Raising Responsible Digital Citizens: Everyone’s Call to Action

This week in Washington, D.C. hundreds of people are gathering at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium to attend the Family Online Safety Institute's annual conference on Internet Freedom, Safety & Citizenship. A Global Call to Action. FOSI describes the conference as an international gathering of "policymakers, Internet Industry leaders, educators, legislators, law enforcement, Internet safety advocates, teachers, and technologists" collaborating to discuss innovative ways to keep kids safe online.

The agenda is packed with a great lineup of speakers and topics, including:

• 'Cyberbullying - What's Really Going On?'
• 'Location-based-services, reputation and data protection issues'
• 'Digital Citizenship: Safety, literacy, and ethics for life in a digital world'
• 'Sexting: where hormones and technology meet'
  We're looking forward to @AdamThierer's moderated panel on 'T

  ech Talk: The latest tools to empower and protect

  '. Speakers include our guest blogger and advisor Hemanshu 'Hemu' Nigam, who wrote a prelude to FOSI called '

  This Is Our Call to Action

  '. We'll also follow members from our

  Product Advisory Council

  including

  Larry Magid

  of ConnectSafely.org who is moderating a panel called '

  What Do We Know? Latest Findings and Research

  ' and

  Anne Collier

  also of ConnectSafely who'll be speaking about '

  Digital Citizenship: Safety, literacy, and ethics for life in a digital world

  '.

  We feel it's important for our community of parents, educators, advocates, and industry leaders to discuss these topics and take action based on what we learn together. We believe that by collaborating on best practices and industry research on what's working for families online, we can better deliver simple, effective safety solutions (like SafetyWeb and a handful of helpful tools) that parents can implement every day and online with their families, children and teens -- where it really matters. By providing parents with the parental control information and tools they need to feel supported while raising responsible digital citizens, we can make the Internet and Web 2.0 world a safer place for children, families, parents and other digital citizens. After all, raising responsible digital citizens is not just every parent's call to action, it is ours as a global community of connected individuals and digital role models. As we model online safety and responsibility through our own respectful behavior and responsible use of technology, we are teaching our children what it means to participate in meaningful exchanges with others both in the offline world AND the online world of social networks and online communities.

  We'll be live-blogging here from the SafetyWeb Blog and tweeting at the event with #fosi2010 - so follow the FOSI Conference on Twitter and read our tweets @SafetyWeb for the latest scoop!

  If you're attending the FOSI Conference, or happen to live or work in Washington, D.C. please stop by to say hello! The SafetyWeb team is here to provide personal demonstrations of our online safety application for parents and answer questions. Stop by our SafetyWeb exhibit for a FREE gift certificate for SafetyWeb to use for yourself or a fellow parent! Come meet our 'co-founding fathers' Geoffrey Arone and Michael Clark, and hear the real story on how SafetyWeb was inspired!

  We recently launched a free 'Find Help' Application for teens using Facebook, and their parents - it helps teens and their peers get help fast in times of trouble by connecting them with the Facebook Reporting process, as well as several leading organizations in online safety and crisis support. Help a teen or friend today by sharing 'Find Help' on Facebook.

  Recommended Reading:
  We recommend some follow-up reading, including Larry Magid's post on 'Digital Citizenship Includes Rights as Well as Responsibilities'. Also download ConnectSafely's 'A Parent's Guide to Facebook' by Anne Collier and Larry Magid, and check out our free parent resource guides on 'Teens & Mobile Phones' and 'Facebook for College-bound Teens'. We also recommend you read our post 'Did You Know Your Child Has a Digital Dossier?' originally inspired by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society's video 'Digital Dossiers' and Anne Collier's post on 'our children's digital dossiers'.

  Interested in more? Follow us (@SafetyWeb) on Twitter and like us on Facebook!