Kid-Friendlier Net Is Worth a Summit
On the heels of a report by the Federal Trade Commission lambasting operators of children’s Web sites for abusive marketing practices, another arm of the Clinton administration hit the road to stump for better Internet content for kids.
At the White House Internet Summit, in Los Angeles on Thursday and Friday, educators, policymakers and software makers issued a call to arms to prevent the Internet from following the precedent of television.
“We don’t think TV is a good model to follow because we’re very disappointed in what television did for children,” said AOL Studios President Ted Leonsis. “It’s a vast wasteland.”
Larry Irving, administrator of the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration and one of the government’s strongest proponents of getting kids connected to the Internet, called on content creators to produce high-quality educational Web sites for children. He also encouraged software developers to figure out a way for parents to control how their children use the Net so that the government doesn’t become tempted to regulate cyberspace.
The conference, co-sponsored by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and EC2, the Annenberg Incubator Project at USC, attracted about 350 people from around the country (although featured speaker Vice President Al Gore could attend only via satellite). From teachers to children’s advocates to hard-core business executives, nearly all expressed tremendous optimism about the global computer network’s educational potential.
“The Internet is finally going to let us do the things we’ve been dreaming about for years,” said Larry Gross, president of Torrance-based Knowledge Adventure, one of the largest makers of educational software.
