[governance] NYT: Report Calls Online Threats to Children Overblown

[Michael Gurstein]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/technology/internet/14cyberweb.html?_r=3

Report Calls Online Threats to Children Overblown 

By BRAD STONE
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/brad_stone/ind
ex.html?inline=nyt-per> 
Published: January 13, 2009 

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
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/nbc_universal/index.h
tml?inline=nyt-org> 's "To Catch a Predator" series. One attorney general
was quick to criticize the group's report.

The panel, the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, was charged with
examining the extent of the threats children face on social networks like
MySpace
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/myspace_com/index.htm
l?inline=nyt-org>  and Facebook
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/facebook_inc/index.ht
ml?inline=nyt-org> , 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. 

"This shows that social networks are not these horribly bad neighborhoods on
the Internet," said John Cardillo, chief executive of Sentinel Tech Holding,
which maintains a sex offender database and was part of the task force.
"Social networks are very much like real-world communities that are
comprised mostly of good people who are there for the right reasons."

The 278-page report, released Tuesday, was the result of a year of meetings
between dozens of academics, experts in childhood safety and executives of
30 companies, including Yahoo
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/yahoo_inc/index.html?
inline=nyt-org> , AOL
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/aol/index.html?inline
=nyt-org> , MySpace and Facebook.

The task force, led by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at
Harvard University
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/harvard
_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org> , looked at scientific data on online
sexual predators and found that children and teenagers were unlikely to be
propositioned by adults online. In the cases that do exist, the report said,
teenagers are typically willing participants and are already at risk because
of poor home environments, substance abuse or other problems. 

Not everyone was happy with the conclusions. Richard Blumenthal
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/richard_blumen
thal/index.html?inline=nyt-per> , the Connecticut attorney general, who has
forcefully pursued the issue and helped to create the task force, said he
disagreed with the report. Mr. Blumenthal said it "downplayed the predator
threat," relied on outdated research and failed to provide a specific plan
for improving the safety of social networking. 

"Children are solicited every day online," Mr. Blumenthal said. "Some fall
prey, and the results are tragic. That harsh reality defies the statistical
academic research underlying the report."

In what social networks may view as something of an exoneration after years
of pressure from law enforcement, the report said sites like MySpace and
Facebook "do not appear to have increased the overall risk of solicitation."

Attorneys general like Mr. Blumenthal and Roy Cooper of North Carolina
publicly accused the social networks of facilitating the activities of
pedophiles and pushed them to adopt measures to protect their youngest
users. Citing studies that showed tens of thousands of convicted sex
offenders were using MySpace, they pressured the networks to purge those
people from their membership databases. 

The attorneys general also charged the task force with evaluating
technologies that might play a role in enhancing safety for children online.
An advisory board composed of academic computer scientists and forensics
experts was created within the task force to look at technologies and ask
companies in the industry to submit their child-protection systems.

Among the systems the technology board looked at included age verification
technologies that try to authenticate the identities and ages of children
and prevent adults from contacting them. But the board concluded that such
systems "do not appear to offer substantial help in protecting minors from
sexual solicitation."

One problem is that it is difficult to verify the ages and identities of
children because they do not have driver's licenses or insurance. 


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