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General: Blizzard Helping Keep Kids Safe Online
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Activision Blizzard has announced a new partnership with Web Wise Kids, a recognized leader in the effort to empower kids to think smart on the Internet. The secondary goal of Web Wise Kids is to create and foster ethical behavior while online. The partnership will help families work together to maintain appropriate relationships with others online and to ensure that kids make wise choices.
The newly formed partnership will work to educate kids and parents on how to avoid inappropriate or unlawful online behavior and use the Internet safely and responsibly. By addressing issues like piracy, fraud, sexting, bullying, social networking, blogging, cyber stalking, online predators, identity theft and more— educational gaming and programs prepare young people so they can safely explore the best that the Internet has to offer.
Find out more about Web Wise Kids.
Comments
Thanks for the lol... Blizzard tried to impose real identity to promote a social network and make more profit then backed off because of outraged reaction and legal risks but telling that "as usual we care for our community and listened to our players". Truth is they knew this would be outrageous but thought they were so smart and their fanbois would even gobble that down.
Protect kids? Sure... Then why with all the insane profit Blizzard is making they never hired moderators for their channels and enforced their own rules? I've been watching a constant abuse of channels for months when I was playing, not only common off-topic discussion and insults which is breaking the ROC but hot topics like drugs, sex, rape, hacking, politics, racism, etc... Basically Blizzard created a nice game and turn a blind eye on what's going on as long as people pay, as if they weren't supposed to watch over peoples' behavior and discussion to ensure the game's quality.
Surelely hiring some GMs would cost them money and shareholders would say it's useless, just let the stupid consumers wallow in the channel mire, and Blizzard barely can't afford it right?
Yeah "Blizzard helping keep kids safe online", it made my day.
Regardless, the reason this was posted is that it brings notice to Web Wise Kids that truly DOES work to keep kids safe online 100% of the time, not simply paying it lip service. The partnership with a company as big as Blizzard can only bring more attention to WWK.
As a junior high teacher, I used Web Wise Kids regularly and the kids really learned something in the process. It doesn't sugar coat the dangers that the Web can present to kids and gives them tools and information to handle things they come across. In addition, there are some of the best tools for parents I've ever seen with resources to access if kids become vicitms of stalkers or worse.
Bottom line is that the attention that Web Wise Kids gets with the partnership is worth it in the long run.
Parents, I urge you to check Web Wise Kids out. You won't be sorry.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That's cool WWK got some more support, because I'm sure it does work. However, seeing who it is coming from made me laugh a little also. Maybe they should put a little money into moderating their servers ...
I agree with SBFord, entirely: if you're a parent - or have friends who are parents - with kids that are, or are going to be, using the internet, I also urge you to check out WWK. Well worth it, both in the short and long run.
And hey, if it gets Bliz off their arses to actually deal more with in-game and on-forum nonsense, all the better. At that point, it's win-win; right now, Blizzard's attitude towards communication is abysmal.
Sure, protect kids, right, and I'm Jerry Springer......Pedo is everywhere, sex is every where, because the money is there supporting it. Plain and simple, and Blizzard just hates getting money....So please Blizzard save us from the takes on Dreni screawing a blood elf....Please, we know this is just a PR stunt.
*goes back to life outside of MMOs and the PR stunts*
I'm with you. I must say as well that WoW was not made for kids in the beginning. It was rated "M" for mature and also has the warning that game play will change during online play. If parents are so conscious about what their kids are doing, then it is the parents responsibility to monitor what their kids are doing online, not Blizzard nor its offiliates. Part of the blame game goes out to the parents. Blizzard has a great thing going for the older crowd, it parents don't want kids playing it, then set the parental settings and get them out. Just saying.
Awww little tykes. Send them to www.clubpenguin.com if they need all that cotton wool. Also, stay away from cybormad Goldshire and the deeprun tram during the night. Especially if any strange Gnome approaches you. Er, not that I do that kind of thing, schtum schtum.
Ethical behaviour? Like with that one quest in WoW, where a guy was tied to a chair, and the quest told you to torture him until he tells you what you want to know? And even once you got all information to complete the quest, you could continue to torture him for fun and hear him scream and complain that you ain't even asking questions. Yep, rewarding kids to do that is very ethical.
Or the quest where you had to wipe out whole clans of trolls (even if you were one yourself), even though all the trolls do were defending themselves against the Scourge. But for "the greater good" you were killing them anyway.
Or in other quests where you have to kill people who shout "No please, I have a family!" or "I was forced to act this way!" and they beg for mercy, but for the sake of xp you have to slay them all.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
That's just the thing. Blizzard knows that their product is far reaching and there is a generation of gamers that grew up with WoW. Six years is enough time to graduate high school, finish college and start a family. So what harm is it that Blizzard has partnered with an organization that gives budding parents a tool to educate their little ones about the vices that exist on the web?
The last generation of parents were clueless about the gaming industry. You don't know how many parents ran to the store to buy little stevie that copy of Condemned because he kept whining about it and they didn't have a clue what they were getting. Or the parent that never thinks twice about allowing a child to have a pc in their room (camera included) without schooling them about how to steer clear of unwanted advances.
None of this crosses any of you posters' minds with you negative remarks because you have no clue how to gauge the just of the problem at hand, but effortlessly contribute to it.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
I dont think anyone is complaining about the game itself. Rather this quote right here ...
"The secondary goal of Web Wise Kids is to create and foster ethical behavior while online."
So basically Blizzard contributes to a good program that raises awareness of the dangers to kids on the internet. But their secondary goal is laughable at best when they don't even attempt to foster a good community in their own game.
Politics? Only a communist cannot accept political opinions that diverge from his own.
Racism? Blizzard disbanded my guild once because it was named "iamcanadian" even if we had express written consent to use the term from the company who trademarked it.
Hacking? They use Flash ads on their site, only thing less secure would be to allow anyone with the WoW client installed to take over anyone elses PC.
Drugs? What an american considers drugs is far different from what someone else might consider a drug. Marijuana is a plant here. So is tobacco.
Sex? Welcome to Earth, I sincerely hope that you enjoy your stay here. However. please be advised that sex is a normal activity practiced by all mammals on this planet as it serves our reproduction. Oh, btw, humans and dolphins like it, and bats actually give each other blowjobs too.
Rape? This is a normal reaction from the human species. Well animals do it too. Its part of sex. Sure most us do not accept such behavior and we even deem it illegal to do so. Again only someone who's mind is raped by God would refuse to acknowledge that is a basic instict. It is normal that people speak about it, as it still happens. Also, over 80% of rapes are not even reported due to the victim seeking some sort of social acceptance, as they have been thought all their lives that it was NOT ok to talk about it. WoW is doing a service to all by allowing people to discuss the subject and/or abord it in an unfriendly matter as it may come down to be "normal" to speak about the occurence of such an event to a person's life.
Rape is also legal in many countries, so long as you are raping your wife. Bear in mind that not everyone is American, and also get this fact straight: 90% of the planet's population believe that there is no such thing as American culture. (ok i admit that China makes up most of earth population which inflates that statistic greatly.)
Real ID: It is much easier for me to convince some girl to flash me or even touch herself if I can hide behind a pseudonym. Although it does provide more avenues for criminals to have real names, it's up to the companies to make sure you are really the one getting a credit card. I know if i get a credit card bill from a card I do not own, I will go after the company for attempt to fraud. I even sent a legal notice to American Express last week for not accepting my last payment and then charging me interest on the money owed. Let me tell you that yesterdays payment passed, and did so within 3 hours.
The only real protection to kids blizzard can give is this: Help them to not become addicted to video games. Such a feature is already implemented in the parental control panel. As for the rest, let parents be parents.
EDIT: If blizzard wants to give this product more visibility, they are well within their rights to do so. The same reason you may agree that pollution is bad and yet drive a car to work every day.
PS: Welcome to Earth MyPreciousss, I hope you understand now that Earth is bigger than the city in which you landed (Roswell, NM).
If the game is rated T for teen, technically thats 17+, so it's the parent at fault, correct?
In the english language, a teen is 13....
as in thirTEEN and it goes up to nineTEEN
M for Mature is 17+ (fyi)
Anyhow, i visited WWK... When I loaded the flash it showed a horrendous looking girl and I closed my browser window. Having flash sites in 2010 is already horrible, dont ugly moving images. Keep it still so I don't notice it.
Well since they attracted a ton of teens to their game I guess it is only fair to educate them right ?
There's nothing with Blizzard supporting a particular cause.
It's the sheer irony of the fact that Blizzard's behavior runs contradictory to it, that people are pointing out.
Blizzard has a history of fostering terrible communities, starting as far back as the launch of Battle.net. They have extremely poor moderation, rarely enforcing their own rules. The times they do, they often go overboard and ban anyone and everyone blindly. Not to mention their CMs often troll their own forums and set terrible examples for the more impressionable posters.
It's just business, nothing more and nothing less.
good move on their part as was the idea of the real ID for the forums.
Magic is impressive, but now Minsc leads! Swords for everyone!
Yes right. So here is what the first rule should look like
Rule 1:
Flash is known for opening up exploits to allowed unauthorized access to your computer. It is very important that you use Firefox along with the flashblocker plugin. Something very similar is available for Safari in Macintosh. Sites which are Flash only and Advertisements are the greatest vehicle for the use of these exploits. It is also wise to browse in a no-script fashion to avoid javascript exploits. A javascript exploit however will not allow the attacker to insert programs in your computer as a flash exploit would. If a site is overly broken due to noscript, you may view, through the source code, which javascript files will be loaded before you enable the javascript on the given site. Search for ajax calls which may lead to other pages, which would in turn load harmful scripts to read the contents of your computer. Attackers using these techniques often do so to trap password files and bank account access.
Simply put, being on the internet is a risk to your security, no matter what. Don't worry about it too much. There are many different ways to be hacked, and have your identity stolen/found out. Yes, a judge was once caught having child pornography by downloading an image which also contained a virus. Every time you visit a website, you are opening yourself to hundreds of possible attacks.
The only 100% sure way to not have any problems: Do not connect to the internet.
The best way to enjoy the internet: Flashblock. No joke sites (ebaums) & no porn sites. Also, NOTHING IS EVER FREE. Even the love of your parents is conditional to you making them proud afterall.
I can only hope and dream that WWK centers their lessons on bullying, sex predators, racism and homophobia by using real examples taken directly from in game footage of WoW.
Sorry dude, it's rated "T" and I have no idea where you got "M" from, But I must agree with you about it being the parents responsibility and not Blizzards to keep their children safe. Let's face it, parents need educated about the ESRB, and I mean more than the occasional commercial that pops up every three or four months.
People go online, see some nasty smack talk in the guild chat, and then force their kid to leave the guild. it's their own fault for letting their kids see stuff like that when they don't even care (or know) what "T" means or what the ESRB even is.
What I hate most though, is when parents use WWK to educate their kids about the dangers of the internet, complain to Blizzard about the awful things they let people say in the chat channels. They probably do all kinds of other things too, to protect their kids from the dangers of the internet, and then they let their kid play Modern Warfare, or Halo, or GoW, or other "M" games. They ceaselessly complain about mild smack talk in "T" games like WoW, then let their kids hear the F bomb a few hundred times in any number of games that are rated "M."
I think Blizzard should have teamed up with the ESRB rather than WWK. WoW is a game and Blizzard is a company that makes games, sure the game IS online, but it is a game and thus should be supporting the ESRB, because they are the ones that try and help people protect their kids from games that are too mature for them. If anyone should be supporting WWK, it would be Facebook, because they are the ones that need to straighten up their act to protect kids online, and if their name gets used in the same sentence as WWK, it would pretty much force them into actually trying to protect people.
also, game play doesn't change during online play, because there isn't any offline play mode that it changes from.
pretty cool of blizz, they don't even have to do this but they are so good on them, how many other companies are doing it?
i like how even something good like this haters will twist it to be evil haha.
i guess it would have been better if they did nothing at all right?
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
Spot on in my opinion.
U know what it's the Parents Job to Put Password and restriction and if need be Supervise there Kids every now and again on there MMO's. I got agree that No MMO or gaming Co. is going to lose money to stop ppl from talking Junk online. Needless to say My guild always kept really Great ppl and only invited ppl who we or our member ran with at least 3 to 4 times for a few hr's. We still ended up getting a 15 YO girl always talking about her sex life we had to Boot her because 90% of our guild was 18+ and didn't want them getting in trouble because of what THE KID WAS SAYING ONLINE. WHERE ARE THE PARENTS TODAY ONLINE THERE SELF OR IN FRONT OF THE TV. I myself let my kids play Console games ,NO MMO's and only let them Online for Research. BE A PARENT IT ISN"T ANYONE ELSE JOB!