The Dangers of Online Predators

Finally, there is nothing easier or faster than making connections with someone who you knew long time ago through social media. Many social media sites are being created regularly that allow people to connect and interact over the Internet. However, the advancement of today’s social media has also increased the activities of pedophiles due to the communication that social media allows. Online predators have gained access to youngsters, ever since people started using social media extensively. According to Fox News, “The world’s largest pro-pedophilia advocacy group uses Facebook to connect with its members throughout the world; to find and exchange photos of children; to hone its members' predatory behaviour; and to identify,

According to guardchild.com, 17% of teens surveyed stated that they received an email or an online message with photos or words that made them feel uncomfortable, and only 7% of parents were aware of this. In an article titled “The Undercover Parent” by Harlan Coben, it explains about the idea about parents using spyware on their children. Everything a child types can already be seen by the world, even pedophiles or online bullies. Coben supports the idea; however, he feels that showing the article to a child is better because it can lead to a to a conversation about concerns the parents may have. Parents should monitor their children’s online behavior because they want to keep their children safe from cyber bullies and pedophiles.

Even with the dangerous developments in social media over the past several years, many parents have chosen to allow their children to use these sites despite age restrictions. There are three reasons to argue for age restrictions on social media sites: lack of supervision by parents, targeting of children by pedophiles, and the prevalence of children falsifying their age. The ability of pedophiles to conceivably target children with social media proves that this is an issue that parents need to examine so that they may better protect their children. The threat from pedophiles causes an enormous problem for millions of children on social media sites. Unfortunately, Western Daily Press states that “Pedophiles can get away with grooming young teenagers on social media sites.” My essay will argue that age restrictions need to be in place, and additional regulations should ensure that law enforcement agencies have the tools required to supervise underage children 's use of social media, including Facebook and Twitter. Quoting from Business Wire, “three out of four parents feel that social network sites are not protecting children.” According to Irish Independent, “four out of ten children falsify their age” when using social media. I will also argue that additional research on this topic can be used to raise the awareness of parents, and can also help to alert the children themselves to the danger. My essay will also examine questions, such as: How can social media sites protect

Online predators and Stalkers can easily gain access to social media users’ personal information by either requesting to be a user’s friend or simply finding a way around the user's privacy settings. According to June Ahn, chat rooms are public and is an unmonitored space where online predators are more likely to be. “Adolescents are less likely to be targeted for unwanted sexual solicitation in social media than chat rooms.”(Ahn, June) I have found that, 412 adolescents were more likely to talk with strangers. This is hazardous for young children and adolescents because their lack of life experience leads them to blindly accept all friend request. The effort to seem popular by having many friends online can damage credibility and truth worthiness.

Parents can also have a more direct role in monitoring the technology that their children use. There are multiple options available to parents, including tools and software designed specifically to protect juveniles from online predators. One popular tool is the Net Nanny, which allows parents to monitor everything that happens on the computer and can limit the access a person has to online activities based on the specified settings (Cohen-Almagor, 197). Another method available is the Engine for Relationship Analysis (ERA), which monitors, analyzes, and assesses online relationships as they develop (Cohen-Almagor, 197). This tool could be effective with preteens and teens as it allows more freedom than the Net Nanny, but still keeps parents informed of any potential issue. The ERA is used to analyze instant messaging platforms, which would be an effective method to track as using email would stifle the conversation and there would be a greater risk for the predator of being caught. This type of prevention would work well with addressing the issue of having a capable guardian concerning Routine Activities

It is not uncommon for someone to exaggerate the truth or to leave out facts about themselves on the web. In fact, you may even find that the person you thought you knew on the internet is nothing like their profiles in real life. Whether it is to stand out in the crowd or to fool someone into thinking you are someone else entirely, you should not believe everything you see or read online. With photo enhancements, little white lies, and the scam termed catfishing, you just never really know who you are talking to or what their intentions are. Michele Fleming and Debra Rickwood, authors of “Teens in Cyberspace”, determine that parents and the public share the concern of teens encountering predators and pedophiles on the internet and could lead to inappropriate relationships on and off the web. The young generation typically communicates with peers and people close in age, however, Fleming and Rickwood advise “Even though many teens appear Net-savvy, they still need to be reminded of the potential dangers lurking online. There may be many friends in cyberspace but there are undoubtedly a number of

Coben states the dangers, “First, we’ve all heard about the young boy unknowingly conversing with a pedophile.” You may hear that an internet predator approached or kidnapped a child on the news, but as a parent you will assume its not happening to your child. Kids, teenagers, and their parents can’t tell an internet predators until it's too late. According to Pure-sight, “ 100 percent of the cases, teens that are the victims of sexual predators have gone willingly to meet with them. Also teens are willing to meet with strangers: 16 percent of teens considered meeting someone they've only talked to online and 8 percent have actually met someone they only knew online”

One of the main hazards that Social Networking can bring is Sexual Predators. Vicki Haddock a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle believes, “the internet was once seen as a Golden information superhighway” (Document C). In which people were able to see the next generation of what was called the promise

As mentioned, the children internet users are in great risk of victimization from being victimized by the online predators. The problem of online predators consistently increased as people gained more easy access to the internet through diverse forms. As a response to this social concern, the government in Canada introduced an act named Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act on 2012 in the House of Commons. The main fundamental purpose behind the Bill-C30 is to solve the major difficulties the police agencies face when they conduct the cyber crime investigations by granting them certain authors to obtain personal information of internet users through the process of surveillance.

Cyberbullies can hurt children and sexual predators stalk the internet. As Coben stated, “First we've all read about the young boy unknowingly conversing with a pedophile of a girl who was cyber bullied to the point where she committed suicide”(Coben). Cyberbullies attack children, but if parents had spyware they might be able to prevent these attacks. Suzanne Choney from NBC News stated, “with recent cases like that of a 14-Year old boy posting a sexually explicit video of himself with a 14- year old girl on facebook”(Choney). Monitoring teens while on social media could save children from sexual exploits. Although spyware may protect children from the dangers, it is also an invasion of privacy. As Dr Peggy Drexler asserted “its not the fault of the social media...The best policy is to give kids their privacy”(Drexler). Spyware is an invasion of privacy and may cause children to lose trust in their parents, but it is the parent's responsibility to protect their child. As Coben stated”...but surrendering parental responsibility to a machine that allows the entire world access to your home borders on negligence”(Coben). In addition, Coben also states that every thing that children put on the internet can be seen by everyone, “Shouldn't he learn now the internet is not a haven of privacy”(Coben).

A study done by BMC Public Health showed that children start to show interest toward the Internet during their late years in elementary and middle school. This, therefore, helps spur the idea of teaching children and young adult on how to use the Internet safely and to start teaching at a younger age now. BMC and the British Journal both agree that medical professionals and teachers are not informed enough about the dangers that the Internet holds to be able to help and “treat” the children who struggle with cyberbullying. They believe that every individual should be aware of the issues that are often caused by social media and the Internet so that others can protect themselves and help others before they are blackmailed. Teaching Internet safety is essential with the constantly growing social networks and advancing technology in today’s society where almost everything is computer based and anyone can see

A common danger correlating with social media are sexual predators. In the growing years, accessing social media to kidnap teenagers has increased. Alicia Kozlowski was just 14 when she was abducted by a sexual predator. The aggressor had approached Alicia through AIM, a popular social media messaging site in the early 2000’s, and encouraged her to meet him at an abandoned spot. Unfortunately, cases like

This statistic shows that the other 95% of these online predators are chatting with children and not lying about their age, or they are at least giving an age that is relatively close to their actual age. 99% percent of offenders were male and almost all of the cases with males being the victim, the offender was typically a male as well. The offenders were much older than their victims; 76% were age 26 or older; 47% were more than 20 years older than their victims (Wolak). To put this statistic into terms, this would be a male offender who is over 40 years old and is chatting with a person who is only 15 years old.

In this article the author discusses about the harmful actives that the internet dose to the youth. With two main points; cyber bullying and sexting, the author briefly discusses what they are and what threat that occurs from them. The article is useful to me because it shows the harmfulness on what could happen on the internet. However, this article is very vague and lakes a certain amount of information to achieve its point.

Some parents are not aware of dangers of internet that brings to their children particularly making friends through internet. For example, their children might get cheated with someone else on internet and their children will not tell what happen to them when they encounter danger. According to BBC News, a 47 year old man defrauded a 13 year old girl online and asked to meet face to face. Luckily, the girl’s mother found out beforehand or else her daughter might be in danger. From this news, we can see that there internet friends are not always honest and they are more likely to consider as un-trustful strangers. Therefore, parents should concern more about their children, teach them about the dangers of making friends on internet, and avoid them from going out with a stranger.