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Jesse Shannon is the president of the premiere interactive marketing agency, SAJE Media. As a corporate citizen, he busted his chops in the dynamic world of video game production gaining working experience in Activision's Los Angeles and Tokyo offices. His most recent work as an employee was contracting with Honda on their ASIMO humanoid robot project spreading the good word on the coming personal robotics industry to the world (and Disneyland).

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Online Community, Minus Smut: Whyville Aims to Make the Virtual Streets Safe for Kids

Written on
June 7th 2006
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by Jesse Shannon  |
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After a little back and forth, my fears were assuaged, and besides, I was so desperate to have a cool avatar by this point that I was willing to take the risk. Then I made my big mistake. To facilitate the makeover, I sent a link to a picture of myself (on a social network that will remain nameless) taken right after a friend in beauty school had turned my hair shocking shades of red and white. What can I say, I was desperate to look young and cool.

This was of course a big no-no. It is obviously dangerous in an internet setting for a child to reveal any personally identifiable information to who-knows-who out there on the net. That means everything from email addresses to AIM accounts to home addresses to pictures online. It’s an incredibly proactive step that few others besides Whyville take.

Within minutes I excitedly opened my next Ymail message. With a sense of shock I realized the message was not coming from the Good Samaritan Whyvillian. It was from Whyville City Hall. They had caught me! I was sure it was because of my password faux pas, but the message was actually flagged by the Whyville system because of the web links that were within the message. Justice was swift. I was alerted to my dangerous transgression (no sending pictures or personally identifiable information through the service), and promptly issued my sentence — no chat privilege for 4 days!

It was quite a blow. I was still left with things to do in Whyville, like play the educational games to earn clams (so I could buy those face parts myself), but the heart of Whyville is the chat, and I now literally had tape over my mouth (my avatar in the world not only couldn’t chat, but hilariously, there was a little graphic of tape where my mouth should be). I felt a little cheated, but I also understood a whole lot better what is safe and what is not when you are a kid online.

Therein lies the great service Whyville offers to our vulnerable Internet-addicted kids. When a kid spends some time on Whyville, they not only learn how to function within the safety of this haven on the Net, they are also getting educated about Internet safety everywhere.

Learning how to protect oneself as a child on the net is not necessarily an intuitive or common sense thing. It is with naivety and trust that many kids are signing onto that great internet expanse, and the old rules of spotting and dealing with dangerous strangers no longer apply. Everybody seems to be whoever they say they are, and knowing where to draw the line with strangers online probably does not come naturally for many.

Whyville’s excellent chat license test, as well as its active policing system really let a kid know what is acceptable and what is not. A kid (or even a hapless adult like myself) cannot spend any length of time on Whyville without getting these principles drilled home, and if you fail to get it, well then here comes the tape, and once the tape has been administered its not something you will want to let happen ever again.

Whyville should be commended and recognized for this great service it provides to the Net, and more advertisers should be aware of this safe, controlled environment that allows for meaningful dialogue with a very hard-to-reach market. SAJE Media certainly sees the value in this service and we invite anyone interested in jumping on the safety bandwagon to give us a call. Don’t worry, we have served our sentence and the tape has been removed.



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