The online world opens up a range of social and educational opportunities for your child, but it also presents challenges. In Pora Ora we want to support you in equipping your child with the skills to use the internet safely. We see online safety skills as skills for life, like swimming, or riding a bike.

Pora Ora can be used as a training ground where children can learn how to interact safely online and where parents can gradually relax security settings as they get older. Our hope is that children get to the age of 13 with the skills needed to be discerning in the use of adult social networking sites.

Parental Control Settings

To assist you in protecting your child on-line you can configure / control the following features:

Visibility settings

Define who your child can interact with in-game. This can range from 'nobody' to 'friends only' to 'school friends' to 'everybody'.

Chat

Configure whether or not your child is allowed to send/receive 'free chat' messages or whether they are limited to a set of preset chat phrases.

You can also monitor your child's activities in the game.

News Feed

A parental news feed notifies you of your child's key activities in real-time. This enables you to monitor, review and support your child's progress and actions in the game.

Mail

Review all mail messages that are sent and received between your child and their friends.

Friendships

You can choose to be notified whenever your child makes a new friendship in-game. Alternatively, you can prevent your children making any friends without your approval.

System Controls

Language Filter

We use sophisticated community management software that intercepts and filters out all mail, chat and gift messages that may be considered to be rude or abusive. It also prevents the exchange of personal information and monitors for conversations that may be bullying or predatory in nature. Such instances are immediately reported to moderators for full investigation and suspensions and/or bans may result.

Safety Quest

Before your child can use social features like 'free chat', he/she must complete an online safety tutorial. This instructs your child on basic do's and don'ts in relation to safe chat (e.g. don't share personal information), clean chat (e.g. don't use rude words) and cyber-bullying, and gives them advice on how to deal with certain challenging situations in an on-line environment. Our community management software should protect your child from being exposed to these situations, however this tutorial will give your child the building blocks needed to become a discerning internet user.

Block Lists

Players are be able to block and ignore other players at the press of a button. People on your block list can't see you or speak to you.

Reporting Abuse

Players can report other users for any unacceptable behaviour. These reports are sent directly to our moderating staff and may result in suspensions/bans for serious misbehaviour.