(As an aside, it does amuse me greatly to watch teens behave like rebels -- as if they’re the first ones ever to have thought of behaving in such a manner since the dawn of time.)

There’s only one sure way to help keep my child safe, and it starts with me and my choice to actively seek information and educate myself on ways of keeping him safe. Not all parents choose this, sadly, and all the regret in the world cannot change an unfortunate event.

As for the inquiry as to why there is no report option specifically geared towards child predation, my guess is that it’s because in their eyes, it falls under the umbrella term of sexual harassment. Although personally, I would totally advocate its addition to the report list, as it is a much more serious offence than the generic crotch sniffing.

For example, yes, it would have been good if I had ‘reported’ each one who approached my 13 year old male avatar, but the initial ‘trust building’ phase was always innocuous. It wasn’t until he would broach the idea of a private chat room that the warning bells would start ringing. And I don’t see anyway to report that kind of suspicious behavior at that point.

Also, the article’s penultimate paragraph seems to indicate that Keara is acknowledging that it’s not Sony’s responsibility to raise children. And that’s what makes this such a thorny issue: it’s a societal problem which does exist.

Now, that said, I completely agree that the PC is a much greater risk than the PS3. And I also agree that any such suspicious behavior should be reported. Of course, observing such behavior and *proving* the intent behind it can be difficult, which is why there may be some validity to the idea of age-restricting Home.

Of course, from a business standpoint, this produces a conundrum that’s already been pointed out: how much revenue does Sony stand to lose by age-restricting Home? That financial data is the missing piece, which we of course have no access to. I’ll bet Sony’s looked at it, though.

(This, by the way, is the same potential conflict of interest Sony may have with moderation in Home: Sony actually has a financial incentive to be lenient with troublemakers, as they cannot quantify how much revenue they might gain by kicking out a miscreant, but they can almost certainly measure how much a particular account has spent in Home, and extrapolate future losses based on blocking that account.)

There are no easy answers. But one of the things I love with HSM, because our primary focus is Home’s social issues, is that we ask *a lot* of questions — questions which I don’t necessarily see being asked elsewhere. And that’s why these sorts of discussions can be so valuable.

The web browser on the PS3 is pretty weak. And as I stated before, there already exist parental controls for it -- which parents don’t use. Further, the lack of a keyboard would make it difficult to use, the same as with the Home application. I still feel PCs are a much greater risk.

But if you’re saying that you found a child predator within 18 minutes of entering Home, well, first I hope you’ve reported all of these people, and second, it seems to me that you are very much suggesting that this is the norm.

Personally, instead of explaining how to identify vulnerable children, I would have focused on how to identify would be child predators. I also would have directed my remarks more at parents, explaining the need to communicate with and educate their children, rather than looking to Sony to solve this problem. It is after all a societal problem.

Although I can sympathize with someone who might wish to create a separate server for 13-16 year olds, or even 13-18 year olds, I see this creating new problems, including the inability of grandparents and parents to interact with their own family members while using Home.

What worries me the most is that children using a PS3 can also get into the internet as well as into Home. I did not know that until I was told that this magazine could be accessed through the PS3. Up to that point I had never realized that -- although I had owned a PS3 since the first week they were sold. I will wager most parents do not realize it -- and have set no parental controls on that PS3.

I was not suggesting an age requirement for use of a PS3. Only for entry into Home. Parents would still buy games for Birthday Boy so no break in the revenue stream.

As for the keyboards, when I went undercover as Birthday Boy, one of the first things that emboldened the predators who approached me was that I obviously was not using a keyboard. Those are pics of me in the article -- and the first time my “little boy” avatar was solicited was 18 minutes after I entered
CP for the first time in that avatar.

Several types of parental controls already exist on the PS3. The problem is that all too often the parents don’t know how to use them – but the children do. Sure, there are plenty of adults in Home who can work their way around a PC, but that doesn’t change the fact that for decades now children have tended to be the technology experts in most homes – which is why you often find children setting up PS3s instead of their parents.

Many of the problems you’ve raised will be addressed by the new HUB. Every press release about it has stated that it will make games more prominent and easier to find in Home. That should reduce the problem of latchkey kids who don’t have anything to do. And really, if these children are that young, are you really sure you want them to have keyboards? One could argue that not having keyboards insulates them from would-be predators.

However, my personal feeling is that PCs are still a much greater danger to children than PS3s. PCs are everywhere, along with social sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, etc. I’ve heard of one, maybe two cases, of sexual predators in Home actually meeting up with a child. That can’t even begin to be compared with the problems posed by social networks. Personally, I don’t think adults should have Facebook accounts, let alone children, but that’s a speech I’ll save for another time.

One thing you didn’t touch on is the impact that having hundreds or thousands of these kids flooding Home at certain times has on everyone else. Many people I know find it unbearable to spend time in public spaces in Home because there are so many of them.

At present I think that Home’s moderation practices favor these pests and trolls above all other users. There is no program in place to welcome new people into Home and help them to socialize to the new environment.

The new help commands on the menu help, but there needs to be some kind of a tutorial created to help ease new users into Home.

Again, this is an issue that needs to be raised and addressed, and my only question is, why wasn’t this issue raised sooner?