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I'm not a big fan of young kids on Facebook either, but I do think that having a "safe" social network for the under-13 crowd would be good, and because of it's

I'm not a big fan of young kids on Facebook either, but I do think that having a "safe" social network for the under-13 crowd would be good, and because of it's ubiquity, Facebook isn't it. I'd prefer something owned and operated by the schools themselves. I've had a feature in Appleseed for a while now which lets you block or allow social networking domains based on regular expressions. In the US, since all schools get a domain, a junior high in Wisconsin could block all domains except *.k12.wi.us, so that only other students could connect.

roc 16y ago
A portable, federated, school-based social network might be an interesting end-run around the data lock-in problem. You could pitch the solution as a sort of portal-with-social-network-features to the school (something they're all keen to have) and you'd wind up with a huge userbase and a steady stream of profiles that want to port-out or echo-out from their school-based service each and every year. And, as even large schools are tiny on an internet-scale, scaling problems are vastly simplified. Then each outside service that wanted to be able to take these profiles in, or allow a link between an in-school profile and one of their profiles (so Sue's uploads to the photography club make it to the flickr stream their parents can subscribe to), would essentially be signing on to a common data format and interchange protocol.
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  That's part of my plan for Appleseed. Which is more than a little ironic, considering how Facebook got it's start.
jerf 16y ago
"I'd prefer something owned and operated by the schools themselves." I strongly disagree. Part of the point of these things would be to not be the school, to emphatically not be the school. My BBS days would have been much less interesting if everything had to be sanitized for school authority consumption. At some point children are no longer in school. It would be nice if they have some miniscule amount of experience in being in a not-school environment, what with that making up the majority of their lives. If schools are anything they are already too large, in terms of the footprint they leave on our children's lives.
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  After a certain age, yes, I know I appreciated the freedom of BBS's when I was a teenager as well. But up to around 13, building your social network around your classmates makes sense. And the ability to exclude older children, and non-students, as well as be able to monitor their activity also makes sense. There isn't the strong need for privacy when you're nine than there is when you're 14.
- tptacek 16y ago
  In fact, there has already been legal drama with schools objecting to what students write about their classes and teachers and seeking to punish them for it. I agree, affiliation with the school system is a liability, not a benefit.
  - michaelchisari 16y ago
    Older students would have their school profile, and their non-school profile, just like they have their school email address, and their non-school one. It's really not much different. As to the litigiousness of school administrators around free speech issues, that's something that will have to be worked out with social networking whether schools run their own networks or not. But when you're dealing with the pre-teenager crowd, I don't think it's as much of a legal issue.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      The teachers at my kids schools don't all use their school email accounts. None of the students I know of do. No, not super interested in waiting for the schools to figure this out, or helping to push them there. I don't know why this should have anything to do with schools; in fact, getting outside the little social circles inside a school is one of the major wins to this.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
      - 16y ago

roc 16y ago

A portable, federated, school-based social network might be an interesting end-run around the data lock-in problem. You could pitch the solution as a sort of portal-with-social-network-features to the school (something they're all keen to have) and you'd wind up with a huge userbase and a steady stream of profiles that want to port-out or echo-out from their school-based service each and every year. And, as even large schools are tiny on an internet-scale, scaling problems are vastly simplified. Then each outside service that wanted to be able to take these profiles in, or allow a link between an in-school profile and one of their profiles (so Sue's uploads to the photography club make it to the flickr stream their parents can subscribe to), would essentially be signing on to a common data format and interchange protocol.

michaelchisari 16y ago
That's part of my plan for Appleseed. Which is more than a little ironic, considering how Facebook got it's start.

jerf 16y ago

"I'd prefer something owned and operated by the schools themselves." I strongly disagree. Part of the point of these things would be to not be the school, to emphatically not be the school. My BBS days would have been much less interesting if everything had to be sanitized for school authority consumption. At some point children are no longer in school. It would be nice if they have some miniscule amount of experience in being in a not-school environment, what with that making up the majority of their lives. If schools are anything they are already too large, in terms of the footprint they leave on our children's lives.

michaelchisari 16y ago
After a certain age, yes, I know I appreciated the freedom of BBS's when I was a teenager as well. But up to around 13, building your social network around your classmates makes sense. And the ability to exclude older children, and non-students, as well as be able to monitor their activity also makes sense. There isn't the strong need for privacy when you're nine than there is when you're 14.
tptacek 16y ago
In fact, there has already been legal drama with schools objecting to what students write about their classes and teachers and seeking to punish them for it. I agree, affiliation with the school system is a liability, not a benefit.
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  Older students would have their school profile, and their non-school profile, just like they have their school email address, and their non-school one. It's really not much different. As to the litigiousness of school administrators around free speech issues, that's something that will have to be worked out with social networking whether schools run their own networks or not. But when you're dealing with the pre-teenager crowd, I don't think it's as much of a legal issue.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    The teachers at my kids schools don't all use their school email accounts. None of the students I know of do. No, not super interested in waiting for the schools to figure this out, or helping to push them there. I don't know why this should have anything to do with schools; in fact, getting outside the little social circles inside a school is one of the major wins to this.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - 16y ago