SAFTEY
FOR
CHILDREN ON THE
INTERNET

  
  Over the past few years,with the growing
interest,  use and dependency on computers there 
are more children on the Internet.
   With this "tool" now readily available to 
children  through their homes and schools more 
and more children are also being left alone to 
investigate them  Internet on their own.
   This leaves them wide open to the perils 
of people  that are Stalking the "net" looking 
for these children, seeking them out and then 
taking advantage of their innocence.
Cyberspace poses a particular threat to children
because they often sign on to the Internet
 unsupervised and can enter chatrooms, where 
computer users hold typewritten conversations. 
   Although there is no way to know how many
children are contacted by pedophiles or are 
exposed to pornography through the Internet, 
law-enforcement officials say it is a growing
 problem.
   By using the Internet, pedophiles can remain 
anonymous and hidden from view,making it 
easier to seduce children and set up meetings.
Internet-savvy children can also easily access 
online pornography.
"Individuals who seek children to sexually 
exploit and victimize them are also a mouse
 click away," said Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla.,
 who worked with the Justice Department to 
draft the bill.
 "Cyberpredators often cruise the Internet in 
search of lonely, curious or trusting young 
people.   Sex offenders who prey on children
 no longer need to hang out in parks or malls 
or schoolyards.

 On June 12th, 1998 the House on approved a 
bill to
 crack down on pedophiles that use the Internet
to entice children sexually, making prosecutions
easier and toughening prison sentences.
This legislation  would prohibit "contacting" 
a minor through an online service, like the 
Internet or engaging in sexual activity and 
would establish a three-year minimum sentence 
for using a computer to do so.
   Under current federal law, prosecutors must 
prove that a pedophile persuaded or forced a 
child into a sexual act, a situation that has
 made it difficult to convict offenders.
The bill would also make it a federal crime to 
knowingly transfer obscene materials to a minor
over the Internet.
To stop sexual and commercial predators who
seek out children online, a " the Safe 
Playground Law,"which would make it a federal 
crime for an adult to impersonate a child
online in any site declared a Safe Playground. 
Adults on children's sites would be required
to identify themselves as adults.
This means. "If you impersonate a child, you 
intend to defraud a child and we won't deal 
with that. What happens between consenting 
adults is one thing, but children require 
special circumstances, and it's incumbent
 upon adults to behave accordingly."

The problem, to date, is intractable. On one 
hand, how do online services create a safe 
place for children to meet and play together 
while at the same time protecting them from
 pedophiles and unscrupulous  marketers who 
often pose as children? On the other, how can
we keep children away from pornographic adult
sites, which are accessible at the click of a 
mouse?
Today's solutions to the pornography problem,
at least, are not working very well. For 
example, "filtering" programs like Cybersitter,
Net Nanny and Cyberpatrol are supposed to block
access to a constantly updated list of "adult" 
World 
Wide Web sites. But an article in Consumer 
Reports noted that all were  relatively easy to
circumvent.Even if blocking programs worked, 
they do not begin  to address the problem of 
how to keep adults from asking their identities
 in online settings like chat rooms,  where 
children can be lured unwittingly into sexual
conversations or even meetings, or coerced into
commercial transactions.

Thomas Morgan, a longtime online executive 
and the  president of Nvolve Inc., a company
that develops online communities, has devised a
solution he calls the Safe Playgrounds
Initiative. He has been discussing it 
 privately for several months with various
 organizations, including the Electronic 
Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, 
and the Children's Advertising Review Unit of 
the Better Business Bureau.
Morgan is now going public with the initiative,
which he  developed after deciding to build an 
online community for children and realizing
 that all the security measures were too 
complex or constricting.
For example, America Online's "Kids Only" site 
displays many warnings  and safety tips, but its
"pager"  system, which allows children to
summon a monitor if they feel threatened online,
is hopelessly backed up.
 Many users report waiting half an hour or 
longer for  a monitor to respond. And to 
protect its  young users and its reputation as
a family company, the popular Disney Web site 
allows children to communicate only inside its
Disney Blast area, which  not only requires
registration  but asks parents to specify with
whom their children are allowed to communicate. 

"Parents can drop the restriction if they want,
" said Jake  Winebaum, president of Disney 
Online. "But if they do, we educate them about
 the consequences of their decision."

Morgan is hoping to change the rules of 
engagement, and thus the consequences as well. 
"We wanted children to be able to go to places 
on the Web where they can feel safe to explore
and play," Morgan said. "We also wanted
 something that doesn't require every consumer
 to be a Web genius -- something simple, clean 
and easily applied."

The result was Safe Playgrounds, which Morgan
is now asking industry executives and
politicians to support.
 Its tenets are:To develop a "kid's browser" 
that includes an unbreakable bit of software
 code that Morgan is calling a G-bit, for 
general audience. This identifies the user as
someone who is either under 18 years old or 
does not want to see adult material. 
Web publishers then rate and code their own 
sites, and anyone who shows up at an adult site
with this G-bit will be denied access.
To stop sexual and commercial predators who seek 
out children online, by means of what Morgan
calls the Safe Playground Law, which would make
it a federal crime for an adult to impersonate 
a child online in any site declared a Safe 
Playground. Adults on children's sites would be
required to identify themselves as adults.

To develop Safe Playground qualification 
criteria, including trained monitors in chat 
rooms to keep an eye peeled for predators; a 
guarantee that no child's full name, physical 
address or personal e-mail address  will ever
be revealed; an agreement to inform parents
when sites are collecting data about youngsters,
and an agreement to display only clearly 
identified, age-appropriate, noncoercive 
advertising messages.
"The Safe Playground criteria are very closely 
in sync and may even surpass what we're trying
 to get the industry to do," said Elizabeth 
La Scoutx, vice president of the Council of 
Better Business Bureaus and the director of 
its Children's Advertising Review Unit.

Beleaguered executives like Disney's Winebaum
 predict that enacting an Initiative like Safe 
Playgrounds will be difficult, but he is also 
adamant that an  industrywide, mandatory 
solution is "the only way to  solve the problem 
on the scale that's required."

Lori Fena, the chairman of the Electronic 
Frontier Foundation, agreed. "No one wants to 
pay to babyproof++ the Net, but everybody is 
willing to support creating child-safe areas
like playgrounds in the real world," she said.

"This initiative is the most sane thing I've 
seen yet -- socially, legally and economically.
If the goal is to go after predatory behavior
by adults,then let's go for it."
Until such time that the Internet CAN be 
patrolled and made safe for children it is the 
responsibility of the parent  to make sure that
the child is kept safe while on line.
   Guidelines should be set up between the
parent and the child. When  (s)he is allowed to
use the computer, where they are allowed to go,
whom they are allowed to speak to and most 
importantly that at no time should  they ever 
give out any personal information about 
themselves.
If someone does ask them something that they 
feel uncomfortable about they should get a parent or adult 
at ONCE and report this information. 
Also, if you are the parent of a child on the
Internet, it is important to know the children
are being educated to use computers, while you
the parents are being left behind. Join the
child, learn the basics and know more about the
use and misuse of this industry that is growing
 and will be one of the most important to
everyone's lives in the coming millennium.






  SafeSurf ® - The original 

Internet content rating system! - ICCS .....


Back to PEDOPHILES


Back to MAIN INDEX