Internet safety supporters in England are upset that Facebook has refused to add a panic button to the site. The button would automatically alert the social media site when a child felt threatened. Facebook officials said they have a reporting system in place that would actually work faster than a panic button.
The request came after the rape and murder of 17-yearold Ashleigh Hall. The teenager was lured by Peter Chapman, 33, who pretended to be a teenage boy on Facebook. He was convicted of her death and sentenced to life in prison.
What do you think of a Facebook panic button? Is is needed?
Not all online predators are older men looking to seduce children. Some are using a child’s trust to blackmail them. While some of them do want sexual favors, some are after money.
The most popular blackmail scheme begins when the predator earns the child’s trust. He (or in rare cases she) may have the child send nude pictures or reveal some other type of embarrassing secret. The predator threatens to show the pics or reveal the secret if the child does not give into his demands.
While a few cases have been reported, blackmail is often an unreported crime because the child is embarrassed. To keep you child from being a victim here are some steps you can take:
1. Monitor you child’s online activity with a program like KidsEmail.org.
2. Talk to your kids often about online safety. Let them know that they can come to you if they have a problem online.
3. Be wary of any new online friends your child has. Predators don’t appear scary at first. They gain a child’s friendship and trust.
If your child is a victim, be careful not to make them feel badly. They are a victim. Give them your support and most importantly, talk to the police. As long as predators continue to get away with their crimes, they will continue.
While most schools have “filters” on their computers to keep kids from porn and spam, savvy developers usually find a way around these filters. Idaho lawmakers want to increase Internet security efforts in the state’s schools. Their proposal would require school to develop safe Internet usage policies that would have to be approved by their local school board. And the proposed bill mandates Internet safety training in the school.
Only 27 states have a similar policy now and Idaho is taking a giant leap in the right direction. The House approved the bill on Friday and it now heads to the State Senate.
This is the site that pairs people in random chats. A woman in Texas may be paired to chat with a man in Japan. Anyone can join and no one is screened. That means your children could be paired with sex offenders and other felons. On Monday the Texas attorney general warned parents to make sure their children are not on the site.
However, the site has been featured on Saturday Night Live and the Jon Stewart Show so your kids may want to join. Warn them about the dangers and hope they listen. For more information on the Texas attorney general’s warning visit http://www.oag.state.tx.us/oagNews/release.php?id=3239.
As I was scanning my Facebook posts today one of my friends, who is a new parent, posted that he didn’t wasn’t told how much it would affect you to hear stories of children being harmed after you have a child. He said it more elquoently than that but you get the picture.
I know exactly what he is feeling. I became a parent after a decade of reporting on crime. It always upset me to hear that a child had been hurt, but since my child has been born it has been so much harder to hear. We have to be vigilant and use all of the tools at our disposal to keep our kids safe offline and online.
I have a confession. I have been holding back and not saying what I really feel. Let me explain.
For more than 15 years I was a reporter that spent most of my career focusing on crime. The last four of my journalism career I was a crime reporter in a medium-sized Georgia town. It’s a great place and the kind of place that you wouldn’t expect to be shattered by stories of child predators. In fact, in most places I worked you would think would be isolated from horror stories of sexual abuse.
Think again. The things I heard went beyond a 25-year-old man trying to date his 16-year-old girlfriend. There were kids as young as 2 in some cases molested by people they trusted. After I become mother myself, these stories were harder to hear. I couldn’t imagine the pain of those parents.
I feel like I have held back on the horror stories–that is the best way to describe them–maybe in an effort to try and be politically correct or maybe because I did not want to think about them. But these people are out there. And they are online.
When Jacob Andersen gave me the chance to write this blog I jumped at because I sat in those courtrooms and hear how those children were abused. I want to be a part of the effort to stop the abuse.
Pardon me if occasionally I tell a horror story about a case I covered. I am no longer dancing around the issue.
Writer’s block happens to me when I least expect it. Today was one of those days. I was reading articles about Internet safety hoping something would inspire me. After I realized that nothing would, I decided just to log into the blog site and start writing.
The funny thing about inspiration is it can come from the strangest places. The first thing that caught my eye when I opened our comments section was a word I would not use and would not want my child to hear. We were getting spam comments on this blog. Ironic that a blog devoted to keeping out porn and spam attracts it. It’s the same on our Twitter account. I have to delete several followers that are really just spammers and pornographers several times a week.
Sadly, if the spammers and pornographers were not having some success, they would quit doing it. For those who choose to keep their computers and Internet history free of this stuff, Kidsemail.org and MyKidsbrowser.com are great tools.
By the way, before i finished this blog another spammer left me a message.
The news this week produced some surprising facts about just how much spam is out there. According to a story in several technology magazines, about 90 percent of emails sent in February were spam. Some of that spam contained malicious spyware. Earlier today Spanish officials announced that three people were arrested and charged with infecting more than 12 million computers in 190 countries with botnets. If you dont’ know what a botnet, it’s malicious software that can infect your computer.
Often our kids are not aware that some of the emails in their inbox are spam or that they could infect your computer. That’s why KidsEmail.org is such a powerful tool for families. We filter out the spam you don’t want your kids to see.
Twitter is a great business tool so it should be no surprise that pornographers and spammers are there trying to persuade you follow them. When a word that is not allowed to be said in PG-13 movies appeared in our Twitter feed, I assumed it was from a spammer or porn site. I was shocked when I saw it was from a business owner disgruntled with the world. I am no prude but I blocked the person so that the word was out of our Twitter feed.
It made me think about an article I posted last week. The Internet exposes us and our children to an environment we may not be exposed to in our own homes. You may never say curse words around your children but if your child was reading our Twitter feed this morning, it was there. With KidsEmail.org, curse words are blocked out of any emails your child received. And with MyKidsBrowser.com, your child is protected every second he or she is online.
What do you think about the Twitter incident? I would love to hear your views.
Do you ever wonder if your kids are spending too much time online? According to a 2009 survey, 16 million kids from the ages of 2 to 11 are online. The average time online is 11 hours a month, up from 7 hours a month in 2204.
Surprisingly, boys are online more than girls. Boys tend to watch more videos than girls, who usually read content online.
While online, kids are exposed to many images–many which parents don’ t want their kids to see. And almost every child has manged to get online when their parents are not around. It could be while at a friends house or while the parents are asleep. Make sure you have parental controls in place to keep your kids from pornography, predators and spam while online.
