I’m sure many parents can relate to this scenario: You’re browsing the web and you happen upon a saved site, or maybe check your history. And there it is – a porn link that you didn’t access. What do you do? At what age do you think you have to start worrying about this?

Well, according to a new study, it’s a lot earlier than you think. Apparently, kids are starting to look at porn by the time they reach the age of six. Yes, six.

The study comes from internet security and antivirus software provider Bitdefender, who released the results to USA Today. Bitdefender used data compiled from its various parental controls services alongside a survey of over 19,000 parents worldwide.

The survey found that kids start watching porn as early as 6, and are “flirting” on the internet by the ripe old age of 8.

Social media use is also starting earlier – 17% of kids had an account on some social networking site by the age of 10 and 25% had one by the age of 12.

“Kids nowadays are acting like young adults online — just give them an Internet-connected device, and they will find a way to things parents would like to ban forever,” says Bitdefender Chief Security Strategist Catalin Cosoi.

Of course, parents are the key. Both in limiting what young kids see on the internet, as well as having important conversations about both the good and the bad that exists on the web.

And it looks that those conversations need to start happening early. Very early.

As expected, the results are adorable.

[h/t: Reddit]

Google itself says as much in a FAQ for the product. This is straight from the page:

Glass isn’t for everyone. Like when wearing glasses, some people may feel eye strain or get a headache. If you’ve had Lasik surgery, ask your doctor about risks of eye impact damage before using Glass. Don’t let children under 13 use Glass as it could harm developing vision. Also, kids might break Glass or hurt themselves, and Google’s terms of service don’t permit those under 13 to register a Google account. If Glass is not for you and you wish to return it, do so before the end of the applicable refund period.

There are only six of the so-called “frequently asked questions,” and oddly one of them is “Can I use glass while operating a jackhammer?” Google’s response is, “Use caution,” noting that it will not protect your eyes from debris, balls, sharp objects, or chemical explosions.

So, probably not a good idea.

[via AndroidHeadlines]

Image: Stop the Cyborgs

Despite what the title of this video says, this is not the funniest thing ever. I don’t even have a problem with the kid’s foul mouth. F*ck it, he’s right. Flamin’ hot cheetos are awesome. But don’t hate on banana chips, bro. They’re sweet, plus they have, like, mad potassium. Plus, who ever told him to drink ketchup? That’s just bad parenting.

[via HyperVocal]

The United Nations Children’s Fund Sweden division is calling people out with a powerful new ad campaign: we need money for polio vaccines and your slacktivism isn’t helping.

“Like is on Facebook, and we will vaccinate zero children against polio,” reads a press ad developed pro bono by ad agency Forsman & Bodenfors. “We have nothing against likes, but vaccines cost money. Please buy a polio vaccine at unicef.se. It will only cost you 4 euros, but will save the lives of 12 children.”

The campaign, which is running in print, television, radio, and online, also has a powerful video ad featuring a 10-year-old boy named Rahim.

“My name is Rahim. I’m 10 years old and I live here with my brother,” says the boy as the camera zooms in on a ragged apartment. “Sometimes I worry that I will get sick, like mom got sick. Then who will look after my brother?”

“But I think everything will be alright. Today, UNICEF Sweden has 177,000 likes on Facebook. Maybe they will reach 200,000 by summer. Then we should be alright.”

With the rise of social media, we’ve also seen a rise in “armchair activism” or “slacktivism,” the terms used to describe lazy attempts to support a cause via social media. One prime example was last year’s Kony 2012 campaign, which saw millions of Facebook and Twitter users share viral video about the atrocities of Ugandan LRA leader Joseph Kony.

But you can see fragmented slacktivist campaigns every day on Facebook. “Like this photo and this baby gets the transplant it needs” and so on. Sure, clicking like or sharing a status may make you feel good, but it doesn’t accomplish much more than that.

[Images via UNICEF Sweden]

The man, 24-year-old Reece Elliot, hails from Fossway, South Shields, South Tyneside – but the threats appeared on a tribute Facebook page for an American girl who was killed in a car crash back in October of 2012.

According to The Guardian, Elliot used an assumed name and posted the following messages on the RIP Caitlin Talley Facebook page:

I’m glad the fat bitch is dead. Let’s drink to drink driving. No one gives a shit that she’s dead, get over it. If I was there now I would rape you.

My father has three guns. I’m planning on killing him first and putting him in a dumpster. Then I’m taking the motor and I’m going in fast. I’m gonna kill hopefully at least 200 before I kill myself. So you want to tell the deputy, I’m on my way.

I’m killing 200 people minimum at school. I will be on CNN.

Of course, threats like this are always taken very seriously, but in light of the recent school shooting in Newtown, officials in the Warren County Tennessee district suspended school for nearly 3,000 students. The school district also beefed up security, putting the local schools in “lockdown” mode.

According to the report, Elliot turned himself in after officials coordinated with the FBI to uncover his true identity. He claimed to be a “troll” who was just trying to get a rise. Authorities say that Elliot used the words “dumpster” and “deputy,” clearly American words, to make the threats seem more credible.

Then again, he did say he was going to be “taking the motor.”

Speaking of people being idiots on Facebook, an Ohio man was sentenced this week to 17 months in prison after making threats about killing police and judges on Facebook. When will people learn?

The issue focuses on cybersafety, and features Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, among other familiar Disney duck faces.

“Kids growing up in this digital age use the Internet for pretty much everything; entertainment, communication, education and when they get that far; new technologies will play an important role in their work,” says Martin Ruby for Google Public Policy, Copenhagen. “Never has a generation needed digital guidance as the one growing up now. And we were thinking: who would be a better digital guide for kids than Donald Duck?”

“In the book, Donald gets himself into trouble,” explains Ruby. “He is guarding his uncle’s fortune with the help of a gigantic robot but trying as always to charm Daisy Duck – this time on the Internet. An unsuspecting Donald is lured into downloading a virus and giving away his password to Magica de Spell on ‘Duckbook’. No surprise: she takes control of the robot and the fortune.

Good thing it’s realistically practical, acknowledging that far more ducks are using Duckbook than Duck+.

Ruby notes that it all ends well, and Donald gets a prize for his digital skills.

You can actually peruse the issue here (pdf).

30-year-old Zachary Joshua Reader, a former high school teacher and baseball coach at schools in both Anaheim and Irvine, California, is accused of encouraging sex acts and possessing nude photographs of boys aged 13-17.

According to police, Reeder used Facebook to commit his crimes. Between June of 2010 and January of 2013, he allegedly created a fake Facebook account posing as a female student. Through this account, Reeder befriended many underage boys, most of which he knew through his teaching jobs.

He reportedly got at least 106 victims to send him sexually explicit photos and videos.

Here’s the full list of counts that Reeder faces:

22 felony counts of using a minor for sex acts, 15 felony counts of distributing pornography to a minor, 13 felony counts of contacting a child with the intent to commit a lewd act, six felony counts of lewd acts upon a child, two felony counts of lewd acts upon a child under 14, one felony count of possession and control of child pornography, and one felony count of distribution of child pornography.

These counts carry a total maximum sentence of 44 years in prison.

This definitely isn’t the first time that we’ve seen Facebook used in elaborate fake profile sex scams. Last year, a Pennsylvania man was charged with 68 felony counts after he went to painstaking lengths to manipulate underage girls through a series of fake Facebook accounts.

Like Google, Yahoo, and most other search engines, Bing offers to autocomplete queries in their search box. While Google calls this feature “autocomplete,” Bing calls it “search suggestions.”

Well, it looks like Bing is suggesting that you search for some pretty disturbing stuff.

I was pointed in the right direction thanks to a reddit post. “Why don’t you have a seat over there, Bing,” it read, referencing Dateline NBC host Chris Hansen’s famous line on the show To Catch a Predator.

Ok, I’ll bite. Here’s what Bing’s search suggestions suggest:

Say what? It appears that Bing is suggesting that I search for “sex games for kids,” and “sex games for kids in bed” and “sex games online for children.” Hm, ok then.

Digging a little deeper with the questionable queries produced similar results. For instance, here’s what Bing suggests when you search for “sex kids”:

And here’s a Bing search for “sex child…”:

Even worse, here are Bing’s suggestions for what I’m sure is one of their (and any search engine’s) most popular single-word queries, “sex”:

Damnit, Bing.

Also, changing your SafeSearch settings to strict does nothing to eliminate these results. When you think about it, it would probably look even worse for Bing if it did, because that would indicate that Bing felt that a search suggestion like “sex games for kids in bed” was an appropriate suggestion for a moderate level SafeSearch.

“Still seeing inappropriate content? SafeSearch uses advanced technology to filter adult content, but it won’t catch everything. If SafeSearch is set to Strict or Moderate and you’re seeing adult content, tell us about it so we can filter it in the future,” says Bing.

But this isn’t a SafeSearch problem, this is a search suggestions problem. You can turn search suggestions off in your settings, but by default they are on. That means that the average person that pulls up bing.com and searches for “sex g…” sees these questionable suggestions.

Now, I guess the next big question is whether or not Bing has a responsibility to filter out these search suggestions.

On one hand you could make the argument that Bing doesn’t have to manually edit which search suggestions it gives for particular queries. The suggestions are clearly based upon popular and recent searches from the Bing community – and if that’s what they’re searching for then hey – let it be.

On the other hand, Google limits its autocomplete results. Here’s what you’ll see when you search “sex games” on Google:

And here’s what you see when you search “sex kid”:

As you know, Google also censors other questionable searches. They won’t give you suggestions for sexual terms like “boobs” or “pussy,” and they won’t even display curse words like “fuck” or “shit” in autocomplete results.

They also censor any search that has to do with the illegal downloading of copyright protected content. For instance, “game of thrones torrent” won’t autocomplete.

Over on Bing, it’s a totally different story:

Bing doesn’t really filter any of the types of searches that Google does. Last year, we pointed out that Bing was suggesting painless ways to kill yourself while Google was displaying the suicide prevention hotline.So, if they’re going with a true hands-off approach to any sort of search suggestion censoring, what’s different about queries about sex games for kids?

Well, it’s the “c’mon, dude” argument I guess. As in, Bing…c’mon dude. It doesn’t help that instead of “autocomplete,” Bing’s version of the technology is called “search suggestions.” So, when you think about it, Bing is suggesting that you search for “sex kids movies” and “sex games with kids in bed.”

C’mon, dude.

I’ve reached out to Bing for comment and will update when I hear back.

UPDATE:

As you know, Facebook partners with Bing for their search results. And you can find the same questionable suggestions inside Graph Search results:

UPDATE 2: A Microsoft spokesperson has given me this:

“We’re reviewing the guidelines for search suggestions related to this type of query.”

Well have to see if anything changes.

That time, it was the elderly who were made to read the oftentimes obscene tweets. This time, it’s adorable little children and the Twitter comedian is Kelly Oxford (who just published a book).

This is predictably hilarious: