Child online safety is often talked about.
I’ve thought that they ought not to be on the same forums with adults. I know this from early experience in the early days of the internet in that on my historic site orionparty.org 1990s to early 2000s I proposed a Planetary People’s Parliament I would have been massive now and a millionaire if this had not been abused but it was used as a porn ring. Personally women were excluded from the creation of the internet in this way, and this pervasive influence still affects the engagement of women in social media, and the judgement of us on it, we are more likely to be sanctioned for opinions, a social corset, whilst men are given liberal licence so when we report on them on behaviours that breach, they are given allowance and we are informed that they do not incorrectly. In order to gather in the 51% and to create balance you should allow women total freedom of thought for a while and simultaneously discipline men’s licentious and controlling condescending images and speech – that would make twitter more civil – facebook is losing users as many have given up – I am only still on there for the bargains that can be had on marketplace.
For children I would take them off the main twitter and allow them to engage in conversation with their peer age group. I’ve thought about this and have created groupings which I have called:
Egg up to 5
Hatchlings 6-9
Chicks 10-13
Fledglings 14-17
They do want to use the real thing, I gave my niece a kiddie phone when she was a toddler as she was using my brothers and she was not impressed, and I equally was not with a kiddie dictionary, and was only satisfied when at 11 I got the real thing with the real definitions.
In order for this to work a date of birth or part of one would be required. A year of birth would let you up to the next group on January 1st, and a year and month on the 1st of the next month, a full date of birth on your birthday. This information would need to go through schools and parents, and you would be given a temporary @user which you can change if you want to at 18 when you are in the main twitter. Teachers and Parents would be locked followers so that they can monitor, control, and edit conversation appropriately to their age group. No other adults would be allowed to view nor interact with them.
I’ve thought of imagery to help with this. The youngsters would have these pictures where the egg now is where a photo has not been uploaded, and the egg would be replaced with a nebulous cloud, the unknown, the shady and where birds fly high to too.
I’ve made them cute, red, yellow and green to differentiate them from the blue bird.
The first egg one I’ve made into a coloured in emoji baby bird with a little embryonic beak.
I’ve made the hatchling realistic with wide eyes.
The chick is standard, I have used the same egg and yolk shapes to create all the images.
The fledgling is a pared down design, transitioning to the real thing ready to take off, when a bird is on its side it seem like there is one merged set of legs, and when a bird is at rest it sleeps on one leg, so this works. It flows into the real thing.
I checked the colours match real birds too.
These images would go where our circular photos are, and this will give an additional layer of protection for the children, as if they are searched and found then only these images will show and users searching will know that this account is inaccessible to them – they will be able to customise the long rectangle picture.
Different communications capabilities will be allocated based on age, appropriately, for example, for their own safety not being about to search or post gifs from other sources and having photos being pre-vetted by parents and teachers before they appear, there could be this capability for posts too. Monitoring this way and authorities commenting on how we behave online, particularly useful in disciplining older boys in how to treat girls with respect and thereby allowing girls complete positive freedom of thought through this which they can take with them to the adult interest making it a more pleasant place.
Perhaps for the younger ones a drawing a colouring in post creation could be available, so each could create a picture the other could engage with and reply to with it coloured in.
Educators could use this in the place where advertising is for adults with facts and activities they could learn from. In the older examination age groups this could be used constructively to assist revision and to ask pertinent questions so they learn as much as they can from them and do well as a result.
Time online could be checked and ensured that responsible care-givers limit this for their charges own good, and to aid relief of addictive use whilst their brains are still flexible. Sports providers could invite youngsters to get out and play and interact positively in the real world, so they have something proper to tell about online later. Show off posts could be dissuaded as this is the seed of pain and anger, and mainly what facebook is all about, divisions could be eased off and become more like interlocking pieces of a jigsaw, so that the big picture becomes so much more unified and genuinely pretty attractive.
If this ups the number of users and their positive engagement on Twitter I’d appreciate a payment so I could investment my time into my work in getting my ideas to save the planet out there and done. Many of which are on the websites in my profile. I would also love to work with you on them. Thank you.
Follow me and I’ll message you the .jpg s (+ .cdr s. if you’d like them)
© Clare E A Kingston
This is a work in progress – more to be added @ a later date