What is MovieStar Planet?

MovieStar Planet (or simply MSP) is a virtual place on the internet where everyone's a movie star. It's an application for children to communicate with each other while playing with their movie star avatars.

MSP does not use real photos and names. They use Usernames and Avatars. Think of a username like a nickname, even more like an alias. An Avatar is like a doll version of you. You can make it any way you like it: long hair? Short hair? Which clothes? Which shoes? Blue eyes or brown eyes? It's all up to you! To make these changes to your Avatar, you need coins which you can earn in the game. Beware, sometimes you have to buy the coins with real money. Ask your parents before buying anything.

What to look out for on MSP?

The Avatar is like a shield. No one can see who you are but that also means that you can't see whose on the other side of the computer. It could be anymore, even someone strange perhaps? So don't ever tell them anything personal about you such as your real name, your home address, your birthdate, etc. The person behind the computer could be a strange adult that is pretending to be a child so that you would talk to him and become friends with them. These type of people don't always have the best intentions so watch out. 

Not only adults can be a problem in this game, but so can children with bad intentions. If someone asks you to send them a personal picture of you in exchange for VIP coins, you should not do it. There can also be faul language or other forms of cyberbullying such as swearing, excluding, annoying, spreading rumours, talking inappropriately, etc. 

Friends and strangers: know the difference

Like we stad earlier, not everyone is who they say they are on MSP. Here are some ground rules that should keep being on MSP fun and safe:

1. Only talk to your friends and people you know.
2. Check if it's your friend is really the one behind the screen by asking them a secret question such as "Which colour is my pencile case?" or "who sits next to me in class?". Keep choosing new questions so nobody can hear your answer.
3. Always be careful and pay attention when you are invited to a private chatroom by someone. Who's in the chatroom?
4. When strangers talk to you, you don't have to reply.  

What to do when it goes wrong?

When someone is behaving inappropriately (faul language, cyberbullying,...) or do you think someone is not who they say they are? Then you must do two things:

1. Tell an adult that you trust about that's happening. You can take screenshots as proof. Ask an adult such as your parents, teachers, etc that can help you.

2. Report them in MSP. They can take action and help you. 

We'll explain the second step to you if you don't know how to do it. Go to the button that says 'report bad behavior' with a little icon like you see down here:

Next you have to tell them what the problem is and that you'd like to block the person who is doing the inappropriate behavior. When you click on 'block', you automatically defriend that person on MSP and they can't contact you anymore. When someone keeps harrasing you, it's best that you just block them. 

The button 'report' is to send a notification to the moderator (someone who works at MSP and keeps an eye out on everything). That moderator will decide how to punish the person. 

You don't need MSP to talk to your friends, there are tons of other ways to communicate with them. You can choose a safer app to chat with your friends. 

Are not convinced yet about the unsafeness of MSP and do you still want to keep playing it? Then just be really careful with who you talk to and don't trust anyone on MSP. Don't forget to keep asking the secret questions to make sure you're really talking to your friends.