Health and other associated issues - Tips, Information and Guides
Teens And Blogs - Internet Safety Wake-Up Call
by: Rose DesRochers In November of 2005, I read that a Roman Catholic high school in Sparta
had ordered its students to remove personal blogs from the Internet, in the name
of protecting them from cyberpredators. Which brings me to an important
question, just how can you keep your child safe online? The Internet is a "gateway" which leads the adult predator to your child.
Parents need to recognize the need to better monitor their children’s online
activity. I believe that websites like xanga, myspace, and livejournal, make it
all too easy for sexual predators to prey on our children. Children are vulnerable and they don’t realize that anyone can and most
likely is reading their blog entries. Both my children have blogs, however they
are under moderation by both my husband and I. Frankly, as a parent of two
teenagers I believe that it is up to us as parents to educate our children about
the online dangers. Children's blogs are a pedophile’s playground, because of the easy
ability to look into a child’s world. As parents we can help our children stay
safe while using a blog. For information about blogging safety please visit
http://BlogSafety.com and
http://SafeTeens.com. Regarding sites like hi5: I've received several invitations from hi5, but
I never signed up until November 2005. It wasn’t long before I was removing my
account. I should have read the privacy policy before I registered. It reads: hi5 collects personal information when you register, when you
use hi5, when you visit hi5 pages or the pages of certain hi5 partners. hi5 may
combine information about you that we have with information we obtain from
business partners or other companies. Once you register with hi5 and sign in to
our services, you are not anonymous to us. hi5 collects information about your
transactions with us and with some of our business partners. hi5 automatically
receives and records information on our server logs from your browser. Basically, they have spyware. Hi5 collects your Hotmail or yahoo address lists and contacts. Once you
register there is an e-mail that is sent to everyone in your address book. This
e-mail is sent without your permission. The website also requests, your hotmail and yahoo password. I never gave
my password, I was not that gullible. However hi5 was still able to gather my
information and contact those listed in my address book. I finally was able to
delete my account, through the instructions in their help file. In my opinion, hi5 is even worse than xanga and myspace. I encourage all parents, whose children have an account on hi5, to log
into hi5 and delete their children’s account. Too much personal information is being revealed on these websites, making
it a haven for sexual predators. Parents need to wake up. I for one, am very concerned with websites like hi5, MySpace, Xanga,
DeadJournal, Blurty, etc that encourage children to post their photos and
personal information. I strongly suggest that if your child uses the computer and you have not
been monitoring their activity, it is time that you found out just what they are
doing. A report aired Dateline Friday, Jan. 27, at 9 p.m. by Rob Stafford, a
Correspondent of NBC News, tells parents why they should mind MySpace. If you
have not seen this report, I suggest you take a moment to view it at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11064451/ You owe it to your children. Which brings me to my next concern, the Internet is a scary place, filled
with all kind of strange people. I believe that when you post your child’s
picture on the net, you put them at risk. Did you know that your personal information, such as your home phone
number and address can easily be found on the internet? If this isn’t one reason to make you reconsider posting your child’s
picture on the internet, how about that in this day and age, photos can be
digitally altered and appear on porn sites. According to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children more than 20,000 images of child pornography are posted on the internet
every week. Donna Rice Hughes of
http://Protectkids.com states, “… the demand for pornographic images
of babies and toddlers on the internet is soaring.†(Prof. Max Taylor,
Combating Paedophile Information Networks in Europe, March 2003). More babies
and toddlers are appearing on the net and the abuse is getting worse. Images are
more torturous and sadistic than they were was before. The typical age of children found on pornography sites is between 6 and
12, but the profile is getting younger (Prof. Max Taylor, Combating Paedophile
Information Networks in Europe, March 2003). The U.S. Customs Service estimates that there are more than 100,000 web
sites offering child pornography - which is illegal worldwide. Red Herring
Magazine, 1/18/02)†I don't consider myself paranoid, but I don't post my children's pictures
on the internet and I believe that you shouldn't either. We all have cute
children and are proud of them. But parents, please use some common sense. Keep
your child safe and out of the arms of child predators. A good website to check
out is:
http://members.tripod.com/~Seadooer/sayno-contests.html Say no to children's pictures on the web and for goodness sake, monitor
your child’s internet activity. Our children are our most valuable asset, love
them and protect them.
About The Author
Rose DesRochers is a published poet and freelance writer. Rose has been
writing poetry for more than 20 years. She is also the founder of
http://www.todays-woman.net, a supportive online writing community
for men and women over 18. She is also the Assistant Administrator of
http://www.invision-graphics.com. This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. |
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