Franktown Rocks is a social networking experience targeted to kids 8-12 that combines games and music in a massively multi-player online game. Users create their account as a skunk, pig, bear, or hamster. There are two chat level options: free type or pre-typed. An email is needed but will only be contacted if the user forgets his/her password. A birthdate is never asked.
At Franktown, you can earn money by voting in polls or playing games. This is a positive aspect of the website. The entire concept of the town promotes and socializes kids for community involvement and political participation. The multi-player games are easy ways to meet other users. Another strength to Franktown is its ability to bridge distances. Quite a couple users said they were from the UK. Others said they were from the US, including Kentucky and California. One user said he attended NEMIS (which, I looked up, is the New Middle East International School in Saudi Arabia).
When you’re moving around the town, you can listen to a music stream that includes artists like Taylor Swift, the Jackson 5, the Jonas Brothers, Toby Mac, and Hannah Montana. If you become a paying member, you can create your own playlist with a bigger selection of songs (including hip-hop, country, and international). I played some games at the “Recording Studio,” which also offered 1-2 minute non-animated, music lesson videos for guitars, drums, and the keyboard. This was my absolute favourite aspect of the website; it’s educational and uniquely about music instead of subjects like literacy or math. At Franktown’s movie theatre, users can watch short clips of videos, even from works like Up, School of Rock, Pee Wee Herman, and Veggie Tales. These music and movies elements are two major strengths of the site by showing age-appropriate and age-relevant media.
Most conversations seemed pretty trivial and random, like “What’s up?” or “How’s your day?” but some were inappropriate. zxy_josh asked, “Are you Arab?” and “Do you ride camels?” and “Why is there so much unrest in the Middle East?” Another girl responded, “Arab and Proud” and “You are very naïve.” Others were sexual; “pssy” and “prn” frequently came up in conversations. I asked, “Why are you saying these things?” and one user replied, “Cuz you can’t stop me.” Franktown Rocks does have an intricate system of electronic and human monitoring, according to their online policy manual. In fact, I tried to type out “porn” and was given an immediate message that the content was not permitted. I understand that it is very difficult to realistically maintain these kinds of boundaries, especially when offering the free text option to users. I read the site’s privacy policy and parent manual. They state that user activity is carefully monitored by human and electronic means. The site also has a No-Cyber Bullying policy which educates its online staff about its dangers and disciplinary steps.
