Jessi Slaughter may be the best reason to install parental control software

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July 16th, 2010 - Posted by Kent

An Internet meme has come from the sad and strange case of Jessi Slaughter, a 11-year-old girl who has been cyberbullied and cyberstalked, so much so that her dad got involved, threatening his daughter's tormentors on a YouTube video. As much as she is a victim, Jessi Slaughter also taunted her legion of "haters" with a series of videos that are shocking, to say the least. If you're faint of heart and don't like hearing 11-year-olds use language that would cause hardcore rapper to blush, we suggest you avoid the video evidence all together—which is why we're not embedding it here.

While Jessi has been the victim of vicious cyberstalking and cyberbullying, her provocative online behavior should have been a warning sign to her parents, though they seem like the "yell first, ask questions later" variety.

In a post about the incident, the normally devil-may-care gossip site Gawker,said:

"Normally, we find fears about kids on the Internet the product of technophobic hysteria. But this case is a very good argument for why parents should at least be vaguely aware of what their kids are up to on the Internet… maybe now is the time to invest in good parental control software before she (the daughter) becomes a meme."

Would parental control software have prevented this situation? There are probably deeper problems here, but a product like Net Nanny can give parents a pretty good idea of what their kids are up to when they're online. For instance it can report on a child's YouTube profile and can be configured to alert parents when troubling language appears in many chat programs. Of course, no single program can block and monitor everything, nor can it replace good parenting.

Check out our reviews of Net Nanny and other parental control software options to find out how you can help keep your kids safe online.