A Filtered Internet Exists -- And This Company Says it is Helping to Protect K-12 School Students

Photo by McKaela Taylor on Unsplash

The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

The company that provides you with top-of-the-line, kid-safe social media has taken it up a notch with its subsidiary Grom Educational Services, which is bridging the gap between education and protection.

Grom Social Enterprises Inc. GROM is a family-friendly entertainment, technology, and social media company that has made many headlines recently with its Top Draw Animation studio adding $1 million in animation production assignments, development of a CGI-animated theatrical release, and appointment of new executives from backgrounds like Jakks Pacific Inc. JAKK and The Walt Disney Co. DIS.

Grom Educational Services, however, focuses mostly on enhancing safety, by providing K-12 schools with the tools to monitor the students on the internet. Because the internet is mostly unregulated, and as social media platforms are continuing to attract and exploit more young children through circumvention of safety protocols and illegal data gathering, the need for web filtering is at an all-time high.

Web filters ensure that children don’t have to experience the sometimes scary and inappropriate content that finds its way onto their screens. Oftentimes, unintentionally, students are stumbling upon content that is not intended for their eyes, and certainly not part of their school's curriculum. 

Keeping Kids Safe

Grom Educational Services’ product NetSpective Web Filter has provided web filtering services to schools, businesses, and government institutions since 2001 with the NetSpective Web Filter. It is fully automated and has one of the lowest costs of ownership in the industry, making it a great choice as a filtering technology solution. Not to mention, it flags terms such as “self-harm” and “suicide”, and can alert school officials when words in that category are searched. In addition, it helps with remote learning because it also provides abuse detection, log-on agents, and browser extensions.

Also available for free to NetSpective Web Filter customers is the Grom Digital Citizenship License (GDCL). This video-based program assists schools in helping to  fulfill their Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) requirements which serve to protect children from harmful content. One of these requirements is for children to learn about how to use the internet appropriately. Through this act, schools must provide and if requested prove they have some form of filtering technology in place with any sort of internet access, so NetSpective Web Filters GDCL is a great solution for this requirement.

Topics include cyberbullying and what to do about it, what is digital citizenship, how to be a good digital citizen, and thinking before you post. The introduction video to GDCL mentions learning helpful tools while using social media like Pinterest Inc. PINS, Snap Inc. SNAP, Twitter TWTR, and Facebook Inc. FB.

Grom Educational Services is a part of Grom Social Enterprise’s larger mission to provide a safe internet experience for kids around the world, allowing them to explore the internet in a filtered manner so they, too, can create communities and connections safely.

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.