Child predators on the internet
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An online child predator is a person who uses the internet with the intention of contacting minors below the age of consent, soliciting sexual relations. They are usually not pedophiles.[1]
There are, of course, mass hysterias and moral panics about them, since everyone knows that children are more likely to be sexually abused by a perfect stranger who knows them online rather than by someone they know closely.
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[edit] Real dangers
Of course, despite being extremely rare - by far the largest threat to children, statistically, is their own parents - there is a small, but real threat to children. This threat can be pretty much eliminated very easily and parents can go back to needlessly worrying about uncles and close friends looking at their children in any way.
Try the following if you have young children:
- Do your job as a parent and look after your kids.
- Don't give them unlimited, unsupervised Internet access - install net-nanny or something.
- Check to make sure you know where they're going and where they are.
- Basically, do your job as a parent and look after your damn kids!
Try the following if you have moping adolescents in your house:
- Be open and honest when discussing stuff.
- But not patronising.
- Basically, do your job as a parent and look after your damn kids!
[edit] Media scare tactics
Recently, the media in general has been overreporting on individual cases of internet molestation, causing a nationwide scare. Sexual predators of all kind are now tracked using satellites, and are not allowed to live in certain areas (other felons are allowed to live in these areas). Florida and Texas have plans for creating separate hurricane shelters for sexual predators. "When a child is missing, chances are good it was a convicted sex offender" claims NBC correspondant Jim Acosta[2]. He forgot about children running away, children being abducted by family members, children being lost, etc. Oh well.
The scare tactics and panics resulting from media hype around child predators, and specifically those operating on the Internet, was parodied in Chris Morris' Brass Eye paedophile special (entitled Paedogeddon). This included paedophiles wearing black t-shirts with child bodies drawn on so that a child watching via a webcam would think it was another child and the claim that predators could cause your computer's keyboard to emit chemicals that make children suggestible.[3]
[edit] Uninformed Attorneys General
Alberto Gonzales:
| “ | According to one study, one child in every five is solicited online. The television program Dateline estimated that at any given time, 50,000 predators are on the Internet prowling for children. It is simply astonishing how many predators there are, and how aggressive [sic] they act.[4] | ” |
[edit] Statistical reality
The truth is that almost all the statistics out there are based on misinformation. The famous "1/5" statistic came from the Youth Internet Safety Survey, a survey, performed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which asked over 1,000 teens about their internet experiences.[5] 19% of the teens surveyed said that they had "request to engage in sexual activities or sexual talk or give personal sexual information that were unwanted or, whether wanted or not, made by an adult." A highschooler asking a fellow highschooler if s/he is a virgin would be a case of this, if the person did not want to admit they were/were not a virgin. An 18 year old (adult) asking his friend, the 17 year old (minor), if he had gotten lucky on his date last night would be a case of this. None of these "cases" had anything to do with any reported sexual assault case.[6]
[edit] Entrapment for entertainment
MSNBC's Dateline ran a program where they had several "children" (FBI agents) lure internet predators to their house, where they then captured them.[7] The point was to show how easy it is to find them online. What NBC did not admit was that they had "lured" these predators from chat rooms that are often used by people looking for quick sex. Hardly places where children spend their time. Alberto Gonzales got his "50,000" statistic from Dateline. Dateline broadcasted this number without ever checking the accuracy with anything. Where did it come from?
| “ | It was attributed to, you know, law enforcement, as an estimate, and it was talked about as sort of an extrapolated number.[8] | ” |
Oh. That's very scientific, isn't it?
Under the title "To Catch a Predator" and with the cooperation of the controversial anti-sex predator website Perverted-Justice.com, this feature continues to be a much-used ratings grabber on Dateline NBC.
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ "Online child molesters are generally not pedophiles. Because online child molesters primarily target adolescents, not young children (Lanning, 2002; Wolak et al., 2004), such offenders do not fit the clinical profile of pedophiles, who are, by definition, sexually attracted to prepubescent children (American Psychiatric Association, 2000)."[1] Even most people who offend against prepubescent children are not pedophiles.[2]
- ↑ http://www.csicop.org/si/2006-05/panic.html
- ↑ It's all Nonce Sense.
- ↑ http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2006/ag_speech_0604202.html
- ↑ "Youth Internet Safety Survey." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 13 Sep 2007, 19:55 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 25 Sep 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Youth_Internet_Safety_Survey&oldid=157685274>.
- ↑ http://www.csicop.org/si/2006-05/panic.html
- ↑ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10912603/
- ↑ http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2006/05/26/05
