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Your Kent Social Networking Safety Guide

How to enjoy all the benefits of kent.co.uk whilst staying safe

We hope you enjoy using kent.co.uk and all the opportunities it provides to make new friends, stay in touch with old friends, and find out about new events and places in the county.

Like everything on the Internet, you also need to make sure you stay safe and protect yourself from potential harm.

This simple guide, written in plain English, covers three main areas of safety; special advice for our younger users aged 13-18, advice for parents or carers of younger users, and general advice for all users:

General social networking safety advice for adults

Social networking safety advice for young people

Social networking safety advice for parents and carers

If anything you see on kent.co.uk upsets or worries you, report it straight away using the link on every page of the site.

 

General social networking safety advice for adults

Just like the real world, the internet can never be completely safe, but at kent.co.uk we have strived to create the safest possible online environment and give users the information and tools they need to ensure a risk free experience.

Here are some useful pointers to help you stay safe when using kent.co.uk:

  • When someone asks to be your friend, make sure you actually know them. We encourage all users to add a profile photo and description to help other users identify them correctly.

  • Never give out personal details to other users, even if they claim to be from kent.co.uk. We will never contact you to ask for more information in this way.

  • Don’t arrange to meet people you’ve met on kent.co.uk without staying safe – meet in a public place, and let others know who, when and where you are meeting.

  • You can end your friendship with other users at any time. Simply log in and click on their name in the Friends Tab. Under their photo and description you’ll see a link to ‘End friendship with xxxx’ which you click on.

  • You can edit and change your profile photo, the description about you and your personal interests whenever you like. Go to the Profile tab and click the appropriate Edit link under each item. You can also change your interests and description on the Settings page.

  • You can easily remove your photos at any time, by going to the Profile tab, click on ‘show/edit photos’ and then click the ‘Delete’ link under the photo.

  • You can choose not to be shown on any maps by visiting the Settings page and under ‘Display General Location’ click on ‘Do not show me on the map’, then Save at the bottom of the page.

  • You can see what personal information we hold and how it is held by reading our Privacy Policy.

  • Don’t believe everything people say just because it’s been posted online. Just think how easy it is to pretend to be someone else if you can’t actually see them or speak to them, so always question information you see or are sent.

If anything you see on kent.co.uk upsets or worries you, report it straight away using the Report Abuse link which is on every page of the site.

 

Social networking safety advice for young people

Let’s face it, not all adults understand the internet. Instant messaging, blogs, and social networking can all be a bit of a mystery to some parents and teachers.

So sometimes it can be hard to get good advice about how to stay safe online, and what do if something goes wrong.

That’s why we’ve written this special guide for our younger users aged between 13-18, to show you what you need to be careful about on social networking websites, and when you are online.

And remember, if anything you see on kent.co.uk that upsets you, or anyone does anything to upset you, you can report it straight away using the link on every page of the site.

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What can go wrong?
Using social networking websites can be great fun, and is perfectly safe for most people. But just like in the real world, sometimes things could happen which upset you, or even put you in danger.

Here are some examples of the sort of problems you need to know about:

  • Grooming is when an adult tries to become friends with a child so that they can try to sexually abuse them. Potential abusers could pretend to know you by using the personal information you’ve put online, asking you for personal details, or pretending to be the same age as you.

  • Bullying is a common problem in the real world, and can happen online as well. Cyber bullying could include sending abusive messages and posting upsetting comments about people.

  • Posting content online which we call ‘inappropriate’ to encourage other people to do it as well, or upset people, can include racist abuse, hate, drug taking, excessive drinking, and violence.

  • If someone does something which is illegal offline, remember it’s also illegal if it’s done online as well. This might include someone encouraging another user to break the law, or posting content which is illegal.

  • Your personal information is important – other web users might try to steal your details so they can pretend to be you, or post your personal details online on purpose to upset or embarrass you.

 

What can I do to stay safe?
Just like in the real world, staying safe online is all about common sense. Lots of our advice is the same as things you’ve probably been told by your teachers or parents about staying safe generally.

But here are some special things to remember:

Never accept a friend request from someone unless you are sure you know them, and that they really are who they say you are. Just because they claim to know one of your friends, doesn’t always mean it’s true.

Never arrange to meet a stranger or new friend offline. Even when you do arrange to meet proper friends for real, stay safe by letting someone else know when, where and who you are meeting, make sure you’ve got your mobile with you (and that it works), meet in a public place, and try and meet people in a group instead of alone.

Never give out your personal details to other web users unless you already know them. Even small details about your life could be used by someone to contact you offline. You could put yourself and also your friends or younger brothers and sisters in danger.

Don’t do or say things online which you might end up regretting later. It’s really easy for arguments by email, text or IM to quickly get out of hand, usually because you can’t see how much you might be upsetting the other person. Also, think twice before adding dodgy photos and comments, just in case they come back to haunt you!

It’s easy and fun to flirt online. But online flirting can easily get out of hand, and you could end up getting upset, giving the wrong impression of yourself, or even putting yourself in danger. Think for yourself about how far to go and don’t get pressured into doing or saying anything online that you’re not comfortable with.

Don’t believe everything people say just because it’s been posted online. Just think how easy it is to pretend to be someone else if you can’t actually see them or speak to them, so always question information you see or are sent.

Report anything you see on kent.co.uk which upsets you, or if anyone does anything to upset you, using the link on every page of the site.

Where can I get more information about safety online?
There’s lots more information available about anything you might be worried about.

Advice about using the internet safely
http://www.childline.org.uk/info/onlinesafety/pages/safesurfing.aspx

Internet safety advice for ages 11 to 16
http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/11_16/

Advice about computer security problems
http://www.childnet.com/sorted/

Who can I speak to if I am worried?
There are lots of different people you can speak to if you are worried or upset by something you’ve seen on the Internet. You don’t have to tell them your name, and your parents don’t have to get involved.

It could be something that’s happened to you or a friend, but whatever the problem, there’s nothing wrong with just talking to someone about it:

Childline
Talk to Childline about anything including cyber bullying, abuse, and online safety. Calls are free and confidential
Call 0800 1111 or Visit http://www.childline.org.uk/Pages/default.aspx

Samaritans
Samaritans is a confidential emotional support service available 24 hours a day for people who are experiencing feelings of distress or despair, including those which may lead to suicide.
Call 08457 90 90 90 or visit http://www.samaritans.org/

 

Social networking safety advice for parents and carers

At kent.co.uk we place great emphasis on ensuring the safety of children and younger people who use our website.

Social networking websites offer many positive opportunities for children and young people to communicate interact and share content or interests. But it’s also important to remember that, just as in the real world, no environment can be completely safe. Children and young people need to be protected where possible from potential harm, and also educated about potential risks and how to guard against them.

Therefore our approach to safety for children and young people under the age of 18 rests on three key areas:

  • Built in safety measures to automatically protect younger users.

  • Providing younger users with tools to help them protect themselves from potential harm.

  • Educating younger users about potential risks and how to manage their online experience safely.

Our safety guidelines for younger users are based on the ‘Home Office Good practice guidance for the providers of social networking and other user interactive services 2008’. In the UK the government supports a self-regulatory model for the Internet industry, so whilst Good practice guidelines are not legally binding, kent.co.uk actively follows this advice on a voluntary basis.

Built in safety measures
Like most other social networking sites we have set the minimum age to use our service at 13. There is no legal minimum age for using social networking websites in the UK, but we follow standard industry practice by using this minimum age.

All users are required to accept our terms and conditions when they sign up, which state that users must be 13 or older. News users must also give us their year of birth so we can identify their age.

Like all social networking websites, there are very few technical measures which can be use to prevent under age users giving a false age, but if we are advised by a reliable source that a user is under age their account will be closed as quickly as possible.

When users join kent.co.uk they are also required to provide a valid UK postcode so that we can identify their general location, but their precise location is obscured.

We also carefully monitor user activity on the site and will investigate any suspicious behaviour, and close the accounts of users who for example have misled other users about their true age or who encourage users to give them personal details.

Tools for younger users
Our younger users have access to a range of tools to help them manage their online friendships and the content they see in our website:

  • When users receive a friend request they can ignore the request if they do not know the person contacting them.

  • Users can very easily end a friendship with any of their accepted friends if they uncomfortable about that person.

  • A ‘Report Abuse’ link is featured through the site and can be used by younger users to let us know about any activity or content which is inappropriate.

Educating younger users
We all have a role to play in educating our younger users about internet safety. Research carried out by kent.co.uk at the end of 2008 showed that the majority of 13-14 year old social networking users surveyed felt they did not receive safety guidance from their parents or school.

To help you understand potential risks and put them into context, so that you can advise your children effectively, there are many sources of help and advice:

If you are worried about anything your child may have seen on kent.co.uk, please report it using the Report Abuse tool which is on every page.



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