LOS ANGELES—The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) has released new guidelines in its Best Practices for Social Media, which was developed to help businesses maximize its ability to “stop online child pornography and to help parents prevent their children from unknowingly viewing age-restricted content on the web."
View the guidelines here.
“Since children’s use of social media network sites are continuing to increase and the adult industry continues to lead in the use of technology, it is important for ASACP to consistently update its Best Practices,” ASACP CEO Joan Irvine said. “Granted there are no perfect solutions, but ASACP’s Best Practices are the best tools available to protect children and your company. We encourage everyone, whether they are an ASACP member or not, to review them regularly.”
According to Pew Internet Research nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of teens online use social networking sites like Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and others.
Among the guidelines are to properly label content as “Age Restricted” or “Sexually Explicit” and proper utilization of the Restricted to Adults – RTA website label for all adult social media pages in order for filtering software to properly categorize the page.
“As a result, if parents or guardians have activated one of the many parental filters including those in the Apple and Microsoft operating systems, minors will be blocked from access to and prevented from the ability to purchase age-restricted material and products,” Irvine said.
Founded in 1996, ASACP is a non-profit organization dedicated to online child protection.
