PBS’s Frontline recently ran a special on kids and the Internet titled “Growing Up Online”. You can watch the entire show online — and I definitely recommend it for anyone involved in education: parents, teachers, administrators, IT.

They address some interesting issues, including:

The disturbing pro-anorexia phenomenon, which I had never heard of until I got into the Internet Filtering industry. Sometimes these sites attempt to walk the line between self-help and truly being pro-anorexia. 8e6’s categorization policy is for pro-ana sites to go into Obscene/Tasteless and anorexia disorder help sites to go into Health. Often, this is a surprisingly close judgment call.

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You’ve probably seen the news: MySpace has reached an agreement with 49 states to take steps to make their site a safer place for kids. I just have one quick comment.

I think the state governments are attacking this from completely the wrong angle. Governments can put all the pressure they want on MySpace, and as soon as MySpace has adequate controls and age verification, the kids will have moved elsewhere.

Now don’t get me wrong, MySpace certainly has an obligation to do what they can. I’m glad to see them cooperating, especially because they only have a PR incentive to do so. They actually have a disincentive from a business perspective.

The advertisers go to MySpace to reach kids of all ages, so MySpace needs to continue to make it easy for the kids to sign up. But you lose your street cred with the kids when you let the parents in.

Providing parents the controls they want while also giving advertisers the access they demand are objectives that are fundamentally at odds with each other.

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