Duane Hicks
While parents may see the Internet as a virtual reality, the threats posed by predators and cyber-bullies are dangerously real.
And even though many parents are not as technology-savvy as their children, that’s no excuse for them not to play a role in their children’s online activities just as they do offline.
This was the message sent by Sgt. Robyn Maceachern, youth issues co-ordinator for the OPP, during a seminar here Friday as part of the Ontario Association of Police Services Boards Zone 1 semi-annual meeting.
“Technology does not trump parenting, and when it comes to the Internet, there’s been a huge gap of parents who don’t feel that they have the technological prowess to parent their kids online,” she remarked. “The biggest thing is we can’t prevent what we’re not aware of.
“What I am going to give you today is an awareness of what is out there, and common, simple strategies we can use to reduce those risks.”
Sgt. Maceachern said she can’t stress enough the extent young people are online these days, communicating through e-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms, webcams, and social and personal websites, as well as playing games and downloading music and videos.
“They’re doing everything online. They are connecting with everybody, everywhere,” she noted, adding studies show that if parents think they are going to enforce their rules and traditions on this generation, they are wrong.
Rather, kids today have a whole world they can connect to that will help them make the social networks and communities they want; they are “a force for social transformation.”
While this can be a positive thing (just look at the impact of social networking on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign), it also leaves the door open to many risks, such as the number of sexual predators online.
This past May, all of the names of registered sex offenders in the U.S. were run against the 150 million profiles on “MySpace”—and 7,000 registered sex offenders were confirmed and removed from that community, noted Sgt. Maceachern, who works hand-in-hand with the OPP’s electronic crime lab (or as she called them, “the CSI of computers)” and the OPP’s child sexual exploitation unit.
“Those were only the ones who used their real names, those were only the ones convicted of a sexual offence,” she stressed.
“It is a playground online,” she warned. “I don’t need to show you that within two seconds, if I go online as a young 13-year-old girl, there would be a predator asking me to do things on a webcam.”
While predators may use deceit to approach children online, such as posing to be someone their own age, sometimes they simply use “grooming” or compliments to appeal to children who are eager to communicate with someone who will listen to their problems—perhaps not surprising when some parents spend so little quality time with their children these days.
What’s coming out as perhaps even more of an issue is cyber-bullying.
“The way peers are treating one another online is horrendous,” Sgt. Maceachern remarked. “Recent research has been done that shows if we don’t get a handle on cyber-bullying and harassment, the use of the Internet as a fantasy world to do cruel things to one another, we’re going to have some serious social issues arise very fast.”
She pointed out the significant difference between real bullying and cyber-bullying is the latter can be anonymous, spread across the entire Internet, and potentially continue to exist in cyberspace forever.
And the effects can be devastating—it has been chronicled in news stories where online harassment has driven people to suicide.
Another significant problem is identity theft. With so many young people putting their personal information online, there is great potential for others to use that information to get credit cards, among other forms of fraud.
Sgt. Maceachern said parents should become familiar with popular sites such as “Facebook,” “MySpace,” and “YouTube,” how much information their children are putting out there, and, if possible, even their children’s user names, which can tell a lot about their online activity.
She stressed parents taking responsibility is necessary because the Internet actually has few guidelines for users and what they can do online.
For example, in Canada there is only one online filter—Project Cleanfeed—that filters known child pornography sites from countries where there are no laws against child pornography, which unfortunately accounts for more than half the nations in the world.
“Think of the challenge that Canadian parents have,” she said. “Everything our kids do in the media is regulated by the CRTC, right? They can only listen to so many American music videos before they have to hear Canadian content.
“We have regulations on our television, but nothing regulates the Internet.”
While creating an overall content filter might seem like an obvious answer, Sgt. Maceachern noted that in Australia, the government spent $8.1 million developing a filter for its Internet.
“Within five minutes [of it being implemented], the kids had figured out how to get around it and posted the directions on YouTube,” she added.
Parents may be shocked to learn websites like YouTube can contain videos that instruct people on how to steal cars. But Sgt. Maceachern said YouTube cannot possibly review the content of the million videos uploaded every day to the site and, like many other things on the Internet, it is up to users to flag it and let YouTube know about that content.
Within 24 hours, YouTube will review and, if it is breaching their user contract, remove it.
“We have a responsibility as users to filter, as well, what is appropriate and what isn’t appropriate,” she remarked.
On top of that, there is a certain philosophy among some Internet users that it should be a completely open to everyone and free of censorship. Sgt. Maceachern said there are countries where there is filtered use of the Internet, but some Canadians will offer people in those countries proxy access to full use of the Internet.
“There’s a whole realm of people who support this open use of the Internet. The idea for parents of filtering—of blocking this and blocking that—I am not saying it is a bad idea, I am just saying it’s not a silver bullet.
“Nothing replaces parenting in the online world, the same way with real life,” she stressed.
Sgt. Maceachern outlined some tips for families to help reduce online risks. These include:
•setting reasonable rules about Internet use and remember that the Internet is not an electronic babysitter;
•be aware of your children’s online profiles and discuss the impact of the information revealed through them;
•resist reacting in a negative way if your child encounters trouble online;
•learn how to get assistance from Internet service providers regarding online safety (spend time learning from your child about their online activities, websites they go to, services used, and their user names);
•ensure computers are in high-traffic areas of the house; and
•learn about your child’s online activities and friends the same way you do in real life.
Some tips for young people to reduce risks when going online include:
•consider what you post and say online (anyone can see it, and what goes online can stay online forever);
•question what you see online (people can easily lie about their age, gender, interests, personality, almost anything, so questions everything);
•talk to a parent before meeting an online friend in person;
•tell an adult if you encounter anything online that makes you feel uncomfortable;
•use webcams with caution as anyone can capture your image and do anything with it;
•don’t say anything online you wouldn’t say in real life; and
•protect your passwords, make them hard to guess, and share them with no one.
There also are many online resources, including www.internet101.ca, www.cybertips.ca, www.safecanada.ca, www.cyberbullying.ca, www.kidshelpphone, and www.opp.ca
