How can you stop your kids viewing harmful web content?

As concerns grow about the effect of harmful social media content on our children, we look at what tools are available for parents to regulate what kids see and how long they spend online.  

The struggle to prise them away from a life spent online is a familiar one for many beleaguered parents. Our youngsters spend hours on Instagram chasing "likes" - and often coming up against cyber-bullying - or playing games, obsessing about YouTube influencers or surfing between different "friendship groups" on WhatsApp. 

So how can we keep them safe from harmful content?

Content filtering software has been around for many years, but parents have often been too tech-shy to work it properly. And it often required children to hand over their passwords - a potential cause of family rows. 

 But now a new generation of digital parental controls has arrived on the market, promising to help parents take back control more easily.

• • UK plans social media and internet watchdog 

Circle with Disney, Koala Safe and Ikydz, for example, are systems that claim to be able to control every digital device in your home with a few taps on a smartphone app. use, but is ? 

The new products work by connecting to your existing household wi-fi router. In the case of Circle you plug in the white cube - clearly inspired by the Apple school of design - and it immediately lists every connected phone, laptop, tablet, and so on in your home, and offers a variety of ways to control them. (…) 

 (…) Anne Longfield, the Children's Commissioner for England, thinks it is good parenting to set limits.

"The internet can be a great resource, but it can also be the wild west for children. We wouldn't think it was OK to drop our children off in the park at night if they were younger," she says. 

"In the same way we shouldn't think it is OK for them to roam the internet without any guidance or restrictions." 

There are disadvantages with these latest filtering devices, though. Some don't work once your child's phone leaves the home and is no longer on home wi-fi. And they won't all work if the wi-fi is switched off and the internet is accessed via mobile data. Other products are also incompatible with some UK routers.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47853554(adapted) Access: APRIL 18th,,2019 

Planet’s ocean-plastics problem detailed in 60-year data set

Researchers find evidence of rising plastic pollution in an accidental source: log books for planktonmonitoring instruments. Matthew Warren 

Scientists have uncovered the first strong evidence that the amount of plastic polluting the oceans has risen vastly in recent decades — by analysing 60 years of log books for plankton-tracking vessels. 

Data recorded by instruments known as continuous plankton recorders (CPRs) — which ships have collectively towed millions of kilometres across the Atlantic Ocean — show that the trackers have become entangled in large plastic objects, such as bags and fishing lines, roughly three times more often since 2000 than in preceding decades.

This is the first time that researchers have demonstrated the rise in ocean plastics using a single, longterm data set, says Erik van Sebille, an oceanographer at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. “I’m excited that this has been finally done,” he says. The analysis was published on 16 April in Nature Communications. 

 Although the findings are unsurprising, long-term data on ocean plastics had been scant: previous studies looked mainly at the ingestion of plastic by sea creatures over shorter timescales, the researchers say.

Fishing for data

CPRs are torpedo-like devices that have been used since 1931 to survey plankton populations, by filtering the organisms from the water using bands of silk. Today, volunteer ships such as ferries and container ships tow a fleet of CPRs around the world’s oceans. 

(…)Each time a ship tows a CPR, the crew fills in a log book and notes any problems with the device. So Ostle and her colleagues looked through all tow logs from the North Atlantic between 1957 and 2016, to determine whether plastic entanglements have become more common.

Evidence analysis

(…)Van Sebille says that because the study focused on large plastic items, it doesn’t reveal much about the quantity of microplastics — fragments fewer than 5 millimetres long — in the oceans. These tiny contaminants come from sources such as disposable plastic packaging, rather than from fishing gear.

Nevertheless, he adds, the study demonstrates that fisheries play a major part in plastic pollution, and will provide useful baseline data for tracking whether policy changes affect the levels of plastic in the oceans. “As fisheries become more professional, especially in the North Sea, hopefully we might see a decrease,” he says.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01252-0 (adapted).

Access: April 20th, 2019 

Answer questions 39 and 40 based on the comics below.

INSTRUCTIONS: Read the text carefully and then answer the questions from 33 to 38 by choosing the correct alternative.

Brazil corruption scandals: All you need to know

For the past three years, Brazil has been gripped by a scandal which started with a state-owned oil company and grew to encapsulate people at the very top of business - and even presidents.

On the face of it, it is a straightforward corruption scandal - albeit one involving millions of dollars in kickbacks and more than 80 politicians and members of the business elite.

But as the tentacles of the investigation dubbed Operation Car Wash fanned out, other scandals emerged.

It has led to some of those who have found themselves accused claiming they are the victims of political plots, designed to bar them from office.

What is Operation Car Wash?

Operation Car Wash began in March 2014 as an investigation into allegations that Brazil's biggest construction firms overcharged state-oil company Petrobras for building contracts.

Investigators accused directors at the firm - named the world's most ethical oil and gas company in 2008 - of skimming the extra money off the top as a bribe for awarding the contract.

Which is bad enough - but then the Workers' Party found itself dragged into the corruption scandal amid allegations of having funneled some of these funds to pay off politicians and buy their votes and help with political campaigns.

Among those accused in the scandal were dozens of politicians, and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva - the country's extremely popular former president, known affectionately as "Lula".

Text for the questions from 28 to 37.

A Musical Genius

1 Beethoven is one of the most influential figures in

the history of classical music. His exceptional talent was

already evident when he was still a young man, trying to

4 survive a rather unorthodox upbringing. Indeed, his

eccentric father would often make him study music in the

middle of the night.

7 Soon, the young Beethoven's ability won him the

admiration of the leading contemporary musical figures.

However, just at the point when he was beginning to reap

10 the rewards of his early endeavors, he realized that he was

becoming deaf. Beethoven felt devastated as it was clear to

him that his increasing deafness was incurable. And yet, he

13 kept composing and his music displayed a striking change in

style, becoming both heavier in tone and larger in scale.

Internet: <www.flo‐joe.co.uk> (adapted).