January 14, 2009

Report: Online threat to children overblown

The Internet may not be such a dangerous place for children after all.

A task force created by 49 state attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is not a significant problem.

The findings ran counter to popular perceptions of online dangers as reinforced by depictions in the news media like NBC's "To Catch a Predator" series….

The panel, the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, was charged with examining the extent of the threats children face on social networks like MySpace and Facebook, amid widespread fears that adults were using these popular Web sites to deceive and prey on children.

But the report concluded that the problem of bullying among children, both online and offline, poses a far more serious challenge than the sexual solicitation of minors by adults.

So reports Brad Stone in today's New York Times. The news report is here. The full report is here.
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Hat tip: Jane

1 comment:

  1. http://www.csriu.org/PDFs/papredator.pdf

    You may want to review this study, a followup study of the AG's requested research.

    ReplyDelete