BlogHer - DOPA: ''Suppose You Were An Idiot... - Comments

XFIRE

Marianne Richmond — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 04:42:47 -0500

Well, I appreciate your willingness to discuss the issue...I assumed you had some connection to Xfire after your first post...I appreciate your disclosure. And I am glad we agree on DOPA.

However, with all due respect, I have to disagree with much of the rest of your post. First of all, I am not suggesting that Xfire is the only online community tracking behavior but just because "everyone else is doing it" is not a validation of it. I do wonder about your burst that says "No Spyware"....Please explain "no spyware" in light of the behavioral tracking that you have agreed that you do....

When my son tries to rationalize his behavior by telling me that "everyone is doing" something I am equally unimpressed; and by the way, my son does not play 10 hours a day of halflife 2 and I can't imagine what you might base that statement on. Have you met my son? I think not; and I know you didn't read it on my blog.

As a matter of fact, he doesn't play halflife2, at all and had never heard of XFire before I asked him about it. He's more of a Madden kind of guy and I can't imagine that even if I allowed it, he would play 10 hours a day.

He has heard of Axe, through their sexist and disrespectful advertising. Only today, I read where they were sponsoring Christine Dolce's MySpace site, http://myspace.com/forbidden; call me crazy, but I don't think her site is a place for teenagers. She may be a WSJ New Media Mogul but I would prefer if my sons made other friends.

Also the fact that you have a child and that other XFire employees have children does not add any credibility to your position; the fact that I have children seems to suggest to you that I have less credibility in understanding "how companies make money."

Just as you "disclosed" that you are an Xfire employee, I must disclose that the money that buys Axe, the computers and the games actually comes directly from marketers of consumer products since I have either worked for consumer packaged goods companies, advertising agencies or been a consultant to marketers and advertisers for my entire working life. I think I understand enough about business models to know that having a business model does not mean the absence of corporate responsibility.

You also seem to believe that "parents" particularly dislike game companies and do not have issues with whatever marketing channel distributes inappropriate content. I believe this is incorrect. It is the content that IS the issue whether it is on Yahoo or NBC; I believe kids need to be able to distinquish advertising from entertainment and sometimess the lines are a little too blurred.

Thanks for commenting.

Marianne Richmond
resonancepartnership

There is no online

chad3814 — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 22:07:48 -0500

There is no online community, gaming or otherwise, that does not "track behavior" or "target users". That is how these companies make money. Looking at the sponsors to the right of the post here (granted it's for a conference not of your blog in particular), two of the top three, Microsoft and Yahoo, extensively do these things. I never see anyone saying that we need to protect our children from Yahoo selling ads...

I do not want to be disrespectful, I completely agree with your position on DOPA, but it always seems that whenever a company is somehow associated with games that means that parents are supposed to immediately dislike them. In your previously post you seemed to be attacking Xfire for taking Unilever's money to sell AXE. Do you also take issue with NBC for airing the comercials? What sort of special targetting do you see Xfire doing for AXE that any other site doesn't do? How is Xfire exploiting the fact that your son plays 10 hours of Half-Life 2 a month to sell deordorant?

So while I'm sure at this point it's obvious that I work at Xfire, it may not be obvious I also have a child. In fact, the number of children the employees of Xfire have out-number the number of employees. I do not and can not speak for the company, but we follow COPA and all applicable laws. We know that some of our users are underage, and keep that in mind when building out our platform.

I think

Marianne Richmond — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 17:52:52 -0500

Agree.

Marianne Richmond
resonancepartnership

X-Fire

Marianne Richmond — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 17:49:18 -0500

You are correct, it is not an online game; it is an online gaming community that tracks behavior and targets users. That is the "bad thing" about kids being on this site. See an earlier post I wrote about XFire
resonancepartnership

Marianne

Weblogg-ed

Marianne Richmond — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 17:41:23 -0500

That is a great site...thanks for calling it out.

Marianne Richmond
resonancepartnership

Possible Backlash

Marianne Richmond — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 17:39:54 -0500

Yes, and along with "a strangulation of innovative, communicative, and collaborative school-related projects" I think another backlash will be the obvious one...kids will find access someplace else to the "forbidden" sites.

Marianne Richmond
resonancepartnership

What to think of

Marianne Richmond — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 17:35:18 -0500

I agree...kids need to know how to think critically. We can only hope that the mistakes and wrong choices that they make become learning experiences and not the defining moment when their world came to an end.

In retrospect, I sometimes wonder how I survived my own bad choices....and hope my kids never find out.

Marianne Richmond
resonancepartnership

Write Your Senator, Use Anti-DOPA wiki for help

lizditz — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 16:56:25 -0500

I wish we could have mobilized some on this issue at BlogHer but the timing was wrong.

Here's the link to the Anti-DOPA wiki (which needs updating, which I don't have time to do right now)

http://dopa.pbwiki.com/

Liz Ditz
I Speak of Dreams
lizditz@gmail.com

I think

heivilinj — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:58:56 -0500

That I agree more with Nelle than with some others. If we constantly stive to limit exposure to things we deem dangerous to our children, then how are they going to learn to handle dangerous situations? From what we say? From what we do? From books? All very valuable and useful sources for people who have learned how to learn. However I always find myself saying in those situations, "this is how it's supposed to work ...".

My experience (both as a person, a former teacher and a fledgeling parent) is that the most effective way, the best way to make the lesson "stick", is for them to do it themselves and (perhaps) make a mistake. I think our job is to love them, keep them as safe as is practical and to prepare them to be functional, useful, contributing members of society. Hiding (them) from All That Is Evil won't really do any of those very well I think.

And to expect that Congress produces anything actually effective or useful (as something other than fertilizer) ...?

Jim Heivilin

XFire Info

FiveO — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 12:33:55 -0500

FYI - Xfire is not an online game. It is a free tool that automatically keeps track of when and where gamers are playing PC games online and lets their friends join them easily. It essentially works like yahoo or MSN messenger and allows you to chat and keep in contact with your friends who are online.

I can't seem to think of anything bad about having your children using this software... I can think of way worse things for them to be doing then trying to figure out which game server their friend is playing on so they can join them for some online fun.

- FiveO

Forgot to Mention

Lia — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 08:23:16 -0500

Sorry, I forgot to mention a very excellent educational blog, weblogg-ed. Will has inspired me to question my opinions about education, define my goals about the type of education I would like my children to have, and step up to the plate on leading my children by example when it comes acquiring media literacy.

lia from luebeck, germany

(author of the media safe 101 page on the Red Tent Blog)

Possible Backlash

Lia — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 08:05:50 -0500

So much of the discussion of DOPA appears, to an outsider, to be about defining access or not (in schools and libraries), as if barring access creates a â€œsafeâ€? environment, or perpetrating the impression that it is highly irresponsible or dangerous to allow an older child or teenager any unmonitored time in the Internetâ€¦ in other words, concentrating on the dangers and not on the advantages, which, in this case, is the opportunity to encourage your children to create content for educational sites or school projects using this media.

The media and politicians failed to realise that the vast majority of students using the blogsphere or communication platforms for educational projects are using this media to create highly innovative, constructive and educational content. The students learn to communicate their knowledge and learning experiences in a form that promotes discussion and presentation to a larger audience. This fact alone should please parents and educators alike; for this ultimately leads to responsibility and accountability. If a student has to present their knowledge to a wider audience, something that doesn't happen with more traditional methods of instruction, then the students invest more care and attention to their work.

I think that the backlash of passing the DOPA bill will not be a safer environment for the students to learn in, but a strangulation of innovative, communicative, and collaborative school-related projects. In the end, parents and educators have done the older children and teenagers a disservice and shown them that the adult world is more influenced by fear than reason.

lia from luebeck, germany

(author of the media safe 101 page on the Red Tent Blog)

What to think of what I just

nelle2nelle — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 20:51:33 -0500

What to think of what I just read, in your post, as well as on the Cool Cat teacher blog?

My thoughts are forming in cloud like shape as I type, more ethereal than substantive, yet strangely feeling like there is an opinion in there.

Guess the place to start is with parameters... parent of a 22 year old living her own life unencumbered by parents, and a 14 year old who is. A blogger, liberal.

Name a right. Any right. Freedom of speech? Choice? Gun ownership? Every right we can name can also be found to have countless abuses of that right. It's a fact of human existence... we push on barriers, and sometimes we get by them.

I handled an unemployment case this week wherein the claimant had been discharged for not getting along with the family she worked for; it was their right, no quarrel with the dismissal. However, the reason given me was rather interesting... the parents would not allow their children to play on any playground equipment, to even go for walks, to be involved in any activity - they considered them too dangerous.

We all look to protect our children, and we worry over whether we do enough to keep them safe. My youngun is diabetic; we made a choice early on, and she was diagnosed at 27 months, to give her quality of life. We could be so strict in blood glucose monitoring as to preclude having any sort of normal childhood, or we could take a more moderate approach and let her be a kid, albeit one learning to properly manage glucose levels.

It would seem moderation is what's needed here as well. The easy way always seems to be bans, to shelter, to keep from... but when a young person hits 18, suddenly they face a world where there is pornography, there are predators, there are people preying upon them for every reason imaginable.

My college days began in 1972 at age 17. Previously I lived a very limited existence in terms of the greater world. Woefully ignorant of even the inner workings of my own mind and body, I probably went there with an effective maturity of an average 14 year old on some levels. It was learn on the fly, from peers, from professors. There was a steep learning curve in life.

There seems to be this need of preclusion. We teach abstinence only, eschewing a more comprehensive approach, in hopes those dastardly inner urges will just evaporate into the atmosphere. All well and good, if one likes their head firmly planted in sand.

Our young need information. They need to learn how to manage the information. To make good choices, to learn as we all do, from mistake, trial and error. We need to balance protection with the need to develop life skills.

And guess that is where my ethereal cloud leads me... to a more comprehensive need to address what we wish to keep our children from, and where in bloody hell they will learn the skills they need to make wise choices when the protection of parents and community are no longer there.

nelle

The internet has an amazing

Marianne Richmond — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 17:50:26 -0500

Teri,

Thanks for commenting...I don't disagree with most of your points; I just don't agree that DOPA solves any of the issues but instead creates problems.

Marianne

Marianne Richmond
resonancepartnership

Rose: No Space For My Space

Marianne Richmond — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 17:44:18 -0500

Marianne Richmond
resonancepartnership

RoseMarie,

Thanks for your comments and for providing your point of view. And there really is not a simple answer for the issues you raise about responsibility and educating children and parents to the dangers of the Internet...I just don't think that DOPA solves any of the issues. As you note, the bill was not very well thought out.

Certainly children should not be using MySpace in classrooms without supervision...but are they? And is during the school day the time that the sexual predators are communicating with them?

Schools are for education and part of that education should include Internet Safety. Schools should also voluntarily restrict on-line activities that interfere with the educational process...of course I don't want my kids IMing in class any more than I want them talking to each other. But as you point out, we need technology in the classroom. DOPA, would limit the latter without solving the issue of "protection" against predators.

And I have been surprised more than once with my kid's involvement in things that I thought they knew better than to do....we can't go with them to buckle their seat belts, keeo them from drinking and driving, and all the other activites that we worry about; we can only educate them about the dangers, know their friends on line and off, and know where they are on-line and off.

Children don't think of the consequences of their choices unless we point them out and involve ourselves in the choices that they have.

Laws should protect kids...focus should be on the predators.

Marianne

DOPA: ''Suppose You Were An Idiot...

Marianne Richmond — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 06:19:21 -0500

...And suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself." Mark Twain

Â DOPA, which stands for, Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006,Â or HR 5319,Â "amend{s} the communications act of 1934 to require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercialÂ social networking websites and chat rooms." The vote was 410 to 15. I think that is called a landslide.

Forgetting for a moment about the lack of definition for chat rooms and social networking sites that has been debated and discussed for the last few days on CNET, Marketing Vox, andTags:among others. Or that it seems to indiscriminatelyÂ include Amazon and Linkedin as well as MySpace. I think that parents need to monitor the online activities of their children and that the attention of congress should be directed at the sexual predators.

Now, I am the mother of two teenage sons. I have been critical of advertisers such as AXE and on-line games such as XFIRE for the messages they deliver to kids. But, I also strongly believe that it is my responsibility to manage this both by teaching them different values than those represented by AXE and monitoring their on-line activities.

The Internet is a place for kids. The Internet and technology is dramatically changing education and the very lives of our children right before our eyes (or not for those not watching); but dramatic change produces fear just as election years produce the need for issues and places to point the fickle finger of blame.

The Cool Cat Teacher Blog has the definitive post on DOPA. She goes through the bill point by point. She discusses it from the responsibility perspective (parents and schools), from an educational standpoint (the need for education, not legistlation), the comparison to book burning, and....well, please read it.

Thanks to Marshall at Marshall Kirkpatrick's blog for pointing me to Cool Cat. She is definitely more cool than me. Since I am involved with social media and social networks, my own kids think MySpace is very uncool. When we lost power in last week's storm, my oldest son and I ended up going out to breakfast around midnight of Day 1; I mentioned that I had been in the middle of writing a blog post. He asked me what it was about and before I even had a chance to ask him if he really wanted to know, he said, "Mom, I can't believe I just asked you that. Don't tell me."

Tags: DOPA, MySpace, LinkedIn, Amazon, Arrechnica,Â marketing, social media, social networking, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Cool Kat Teacher Blog, X-fire Axe, sexual predators.

Marianne Richmond also blogs at Resonance Partnership