Internet is the new playground for kids: Google

The worldwide web, with all its hazards, is the new playground for children, a Google SA official said on Wednesday

June 27, 2012
Google Search app

The worldwide web, with all its hazards, is the new playground for children, a Google SA official said on Wednesday.

“Like in any playground, you don’t abandon your children, but supervise and check how they are playing there,” the search engine’s public policy manager Fortune Sibanda told a conference on child abuse in Pretoria.

He urged guardians to take stringent steps to protect children from negative content on the internet.

Minors had novel ways of searching for and accessing websites from which they were prohibited.

Sibanda said Google SA, working with concerned parties and the government, had embarked on a major drive to educate South Africans on internet safety.

“We need to be careful of the places where we ‘check-in’ on social networks. It is not safe for one to be announcing online that I am now in Pretoria, I am now at the CSIR. That information can be dangerous.”

The three-day conference, which ended on Wednesday, was hosted by the SA Professional Society on the Abuse of Children at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) convention centre east of Pretoria.

Related articles:

Google to unveil tablet at I/O conference: Bloomberg

Google CEO says “nothing seriously wrong”: source

Google’s plan to save dying languages

Tags: Active, CSIR, Fortune Sibanda, Google

Join the conversation

Connect with MyBB

twitterfacebookandroidappleblackberrynewsletterfeed

Poll

Which company do you think will buy Neotel?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

More News

ICASA trying to avoid embarrassment: report

ICASA

Bungling at the telecommunications regulator over R77.8 million bill means regulator is now looking to save face, says newspaper report

Why Google Glass will be important, even if it fails

Google glass

Even though Google Glass is doomed to fail, we should thank tech companies for experimenting, writes Alistair Fairweather

iWeek 2013 hosting Cory Doctorow

iWeek 2013

The line-up of speakers for this year’s iWeek is looking impressive

Smile LTE

LTE Phonecall

LTE insurgent challenger Smile does a hard launch in Tanzania and will open its network on a wholesale basis to other operators

bool(true)