How safe is moshimonsters?

Gingham_R

From MM

Thank you for your email. Please accept my apologies for the delay getting back to you. I manage the Moderation team at Moshi Monsters, and as your issue has been escalated to me it has taken us longer than usual to respond.

We have recently changed our Forum and moved to updated moderation software. Due to these changes, currently, it is possible for us to block your child from posting on the forum, but not from viewing it. Our technical team is currently working on a solution for this and I expect us to be able to block players entirely if requested in the near future. I would be happy to notify you when this update happens.

I'm sorry to hear you have seen any inappropriate content on our Forum. We do premoderate a large amount of the content and we also do live moderation at various points throughout the day. However, there are some users that have received the ability to post without approval, so occasionally comments as you have described can slip through. We rely on our users to report these items when they are seen by clicking on the Report Comment link on the lower right corner of every forum comment, to alert our moderation staff of a problem.

If you have any further questions or concerns, or require clarification on any point made in this email, please reply to this message and I would be happy to assist.

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I feel okay about this. I think I'll allow the eldest at least to have an account once the forum can be blocked.

Treed

yummymummy79 wrote: »

We have a rule that he only adds people as friends if they are 11 or under (unless he knows them in real life).

Do certain type of adults only pretend to be children 11 or older?

Gingham_R

Assuming the forum can be blocked in the near future, once this is done, I'll do the following:

Sign in for him and keep the password secret from him.

Only allow him to 'friend' children he knows in real life.

Ensure that he understands about privacy - no real names, personal details etc on his wall or his friends'.

Ensure that he knows to tell me straight away if anyone puts anything personal on his space by accident.

Be in the room with him when he's playing.

Restrict his time on it, as I do with all screen time.


Anything I've missed?! This generation is growing up with so may opportunities and I don't want my kids to miss out on this sort of social networking, provided I feel it's safe for them, but I want to make sure they understand how to behave safely without scaring them.

We've already told him that sometimes people play silly tricks that can cause people to get upset, on the internet like anywhere else, which is why there are rules about what to do on it.

sooz

I don't know about moshi, but on club penguin my DSes play on, there is safe chat mode. So when the characters talk to each other ( not forum based), they can only use a set number of phrases.

Also, they use it when I'm in the same or next room, but it's also plugged into a large tv screen. No hiding the screen from mummy.

Gingham_R

sooz wrote: »

I don't know about moshi, but on club penguin my DSes play on, there is safe chat mode. So when the characters talk to each other ( not forum based), they can only use a set number of phrases.

Also, they use it when I'm in the same or next room, but it's also plugged into a large tv screen. No hiding the screen from mummy.

Club penguin is fab, isn't it! I think it's much better for little ones, but their friends don't use it, unfortunately.

thunderbird

My son uses Bin Weevils and we haven't had any problems with that. As far as I know there isn't a forum on it, never found it anyhow!
You can play without paying anything.

picnmix

My DD 7 uses Moshi, we have talked about how some grown ups pretend to be children and that she must not talk to anyone on it, apart from her cousins and her friends from school, even then it is only sending gifts with short messages.

She has been a member for a good year, but I didn't realise they had a forum, she plays the games, does the missions and reads the Daily Growl, but no more than that. She doesn't know they have a forum, I have to say she only goes on it when I'm in the room or in and out, and as I said before we have chatted about safety, as they have been taught at school.

My DD also gave her password away, luckily nothing bad happened, friend fed her monster every day and looked after it when we were on hols.

Derivative

Relative youngster on the forums chiming in here...

I used web forums and used to play a few online games with chat facilities starting from about age 9. I think it mainly depends on your child's maturity level and emotional tolerance. I had no problems at all - my mum might not have been happy had she known about the banter/swearing in online games, but I'd had the same in the playground anyway. Stuff like the odd swear word if you got a lucky shot on someone.

This was before voice chat became commonplace but then I don't suppose this 'moshi monsters' game has that facility anyway.

I think the scaremongering is all a bit overblown. "Cyber bullying" is something that has never made sense to me - you need parallels to real life to make bullying worth while. As long as your child has the sense to not give out personal details such as phone numbers or Facebook accounts (assuming they even have one), I'd not worry in the slightest.

That said, I was on there in late '99, when there were far more techies on the internet as opposed to virtually everyone nowadays. But at 10ish I got into no trouble talking to 'strangers' - in fact I believe it was educational to meet people from different countries around the world and learn about their cultures, etc.