NEWS 27

The best TV apps for children from BBC iPlayer Kids to YouTube Kids and Sky Kids

SUMMARY:

Children in 2016 understand that they can watch TV shows “on demand” on a range of devices, from the family tablet to a parent’s smartphone.There is now a growing collection of apps serving these habits, from established broadcasters to internet companies and inventive startups. Some are free, while others charge a monthly subscription. All offer shows and videos to stream, with other features offered by some including downloads for offline viewing; the ability to set time limits and create separate profiles for your children; and extra educational games. An obvious but important point: these apps fit within a wider, healthy lifestyle for children: from reading and physical creativity to active play away from a screen, rather than replacing books, bikes and splattering the house with paints.

FACTS:

The BBC says it will not collect any personal data beyond that, with the age used to decide what shows are available to each child within the app.

Four year-olds won’t see scarier CBBC dramas like Wolfblood, for example.

As with iPlayer, shows can be downloaded to your device for offline viewing for up to 30 days: perfect for a long plane, train or automobile trip. Because the app isn’t storing details of what each child watches, it doesn’t offer personalised recommendations based on their habits.

Online abuse: how women are fighting back

SUMMARY:

For two years, Michelle Ferrier was the target of a campaign of intimidation and harassment. The only black, female reporter on Florida’s Daytona Beach News-Journal, from 2007 Ferrier was targeted with a stream of abusive letters threatening lynchings and a “race war”, all in the same handwriting and from the same potentially dangerous person. But without a specific threat, police said, there was no chance of a criminal investigation. Afraid for her family, Ferrier left the paper and moved away. Now an associate dean at Ohio University, Ferrier continues to notice the chilling effect that harassment and abuse can have on the voices of women and people of colour, particularly in the media. But now the campaigns of race- and gender-based hatred are launched online, often with frightening consequences to freedom of speech and daily life for reporters, activists and citizens.

FACTS:

• In Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube and other sites you are never far from a violent, sexist, racist or homophobic meme, and this violence proliferates across the web.
•  The writer Umair Haque recently described it as the “ceaseless flickering hum of low-level emotional violence”.
• The world is only half paying attention to the threats so many face in their online lives, and many believe the tech industry is not doing enough. 
• Now people targeted by online abuse are devising their own solutions, often backed by little more than public fundraising, grassroots effort, and the learnings from their unfortunate and often traumatic experiences.