Web Less Dangerous For Kids Than Feared

Task Force Report Finds Bullying By Peers Far Bigger Threat Than Adult Sex Predators

(CBS)  A long awaited report from the Internet Safety Technical Task Force concludes that children and teens are less vulnerable to sexual predation than many have feared. The report also questions the efficacy and necessity of some commonly prescribed remedies designed to protect young people.

The task force was formed as a result of a joint agreement between MySpace and 49 state attorneys general.

Over the past couple of years, several state AGs have been looking into potential dangers to youth, and some have called for social-network sites to use age verification technology to confirm the ages of users in an attempt to prevent adults from or interacting online with minors. The task force includes representatives of Internet and social-networking companies, security and identity authentication vendors, and nonprofit advocacy organizations. It's chaired by John Palfrey of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Disclosure: I served as a member of the task force, representing ConnectSafely.org, a nonprofit internet safety organization I co-founded along with Anne Collier. ConnectSafely receives financial support from MySpace, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and other Internet and social-networking companies. I am also founder of SafeKids.com and am on the board of directors of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is represented on the task force.

Based on data analyzed by its Research Advisory Board, the task force concluded that "actual threats that youth may face appear to be different than the threats most people imagine" and that "the image presented by the media of an older male deceiving and preying on a young child does not paint an accurate picture of the nature of the majority of sexual solicitations and Internet-initiated offline encounters."

While the task force found that youth risk from predators is a concern, the overwhelming majority of youth are not in danger of being harmed by an adult predator they meet online. To the extent that young people have received an unwanted online sexual solicitation, data from a 2000 study and a 2006 follow-up from the Crimes Against Children Research Center concludes that "youth identify most sexual solicitors as being other adolescents (48 percent in 2000; 43 percent in 2006) or young adults between the ages of 18 and 21 (20 percent; 30 percent), with few (4 percent; 9 percent) coming from older adults, and the remaining being of unknown age."

What the task force did find is that "bullying and harassment, most often by peers, are the most salient threats that minors face, both online and offline." Partially because researchers can't agree on a definition of bullying and harassment, the actual risk is hard to quantify, but it is clearly much higher than the risk of being harmed by a predator. Some studies suggest that as many as 49 percent of youth have experienced some type of bullying or harassment. In many cases no serious emotional or physical harm occurred. However, a study by Michelle Ybarra and Janice Wolak found that "39 percent of victims reported emotional distress over being harassed online."

There is also a widespread belief that deception is often involved where adults pose as teens to engage with young people, but research shows that that's rarely the case. The report found that "although identity deception may occur online, it does not appear to play a large role in criminal cases in which adult sex offenders have been arrested for sex crimes in which they met victims online." Interviews with police show that "most victims are underage adolescents who know they are going to meet adults for sexual encounters." This does not imply that such relationships are healthy or safe, nor that we should blame the victims or tolerate the actions of adults who engage in sex with minors. But it does suggest that child safety advocates need to take a more proactive role in helping teens understand the risk of engaging in relationships with adults.

Importantly, the task force found that online risks "are not radically different in nature or scope than the risks minors have long faced offline, and minors who are most at risk in the offline world continue to be most at risk online." For example, "a poor home environment full of conflict and poor parent-child relationships is correlated with a host of online risks."

The attorneys general who called for the task force were anxious for us to study the efficacy of using age verification to help limit inappropriate contact between adults and children online. To help in that job, the task force formed a technical advisory board (TAB) composed of technology experts from Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, University of Massachusetts, University of Utah, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Bank of America. This board looked at a wide range of technologies including age verification and identity authentication, filtering and auditing, text analysis, and biometrics.

What the TAB found was that age verification technology can be used to identify adults and therefore help prevent minors from engaging in adult-only activities such as accessing adult content or purchasing alcohol or tobacco. There were several technologies submitted by companies that could identify adults based on accessible records such as credit reports, criminal history, and real estate transactions, but these relatively automated systems cannot reliably identify or verify the age of minors because, as the TAB concluded, "public records of minors range from quite limited to nonexistent." Documentation about young people such as birth certificates, passports, and school records are restricted by federal law for some very good privacy and security reasons.

Age verification options presented by some companies would allow parents to request that their child's school verify his or her identity and age, but these proposals have their own critics including those who worry about the cost, the possibility of privacy or security leaks, and the financial model presented in some cases that includes providing marketers with information about kids.

The TAB also looked at "peer-based" verification schemes that "allow peers in a community to vote, recommend, or rate whether a person is in an appropriate age group based on relationships and personal knowledge established offline" but worried that with these methods "users can vote as many times as they wish to artificially raise or lower a peer rating." There were concerns that "minors might organize against another minor in their ratings or recommendations in an online form of bullying."

At one task force meeting, a company presented technology that tries to distinguish between an adult and a child by analyzing the bone density of the person's hand. Another tool attempts to identify an individual through facial recognition to match that person against a database of registered sex offenders.

Although the TAB expressed "cautious optimism" about the possibility of using technology to protect kids, it concluded that "every technology has its problems" and that "no single technology reviewed could solve every aspect of online safety for minors, or even one aspect of it one hundred percent of the time." The bottom line was that "technology can play a role but cannot be the sole input to improved safety for minors online" and that "the most effective technology solution is likely to be a combination of technologies."

But even if these technologies can be employed effectively, there remains the question of whether they are necessary or helpful. Using technology to separate kids from grown-ups doesn't address the fact that kids are far more at risk from other kids than from adult predators.

Another danger is that age verification or new rules could be used to keep kids off of social networks or require parental consent. But before issuing rules about this, authorities should explore possible unintended consequences such as isolating kids, causing them to go underground, failing to serve kids from dysfunctional families, and preventing kids from accessing vital services such as the Suicide Prevention Hotline or one of the many online self-help groups.

The task force report will have its critics, including possibly some attorneys general and others who feel that it underestimates the risk of online predators. Indeed, sting operations from law enforcement (as well as the TV show To Catch a Predator) demonstrate that there are plenty of adults who, if given the chance, would engage in sex with youth they meet online. But, based on the research presented to the task force, it appears that the vast majority of young people are savvy enough to avoid such encounters.

Still, there remains a minority of youth who--for a variety of psychological and social reasons--are vulnerable both online and offline. More research needs to be done to identify these young people and provide them with resources and protective services. The fact that most kids are safe is reassuring but it's not sufficient. If even one child is in danger, then there is work to be done, and that is one thing everyone who cares about this issue can agree on.

[barbaram99]

ii was reading about sexxing on their phone and meant for it to go there, I think the internet is a tool and think it is safe if ye learn to use it properlyThere is good and bad in every thing.

[barbaram99]

Let me say this We have Sep of CHURCH and STATE in this NATION. Thank ye Fathers who wrote the constution.
Clearly values are not being taught. I blame the home. I do blame the care takers. The have cells with no camera in them. A poster said * childreshame on you.* I would go one step above that. I was told what I could and could not do as a minor, That was years ago. A child should never post pics of them that is nude /semi nude. IT IS NOT PROPER. Parents are not doing their job. I do pay schools as does every one, Get a phone for them that can''t do this. Block the pics if that can be done.

[barbaram99]

Let me say this We have Sep of CHURCH and STATE in this NATION. Thank ye Fathers who wrote the constution.
Clearly values are not being taught. I blame the home. I do blame the care takers. The have cells with no camera in them. A poster said * childreshame on you.* I would go one step above that. I was told what I could and could not do as a minor, That was years ago. A child should never post pics of them that is nude /semi nude. IT IS NOT PROPER. Parents are not doing their job. I do pay schools as does every one, Get a phone for them that can''t do this. Block the pics if that can be done.

[rf35]

mrs_zambesi = Lady_Organs?

[niceface19]

The internet is most dangerous to children if you don''t watch them.

[niceface19]

go to Google search, type in the word " canal". erase the letter c, then press enter key.

[niceface19]

This is a irresponsible report,

how about you try it yourself. try the word "canal" in search engine, pretend that you forgot to type in letter "c".....what do you see?

[Wookiee-1138]

Duhr

[vranger]

"most children face a much bigger threat from adult relatives and friends of the family"

Very true, tho let''s not forget to add older teenagers to the list of predators, both in and out of extended family.

[mjlewis6]

The OVERSELLING of a danger is what creates funding for some type of enforcement. The RE-categorization of crimes for current criminal conduct or NEW BUZZ words still evolves into fear mongering for new laws and enforcement. How neat. Can we deal with reality?

Let''s lock up the youth until they become adults though proper conformity training or limit their perception of the real world with police controls, barbed wire fences, metal detectors and prevent their knowledge of self protection or guns or other cultures so that we can have truly pacified citizens unable to cope with not only the counter culture of crime....but the counter culture of government control and economic dependence that it breeds.

[docpeter1953]

From the above article, ''Based on data analyzed by its Research Advisory Board, the task force concluded that "actual threats that youth may face appear to be different than the threats most people imagine" and that "the image presented by the media of an older male deceiving and preying on a young child does not paint an accurate picture of the nature of the majority of sexual solicitations and Internet-initiated offline encounters.''
_________________

Still it only takes one life ruined by s e xual predators to perpetuate the complete cyclic scenario.

Check it out, most of the s e xual predators in prison were s e xually abused as children. Most of the s e xual predators had more than one victim. Most of the s e xual predfators in prison have no intention of quitting or desire to quit.

The cycle goes on and on and magnifies with each passing generation.

[billpl-2009]

my kids could have told them that years ago

[spiritwalk]

I still dont allow my children on the internet because of all the anti-christian comment I see on message boards.
Posted by mrs_zambesi
--------------------------------------
I still dont allow my children on the internet because of all the Christian comment I see on message boards.
Too much intolerance and hate.

[ibzjem]

I still dont allow my children on the internet because of all the anti-christian comment I see on message boards.

Posted by mrs_zambesi at 10:32 AM : Jan 14, 2009

Why not just restrict them from message boards? And why are you on them?

[spiritwalk]

The web isn''''t less dangerous, it never was very dangerous. It was all media induced hype.
Posted by hdc77494

-------------------------------
What makes it dangerous is the media hype and those who comment on it.

Kids read that the Mayan Calendar says they are doomed, Nostradamus say they are doomed, global warming says they are doomed. Liberals say the conservatives are going to bring doom, conservatives say that liberals will bring doom and since nobody is really sure what a neo-con is both liberals and conservatives say they will bring doom.

Baby boomers were neurotic messes because they were told that any moment the Russians would nuke them and they knew that hiding under the desk wasn''t going to help. Today''s kids are now worried they have no future because a thousand articles on the internet say so.

I had a hard enough time sleeping nights worried that the commies MIGHT want to drop a bomb on me and I MIGHT die. I don''t know how kids sleep when the have just googled 10,000 sites that say they WILL die December 21, 2012.

[hdc77494]

The web isn''t less dangerous, it never was very dangerous. It was all media induced hype.

[piercetheval]

...Yes Folks, America IS SAFE once again...don''t you worry about your kids ''Big Brother" will watch out for them...so you can all go back to sleep now...pleasant dreams!

[rf35]

Protect themselves from what?
Posted by william412

From whatever may come their way as a result of Internet use. Bullying, seks predators, insurance predators, whatever.

[opedanderson]

I have been saying this for years! After having been on the Internet pretty much since it''s infancy, exploring all it''s wonders as well as it''s dark corners. I can tell you that if you want to find trouble online---you have to look for it. The "Catch a Predator" shows are testament to that.

The image of the innocent child being sought out, seduced and victimized by faceless pedophiles is, like most media images, a fake one. While, we all know such dangers do exist, most children face a much bigger threat from adult relatives and friends of the family!!!

Not PC, but a hard reality for parents and the goverment regulators to face.

[tucson23]

Most things that parents fear are less dangerous than they appear. The effect of irrelevant news that tells us about all the kidnappings, molestation, and murder as if they are somehow important to us personally, is that events which are extraordinarily rare appear to be common. Soon you have parents that won''t let their kids walk or ride bikes to school, won''t get them immunized, and won''t let them use the internet. As a child in the 70s and 80s, I walked or rode my bike to school miles away every day, and never had a single problem...and if you really think there are more child molesters in the world today than there were in the 70s, I''ve got a bridge in New York I''d like to sell you. What you see on the news are one-in-a-million events, it''s just that constant reporting on them makes them appear to be common.