Net safety day marked worldwide

[piccolomondo]

Efforts to make the net less risky for children are being marked by the fourth Internet Safety Day on 6 February.

Events are being held in 31 nations and a blogathon will record activities held as far apart as Australia and Canada.

One UK event sees the launch of a training scheme to give those working with children experience of the risks associated with net use.

The day falls as US research suggests many teenagers often stumble across pornography online.

Showcase
The day, intended to raise awareness among parents and teachers as well as youngsters, has been organised by the EU's Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding.

"I am calling upon all decision-makers in the private and in the public sector to help make the internet a safer place for the most vulnerable of our society," she said.

As part of the day, 20 of Europe's leading mobile operators - including Vodafone, Orange, Telecom Italia and Deutsche Telekom - have signed an agreement intended to offer greater protection for youngsters using mobile phones.

YOUNGSTERS AND MOBILES
In the UK 14% of children have been victims of bullying by mobile
In Germany, 92% of 12-19 year-olds had a mobile phone in 2005
In Italy 31% of 5-13 year-olds have mobile phones and nearly 100% of 14-18 year-olds
In Lithuania, Latvia and Greece more children own mobile phones than have net access

The self-regulatory codes, which will come into force in February next year, include controlling access to adult content, awareness-raising campaigns for parents and children and the classification of commercial content according to national standards of decency and appropriateness.

The blogathon is intended to showcase the materials produced by hundreds of schools around the world dealing with the risks and rewards of net use. Over the past few months schools have been collaborating to make net safety information dealing with images, privacy and online etiquette.

One of the events in the UK is a conference that aims to promote safe and responsible use of the net among young people.

The Cyberspace Research Unit (CRU) at the University of Central Lancashire is the UK co-ordinator for Internet Safety Day and is using the day to launch a training scheme for those who work with children that use the net.

Dr Denise Carter, a research fellow at the CRU, said the course was designed to close the digital divide separating young and old.

"There's a huge gap between what the children use technology for and what older people do with it," she said. "Older people use it as a tool but for younger people it is a way of life," she said.

Bridge gap
The training scheme aims to bridge this gap by giving those working with children experience of the many online communities and familiarise them with the pitfalls and risks they offer.

"It's about ways to help kids deal with the bad experiences," said Dr Carter. "Children need people that understand what these risks are and who they can report them to."

Dr Carter said the course aims to help teachers spot the early signs of trouble such as when children are being targeted by potential abusers or their peers are subjecting them to cyber-bullying.

The course also deals with training and teaching techniques that help children use the net more responsibly. "It's about changing their behaviour and getting them to stop and think," said Dr Carter.

The scheme is being launched as research in the journal Pediatrics reports that 42% of young people aged 10-17 questioned for the study had seen sexually explicit material online.

Sex offenders
Two-thirds of those who reported seeing this material said their viewing of it was accidental. Much of the accidental viewing came as a result of using file-sharing software to download images.

"Although there is evidence that most youth are not particularly upset when they encounter unwanted pornography on the internet [it] could have a greater impact on some youth than voluntary encounters with pornography," said the study.

In the UK, British Home Secretary John Reid has said he is considering making paedophiles add their chatroom names to their other details on the Sex Offenders Register.

And sex offenders could be forced to register their e-mail addresses to prevent them approaching children on the internet, the UK government has said.

[2007/02/06 BBC NEWS]

[piccolomondo]

The Florida legislature is considering adding a new crime to the state books: using the internet to lure children to offline encounters, punishable by 15 years in prison. In Virginia and Colorado, legislators are debating whether to require sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses and screen names with state authorities.

On the federal level, Congress last week received the proposed Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act of 2007 (.pdf), which would add e-mail addresses and instant message handles to the list of information sex offenders must supply to the national registry...



... But now, with all of the attention paid to online sexual encounters, the tactics used to attract adolescents have become common knowledge. Youths are more aware that adults asking for photographs or phone numbers are likely to have ulterior motives. Just knowing about teen pop culture and empathizing with a teen's problems make an adult seem suspicious online.


It's going to be harder to convince a young person that you have "something special" with them when they've already heard the stories -- and read the instant-message logs -- about online creeps from their peers. (Never mind the media. Peer experience is what counts.)

And as young people become more savvy about online sexual abuse, they begin to recognize it more clearly offline as well. They may no longer be the passive victims they might otherwise have been.

If a guy in a trench coat -- or Uncle Richard -- approaches a 13-year-old today with "Don't tell anyone but I'm going to show you something," he just might hear, "Ew! Get away from me, you pervert!" rather than a timid "OK."

The political frenzy around online sexual solicitation has fueled public hysteria about unsavory strangers preying on kids on the internet. And yet young people are now receiving significantly more online solicitations from people they already know -- and fewer from strangers -- than they were five years ago, according to the "Online Victimization of Youth: Five Years Later" (.pdf) report published last year by the Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Even so, relatively few youths are propositioned about meeting an adult offline. Researchers found that only 4 percent of online youths received requests to meet an adult in person, although 13 percent received some form of unwanted sexual overture overall.

The report also reveals that most youths don't put up with the harassment and most of the time they aren't terribly distressed by it. They block and ignore aggressive strangers, and will report them if they feel strongly enough about the situation. Fewer teens are forming close online relationships with adults, too, as their awareness of the risks increases.

And by now, you have to wonder: What are the perpetrators thinking? Do they not realize how vulnerable the internet has made them?

Both NBC's "To Catch a Predator" and Oprah's Child Predator Watch List have exposed online sexual abusers to an international audience and brought several of them into custody. The accused cannot get away with "it wasn't me" or other common knee-jerk defenses because it's all right there in the log.

Obviously, the chances of making it onto television are pretty slim. But what makes some adults so intent on pursuing youths online, where everything they say is on record? Where an instant report to law enforcement agencies is just a click away at CyberTipline? Why would you message a 14-year-old asking for a naked picture when every detail of that online encounter can be whizzing its way to officers within 10 minutes?

Every sexual solicitation put forth online is logged, somewhere. The moment an adult crosses that line, his words are documented and easily shown to friends and parents, blogged or reported to the police.

If we acknowledge that the internet did not create sexual abuse any more than freeways created reckless drivers, we might be able to analyze better why some adults continue to seek sexual contact with minors -- even now that we have the transcripts.

The important thing is that for the first time in history, adolescents are in a position of power when an adult is making sexual advances toward them. When you're not slammed up against the wall or held down on the bed with a strong adult hand on your chest and a whispered admonishment to be quiet, for crissakes, you have a lot more say in what an adult can and can't do to you.

Youths and their advocates can report an online incident and provide fairly solid evidence of the perpetrator's intent before any physical activity takes place. This early action also prevents the long-term psychological manipulation that typically accompanies sexual abuse.

This week marked the first case in the United Kingdom of would-be rapists being convicted based on their online activities, before any physical contact with the intended victims.

As we strive to guide youths safely through adolescence, education and an open exchange of information -- not tainted by shame and blame -- are key. Parents, teachers and other youth advocates can certainly do a lot to monitor adolescent activity online.

But we also have to recognize that youths are going to shape the online world into their own vision -- and to empower them to do so.

I would not be surprised if someday we look back to the first two decades of this century and see that the internet actually played a role in ending the cycle of sexual abuse.

Wouldn't that be fitting?

[By Regina Lynn]