Review : Stardoll.com - Not Safe for Kids
Stardoll.com
Category: Tool / service
Topic: kids website
Year created: 2007
Recently I came across mention of the Stardoll site on TechCrunch and immediately thought of a young person who would love the idea of dressing up dolls online with all sorts of accessories. I noted that there were privacy controls for younger children (all of the community features could be disabled) so I thought that it would be OK.
I should have checked further
At the top of each page there is a message shout out box which displays messages from other members. Whilst I’m sure that they filter it for swearwords and so on there were definitely “adult concepts” being discussed that were completely inappropriate for kids. For example there was a message whilst we were logged in to the site about a 53 year old man having a relationship with a 14 year old girl. Not pretty, not pretty at all. Also there seemed to be no restriction on who could invite who as a friend so younger kids, whose judgment perhaps isn’t as good with these things, couldn’t tell who they were talking with. On top of that the email that gets sent to the child’s parents informing them that their child has joined up (provided the child adds the right email address during registration) has no way for the parent to say “No” and cancel the service.
Yes this is all par for the course with social networking sites but this site aims itself at the tween age group and yet provides insufficient protection for children of that age.
Definitely not recommended.
Tags: website kids unsafe chatroom web20
June 14th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
stardoll is safe, if you are under 13 u need a boxed checked that you’re mom or dad knows ur signing up and give them you’re parents email
also if some one swears at you in you’re album or diary or something…. then all you have to do is block them and delete them then report them to the staff..
over with..
now a next thing stardoll filters the langugae… so half the time you wont understand what they are saying.
Stardoll will take right action to get pervs away.
just easaly report them to thing and yeah basically
June 16th, 2008 at 7:17 am
listen it’s safe and fun im only 12 and been on forever i haven’t seen any bad languge just people selling there clothes they bought on the website for cash and no not real cash for stardollars if your really that clue lessa bout us teens these days go oon myspace everybody has one im pretty sure most everybodys kids do !
June 17th, 2008 at 10:07 am
I go on all the time and it is safe! But if you search for the wrong people, they are gross! I was searching for a friend and I clicked on the wrong person! Her name was rawr.bite.me she was disgusting! We all need to report her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!