Are your children safe online? Are your children safe online?
In two recent SLO County cases, suspected sex offenders are accused of using social networking Web sites such as MySpace to lure kids into dangerous situations. Here’s what you need to know to protect your family.
‘In the last year about 20 percent of youth on the Internet have received sexual solicitations.’ — the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crimes
POLL: Is MySpace dangerous or a harmless diversion?
When Mark Buchman’s 16-year-old daughter invited a friend over, it didn’t take long for the girls to find themselves huddled over a computer.
They promptly set up a MySpace profile
"Within 15 minutes of being online, my daughter comes out and says, ‘Can she give out our home phone number? Somebody wants to talk to her,’ " said Buchman, a San Luis Obispo school district adviser and secretary for the county PTA. "That’s really scary."
Buchman said he’s glad the girls asked rather than give out the number.
By MySpace’s estimate, about 100 million people — mostly teens and 20-somethings — use the social networking Web site to share music, post pictures and connect with like-minded people across the globe.
The site builds friendships and broadens horizons, members say. But it also exposes them to online predators set on ensnaring the young and naive.
In two recent cases on the Central Coast, authorities say suspected sex offenders allegedly communicated with their young female victims via MySpace.
Some critics say MySpace and similar sites, such as Xanga, Facebook and Friendster, need to take more measures to protect underage users.
But Buchman and others believe parents and their children have to take responsibility for what’s happening online.
"If we have an Internet hunting ground for predators, then I don’t want my daughter playing in the woods," Buchman said. "The only thing I can do is education."
Keeping ‘their mouths shut’
Seventeen-year-old Amanda Edick’s MySpace page is as sunny as her smile.
The Morro Bay High School senior posts photos of herself in a blue-and-green bikini, gripes about work and school, and exchanges love notes with her boyfriend, 19-year-old Scott. (Her profile boasts, "Yeah, he’s mine. Jealous, ain’t cha?")
Try to contact the strawberry blonde, however, and you’ll probably get a cold shoulder.
"I don’t talk to people I don’t know," Amanda said. She’s careful about posting personal information and sometimes uses a different name or birth date to protect her identity.
"You just have to ignore any rude comments or messages you get," agreed 16-year-old Kayde of Templeton, who blocks her own MySpace profile from strangers. "And make what you put online private, and even then, don’t put out personal info."
Kayde asked that her last name not be used because she doesn’t want to put herself at risk from sex predators.
Even that amount of care doesn’t appease educators such as Steve Anderson, principal of Laguna Middle School in San Luis Obispo.
"Kids can give out all kinds of information," Anderson said, "because they don’t have the experience and the knowledge of when to keep their mouths shut."
Local cases
The dangers of being online have never been more public.
In Paso Robles, a 13-year-old girl reportedly used MySpace to keep in touch with the 22-year-old man accused of later taking her to Nevada and having sex with her. Police in Fallon, Nev., arrested Brady James Drayton in June.
Grover Beach police suspect that Aaron Klock, 22, contacted more than 100 underage girls through his MySpace account. He’s set to be arraigned Monday on charges that he sexually molested girls as young as 12 and threw parties where minors were served alcohol.
Nationally, critics are rallying around cases such as the $30 million lawsuit filed against MySpace by a Texas girl and her mother. They claim the site could have done more to prevent the 14-year-old from hooking up with the 19-year-old man she met online, even though both fibbed about their ages.
The Deleting Online Predators Act, which requires schools and libraries to block social networking sites, passed the House of Representatives in July and awaits a vote in the Senate.
In this county, the Paso Robles, San Luis Coastal and Lucia Mar school districts and the county Office of Education all block social networking sites from their computers.
Since the summer, MySpace has added security measures, launched a public service ad campaign featuring "24" star Kiefer Sutherland, and promised to publish guides to Internet safety for parents and school administrators.
The site now prevents users age 18 and older from contacting 14- and 15-year-olds on MySpace unless they know that teen’s e-mail address or full name. All users now have the ability to set their profiles to "private," limiting content to their self-approved list of friends.
One massive problem remains, said Arroyo Grande High School Principal Ryan Pinkerton.
"Anybody can go and say they’re 15 and set up a profile," he said. Adults can claim to be high schoolers. Teens can fib and pretend to be older when they sign up.
As Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace’s chief security officer, told Time magazine, there’s no technology available to verify people’s identities online.
Educating the masses
That’s why education for everyone has become the new push.
"We all have responsibility for our actions whenever we go online," said Nancy McBride, executive director of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "You can’t just point the finger at the industry."
McBride notes there are several sites aimed at teaching children and parents how to stay safer on the Internet — including the center’s own NetSmartz.org. It features instructional videos and a dictionary of Web terms.
Common Sense Media’s site grades Web sites, TV shows and video games on their appropriateness for different age groups, based on sexual content, language, violence and other factors.
There are also in-person teaching programs for parents and school officials, such as those offered by i-SAFE Inc.
"It helps to not only show the parents about what kids can get into, but it helps them all to correct it and monitor it," said Barbara Harris, who heads the computer lab at Kermit King Elementary School in Paso Robles. She launched an i-SAFE pilot program at the school.
In the next few months, the county PTA and local law enforcement officials plan to host two i-SAFE presentations at Laguna Middle School in San Luis Obispo. The first is set for Oct. 12, the second in January.
Getting parents involved
According to educators, parents need to take a lead role in teaching their children about appropriate online behavior. That includes making sure they’re not harming their own reputation or that of others.
According to Will Jones, principal at San Luis Obispo High School, most teenagers don’t hesitate to show off pictures of themselves drinking, partying or in sexually suggestive poses.
Pinkerton, the Arroyo Grande High principal, said there’s also a temptation to use the Internet’s anonymity to strike out at fellow students.
"There’s absolutely no personal nature to it," said Pinkerton, whose school experienced cyberbullying last year. "Kids are more willing to do things online than they would ever do to a person’s face."
One method to monitor what teenagers post online is as simple as parents setting up their own MySpace pages, as Amanda’s father and mother did.
"My dad has had MySpace for almost as long as me," she said. "He just wanted to see why everybody thought it was so cool and decided he liked it, too."
Even while taking precautions online, McBride and others caution against treating the Internet solely as a playground for predators. That attitude ignores the Web’s potential for creative growth, said Laura Gelman, associate director for the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School.
"Instead of kids only being able to express themselves in English class or in their private journals, they have this whole medium where they can publish to the world," Gelman said. "I think the rewards are far greater than the risks."
When a wave swept incoming Cal Poly freshman Enrique Jimenez off to sea Sept. 22, for instance, friends turned his MySpace profile into a memorial. At first, they posted prayers for the teen’s safety and then, when rescuers found his body, used the forum to say goodbye.
McBride agreed that sites like MySpace can be a positive outlet for youths.
"We never want to paint the Internet as this place that’s so scary you never want to go on. It’s not," she said. "But use some caution; use some common sense."
Mystified by online hangouts? Check out this guide to Web communities
MySpace
What it is: An online networking community for friends, singles and others, aimed at teens and young adults.
How it works: The emphasis is on finding friends and building your network through people they know. Each profile includes basic information — name, age, hometown, zodiac sign — as well as "About me" and "Who I’d like to meet." Most personalize their pages with photos, videos and music clips. Users are encouraged to post comments, write Web blogs and set up discussion groups.
Safety first: MySpace now offers a "private" setting to keep profiles mostly free from prying eyes and protect young users from contact with older strangers.
Users must be 15 and older. Still, there’s no way to verify ages or other information.
Xanga
What it is: A bare-bones site dedicated to online diaries and journals.
How it works: Users post basic profiles and blogs on subjects including travel, their love lives or their pets, with links to their friends. You can post a comment, send a message or give compliments called "e-props," but only the profile owner sees what other people say.
Safety first: Xanga offers three levels of protection: public, protected and private. Users, age 13 and older, can also choose if they want their birth date or other personal information posted. Users have to prove they’re old enough to view blogs deemed "explicit" by providing a credit card or other ID.
Facebook
What it is: A networking tool for schools, work places and other organizations.
How it works: Users must provide legitimate e-mail addresses from high schools, universities and businesses to join. Users are just as likely to list their majors, student activities and political affliations as their favorite bands and movies.
Safety first: Facebook restricts users to their own school or work group, so there’s no cross-pollination, unless desired. (You’re also told if you’re too old to register, for instance, for a high school group.) Each piece of information you post has its own privacy setting.
Friendster
What it is: The Web site that pioneered social networking. Dogster is a similar site for pet owners.
How it works: Find friends and check out job applicants on MySpace-style profiles that feature photos, videos, logs, favorites and blogs. Friendster lets you search for men or women within a certain age range, relationship status and field of interests, and in some cases takes you directly to online matchmaker True’s Web site.
Safety first: Users, who must be 16 or older, can decide who views their full profile: "friends," "friends of friends" or "anyone." Like MySpace, some information is always open to public view. Unlike MySpace, only members can search for profiles.
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