the increased use of smartphones and other devices e.g. tablets.

There have been a number of well publicised issues surrounding cyber bullying, some with tragic consequences affecting children and young people through social media sites.

The results of this survey, together with other data collection will inform ongoing development of our anti-bullying strategy, policy and procedures and training provision.

Here are some of the highlights from the latest survey conducted for Dudley MBC:

When asked if students had come across certain types of websites or content without searching for it

On the subject of cyber bullying, the survey revealed that of those who had been cyber bullied, two thirds did report it, but 34% told nobody. 66% of those who told someone did get help. But the bullying stopped in only 49% of cases, it reduced slightly in 31% of cases and stayed the same for 13% and actually worsened for 8%.

The survey also explored online risks (eg gambling sites, illegal downloads and personal data security), activities surrounding sexting, and also exposure to homophobic material, along with general media consumption and attitudes to e-safety education.

These are just a few of the statistics available from the survey. For the full results and also results from other geographical areas, please visit the Youthworks website.

The Cybersurvey questionnaire was designed by Adrienne Katz and there were 1130 valid responses (47% boys, 53% girls) in the Dudley survey.

“If you don’t go to bed, the bogeyman will come and get you!”

“The bogeyman will come after you, if you keep sucking your thumb!”

Did you hear these phrases when you were a child? Maybe they were said to you or your brothers or sisters. They were common traditional phrases used by parents to frighten young children into behaving appropriately or to cajole them into doing what their parents asked them to do. Not exactly politically correct and, in these modern times of high definition, realistically scary characters or monsters in films or games, very unlikely to work.

A few years back, however, a phenomenon appeared on the web that could be considered the modern day ‘bogeyman’, the only difference being that it wasn't parents that invented it, it has appeared as a consequence of youth culture’s fascination with all things horror and ghoulish.

In the summer of 2009, a poster by the user name of “Victor Surge’ contributed two black and white images to the ‘Something Awful’ internet forum. The images depicted groups of children being watched from the shadows by a very tall, thin figure. Surge also added text, purporting to be from eye-witnesses, describing abductions of children. Surge gave the character the name “The Slender Man”

As well as being very tall and thin, the Slender Man had unnaturally long, tentacle-like arms and was usually dressed in a dark suit and tie. It was regarded as male and possessed a white, featureless face, which only added to the creepiness of the character.

The Slender Man captured the web’s collective imagination and, as these things so often do, it soon when viral, spawning online fiction called “Creepypasta”, fan art and cosplay. Inevitably, it wasn’t long before fan-made videos started to appear on the ‘Something Awful’ forums and this only help to feed the rapidly growing ‘mythology’ that was building around the whole phenomenon.

As the web community’s interest in Slenderman grew, the boundaries between fiction and reality blurred, as a consequence of the variety of conflicting online perspectives. This had the effect of obscuring the origins of the character and offered the whole saga an air of authenticity.

In May this year, however, tragically the whole urban legend became something entirely different when two 11 year old Wisconsin girls allegedly lured their friend to woods near their home and repeatedly stabbed her in an act that was apparently carried out “…to impress Slenderman” who, they insisted to investigators, was real.

Shortly after this incident, another took place in Ohio, when a mother came home from work and was attacked by her 13 year old daughter with a kitchen knife, wearing a white mask. During the attack the mother said of her daughter “…it was as if she playing a role, it didn’t feel like her” and afterwards she found some very “dark” writings and drawings created by her daughter referencing Slenderman - she had even created a whole world within the online game ‘Minecraft’, for the character to live in.

This incredible story demonstrates tragically how powerful the influence of the internet can be and how a viral phenomenon can so easily manifest into something that, to vulnerable young minds, can gain authenticity and appear real. It is why it is so important that parents and teachers need to be vigilant and monitor what young people are watching, reading and browsing. It is why films and video games have age-ratings - they are not there as something to snigger at and dismiss, they are there for very good reasons and should be treated seriously.

"There is a point to be made that e-safety education also needs to incorporate digital literacy, with a emphasis on understanding the context and veracity of information on the Internet. That children need to be trained to critically appraise the information they are reading in the same way we would hope to train them to be media aware enough to understand the political bias in a newspaper or the reliability of 'facts'" - E-safety Support

8/9/14 - There is an online game which can be downloaded associated with this urban legend which can be found at www.slendergame.com