Children and Media

Our present panics tend to arrive just as new parts of our economy, culture and politics are reconstituted within platform marketplaces — shifts that have turned out to be bigger than anyone anticipated. Aggravation about “fake news” followed the realization that the business and consumption of online news had been substantially captured by Facebook, which had strenuously resisted categorization as a media company. Children’s entertainment has migrated to new and unexpected venues faster and more completely than either parents or YouTube expected or accounted for.

One of the main fears that school officials have about curtailing “net neutrality” is that internet service companies will have new powers to throttle or block the flow of online content that serves as academic lifeblood for many districts. But gauging whether those worries are justified or overblown requires a lot of speculation about industry behavior, and how it would apply to schools. Chris Lewis, a vice president of the advocacy group Public Knowledge, said dire scenarios envisioned by some school officials are not unrealistic.

More than 1 billion people — mostly adults — use Facebook’s Messenger app to communicate every month. Now, the future of Messenger is set to become much younger. 

For many university students, high-speed internet access on campus is as expected as sidewalks and electricity. With a large number of college curriculums and tools dependent on these digital connections, what happens for students who don’t have regular access to high-speed internet? According to new research from the Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida (ICUF) presented to the Higher Education Coordinating Council (HECC), the lack of widely available broadband internet access in Florida is correlated to a smaller percentage of citizens with college degrees or certificates.

The majority of school districts today (85 percent) fully meet the Federal Communications Commission’s short-term goal for broadband connectivity of 100 Mbps per 1,000 students. However, recurring costs remain the most significant barrier for schools in their efforts to increase connectivity. Collecting feedback from 445 large, small, urban and rural school district leaders nationwide, the fifth annual survey examines the current state of technology infrastructure in US K-12 districts. (The FCC has used past findings to modernize and expand funding of E-rate.)

Attorneys for a group of children have agreed to withdraw a long-running privacy lawsuit against Viacom. The document withdrawing the case, filed with US District Court Judge Stanley Chesler in New Jersey, doesn't indicate whether any money changed hands.

The Internet Association -- which counts Google, Facebook, Twitter and others among its members -- reversed course and said it will support the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), a bill designed to make it easier to sue websites that enable sex trafficking online. The bill has been a source of tension between the technology industry and Washington for months.

The digital age continues to spark creative developments in education. Wireless gadgets are now commonplace in the typical American classroom. But while technology is helping thousands of students reach new heights in their education, many others are falling behind. Dubbed "the homework gap" by researchers, students without the use of reliable internet access at home find it harder to complete and submit homework assignments, further expanding the inequality already seen in low-income communities.

[Commentary] Online courses have the potential to improve instruction at every level of education. Adaptive online courses can allow students to learn at their own pace, with material adjusting to fit the needs of both advanced and remedial learners. Online courses can also open up more curricular offerings in schools that lack specialists, such as those in rural areas. Online courses are particularly attractive to school and district leaders looking for ways to trim costs.

The Federal Trade Commission is providing additional guidance on how the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule applies to the collection of audio voice recordings by organizations covered by the law, which requires certain operators of commercial websites or online services to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13. The FTC updated the COPPA Rule in 2013, adding several new types of data to the definition of personal information, including a photograph, video or audio file that contains a child’s image or voice, to data already covered, such as a name, address or Social Security number. This update has prompted some questions about the application of this requirement when a child’s voice is collected for the sole purpose of instructing a command or request.

In a new policy enforcement statement, the FTC noted that the COPPA rule requires websites and online services directed at children to obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting an audio recording. The Commission, however, recognizes the value of using voice as a replacement for written words in performing search and other functions on Internet-connected devices. The FTC will not take an enforcement action against an operator for not obtaining parental consent before collecting the audio file with a child’s voice when it is collected solely as a replacement of written words, such as to perform a search or to fulfill a verbal instruction or request – as long as it is held for a brief time and only for that purpose.