Virtual Worlds For Kids - Safe Or Not?

Virtual worlds for kids have been popping up all over the place since the announcement of Club Penguin being acquired by Disney for 350 million dollars, each one hoping to be the next Club Penguin.

For the uninformed, Club Penguin is a virtual world built for the kids where they can buy items, such as pets, clothing, food, etc, and get jobs to work for money. They can socialize with other players, throw snowballs and dance with each other, etc. It is a essentially a social and gaming platform for kids.

Some research will uncover that Club Penguin is perceived as a very safe virtual world for kids to visit. It is safe in the sense that they have features to prevent children from being harassed and accosted by pedophiles. It has won lots of awards for being 'Kids Safe' and this may be one of the main reasons why parents trust Club Penguin.

But is Club Penguin really that safe for kids?

Well, some people have their misgivings. They believe that while there is live moderation and message filtering features built in to watch over lurking pedophiles; there is no absolute full-proof way to prevent the sharing of addresses and telephone numbers through private emails.

And while Club Penguin watches over pedophiles, other dangers develop.

Ironically on certain forums, there has been interesting banter between kids who subscribe to Club Penguin that they are tired of other kids who are there to find dates. Not just guys, but girls as well!

So now while Club Penguin fights hard to prevent the infiltration of pedophiles, who is going to protect the kids from themselves?

So are virtual worlds for kids safe or not? It makes you wonder, doesn't it? I don't have an answer, and I don't think anybody else has the answer. A car can be safe if you drive it safely and lethal if you drive it recklessly. Perhaps the solution lies in how much you want to restrict the social activities of the children within the virtual world itself. But that might also take away some of the fun factor. And one thing is for sure - and that is the fact that with evolution come new complications and dangers. This is something we cannot prevent.

This article was contributed by Aldric Chang - a creative businessman who is active in music composition and production, internet marketing, casual games production, animation production, cartoon production and character licensing. His 3d animation studio - Mediafreaks - is focused on producing high-end animation work for documentary producers, advertising houses and cartoon animated series - with projects ranging from the animation of dinosaurs to the visualization of natural disasters and something as chic as 3d jewelry animations. He runs a popular animation blog where he frequently posts informative articles on the animation industry and shares useful advice on the business of animation.

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