Rated 4 Kids Let's Parents Rate & Filter Inernet content
Until now, there has been no practical way for parents to filter Internet content, to protect their kids from online predators or to effectively monitor their children’s online use.
San Diego, California (PRWEB) March 28, 2016
San Diego-based Rated 4 Kids recently launched a campaign to raise $5.5 million in an effort to protect children from the “dark side” of the Internet: online pornography, cyber-bullying, violence, illegal drugs, and hate speech. Rated 4 Kids LLC is founded on the premise that parents should be in control of what their children see online, whether they access the Internet through an iPod®, tablet, smartphone or “smart TV.” The company has created a cloud-based, crowd-authored rating system that enables parents to rate Internet content – including videos, pictures, social media and text – instantly sharing those ratings with other parents around the world.
“The Internet has been with us for a generation, but in many ways, it’s still a ‘Wild West’ of sorts,” says Brady Chatfield, CEO of Rated 4 Kids. “So-called ‘parental controls’ software is an oxymoron, because the real control is in the hands of a database or computer algorithm that does not have human instincts or common sense. The Rated 4 Kids system is designed by parents, for parents, and allows each family to block content that is objectionable to them, based on their own judgment, culture and sensibilities.”
Chatfield says he has spoken with countless parents who are frustrated by existing content-filtering systems, which often block too much or too little. Many existing systems are limited in terms of devices, operating systems, and software/hardware compatibility issues. By contrast, the Rated 4 Kids system works with a home’s existing router – the “gateway” through which all Internet traffic is distributed to every Internet-enabled device in the home. In addition, Rated 4 Kids uses cloud-based software to filter content based on parental ratings. This patent-pending combination of hardware and software is what makes Rated 4 Kids unique, powerful and infinitely scalable, Chatfield says.
“Until now, there has been no practical way for parents to filter Internet content, to protect their kids from online predators or to effectively monitor their children’s online use,” says Chatfield. “Hardware alone can’t do it. Software alone can’t do it. Algorithms and apps can’t do it. What we’ve created is a way for parents to come together, using a cloud-based system that is integrated with hardware and software, to create a safer Internet for our children.”
The company recently launched a campaign on Kickstarter to raise $5.5 million by May 17. Along with the Kickstarter promotion, the company’s founders published a manifesto, urging parents to “take back the Internet” on behalf of children worldwide. The company hopes to raise awareness about online safety and has begun gathering signatures and campaign contributions in an effort to recruit thousands of “beta testers,” who will form the basis of the online community of content raters that will be needed to establish baseline ratings for millions of online videos, pictures and other files.
About Rated 4 Kids
Rated 4 Kids, a San Diego-based start-up, is building the world’s first intelligent, crowd-sourced platform to keep kids safe online. We’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign so we can make this vision of the Internet a reality. Imagine a safe Internet, built by thousands of parents, for millions of children worldwide. For more information, please visit http://www.rated4kids.com/.