How to find a safe space on the internet

The rise of social networking sites such as MySpace among office workers looks set to become responsible for more lost working hours than the flu. For schools, the sites pose more serious problems. Stories of paedophiles grooming children terrify parents and teachers, and anyone logging on to the sites can easily find examples of bullying.

Despite the dangers, they are dizzyingly popular. MySpace alone lays claim to 180 million members worldwide, most of them young people. Popular, yes, but not always pleasant. This month an NSPCC poll on one site, Habbo, found that half of the 11 to 16 year olds polled have had an "unwanted experience" online.

Many believe the companies that run the sites are not doing enough to protect children. "Bebo is actively working toward propagating a culture of tolerance and inclusion amongst users of its site," says Rachel O'Connell, chief safety officer at Bebo. The company points to the facility allowing users to block comm-ents on their pages and report comments on others'. Critics point to the sites' failure to act on reports. The website Computing Which? last year found that it took Bebo two days to remove reported links to pornographic images.

At the Online Child Protection Conference at the Institute of Child Health last week, Jim Gamble, the chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), called for teachers to work through professional associations to put pressure on these sites to do more to protect children and teachers from bullying.

The CEOP's Think U Know campaign (www. thinkuknow.co.uk) teaches children how to protect themselves from harass-ment online. "The internet is just another public space," says Gamble. A child would not put their picture and phone number on a billboard, so they should not do it online. The CEOP also runs courses in online safety for teachers.

Software that monitors online activity is also available. Securus Software has a package that allows teachers to see where students go online and logs any document, as well as words from a banned list. Such packages are useful in flagging blatant abuse of the internet at schools, but unless ICT staff can second guess every deliberate misspelling, messages will slip through.

Paul Spencer Ellis, the head of Royal Alexandra & Albert School which uses Securus, admits that the children are constantly finding new ways to evade the software. "We're not stopping children doing this – we're educating them," he says. "You can't censor it, but they know now that if they do it there's a very good chance they'll be caught. Their received behaviour is not to do it."

Other schools look to moderated alternatives to Bebo and MySpace. Intuitive Media runs two sites with 120,000 members in the UK: SuperClubsPlus (www.superclubsplus. com) hosts 6 to 12 year olds, GoldStarCafe (www.gold starcafe.net) hosts 11 to 14 year olds. Professionally staffed screening software cuts down on bullying, and membership is only given to vetted teachers and pupils.

Among all the concerns about social networking sites it is important to remember their value as a tool for children to find friends and learn. "Most of us learn through interaction," says Robert Hart, strategic director of Intuitive Media. "This is a social community of 120,000 children who can learn from each other."

The NSPCC believes the sites could even be used as a weapon against bullying and abuse. It is encouraging children to use social networking sites to spread the word about this year's Don't Hide It sexual abuse campaign (www.donthideit. com). Last year more than one million children were drawn to the campaign through the sites.

"We know that children are very reluctant to talk to adults," says John Grounds, director of communications at the NSPCC. "They will talk to other young people. So this can become a vehicle that can be harnessed for good purposes."