11-6-2008 National:
CBS Tech Analyst Larry Magid Breaks Down The Stats; Drugs And Alcohol A Much Bigger Risk
(CBS) A survey of 1,000 moms of teenagers commissioned by McAfee and conducted by Harris Interactive reached the surprising conclusion that “about two-thirds of mothers of teens in the United States are just as, or more, concerned about their teenagers’ online safety, such as from threatening emails or solicitation by online sexual predators, as they are about drunk driving (62 per cent) and experimenting with drugs (65 per cent).”
That might be how moms feel, but it’s not reflective of the real world. While moms have good reason to be concerned about how their teens use the Internet, online dangers pale compared to the risks of drunk driving. In 2007, 6,552 people were killed in auto accidents involving young drivers (16-20), according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. In 2006, nearly a fifth of the 7,643 15- to 20-year-old drivers involved in fatal traffic crashes had a blood had a blood alcohol concentration of .08 or higher.
Perception of Internet danger has been heightened thanks to the TV show “To Catch a Predator” and inaccurate reports stating that “one in five children have been sexually solicited by a predator.” That statistic is a misquote from a 2000 study by the Crimes Against Children Research Center. The data (which, based on a 2005 follow-up study, was revised to one in seven) is based on a survey that asked teens if they had in the last year received an unwanted sexual solicitation.
But many - possibly most - of those solicitations were from other teens, not from adult predators. What’s more, most recipients didn’t view them as serious or threatening. “Almost all youth handled the solicitations easily and effectively” and “extremely few youth (two out of 1,500 interviewed) were actually sexually victimized by someone they met online,” reported the authors of the study.
Other studies have shown that “the stereotype of the Internet child molester who uses trickery and violence to assault children is largely inaccurate” (Wolak, Finkelhor & Mitchell, 2004). In a survey of law enforcement investigators of Internet sex crimes, it was reported that only 5 percent of offenders pretended to be teens when trying to meet potential victims online.
Research has also shown that kids who do get into trouble online are the same kids who get in trouble offline. Most kids are pretty careful when it comes to Internet safety but a small percentage of teens take unnecessary risks that could lead to sexual solicitations and other dangers. Based on what we know about teenage risk taking, it is likely that the same kids who are abusing drugs or driving while under the influence are the same ones who are taking extraordinary risks online
Still, even among those kids, the odds of them dying, being injured or being sexually molested is quite low.
I’m not surprised by another finding in the McAfee/Harris survey that “20% of teens have engaged in cyberbullying behaviors, including posting mean or hurtful information or embarrassing pictures, spreading rumors, publicizing private communications, sending anonymous e-mails or cyberpranking someone.” That number tracks other surveys on the subject, though it’s important to point out that cyber bullying, while real, is also subject to exaggeration.
As reported by NetFamilyNews.org, a CCRC a study of online bullying found that “9% of youth were harassed online in the past year, 43% of them by known peers and 57% by people they met online and did not know in person. … Most online harassment incidents did not appear to meet the standard dentition of bullying used in school-based research and requiring aggression, repetition, and power imbalance.”
I’m not suggesting that parents have nothing to worry about when it comes to the Internet. Parents should talk with their kids about Internet safety and engage in frequent conversations about how they behave online. But let’s keep things in perspective and not turn parental concern into unjustified fears. ..News Source.. by CBS News
November 6, 2008
Online Predation An Exaggerated Problem
February 19, 2008
Fears of Internet predators unfounded, study finds
2-19-2008 National:
WASHINGTON — A lot of parental worries about Internet sex predators are unjustified, according to new research by a leading center that studies crimes against children.
"There's been some overreaction to the new technology, especially when it comes to the danger that strangers represent," said Janis Wolak, a sociologist at the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.
"Actually, Internet-related sex crimes are a pretty small proportion of sex crimes that adolescents suffer," Wolak added, based on three nationwide surveys conducted by the center.
Two of the surveys contacted 3,000 Internet users aged 10-17 in 2000 and again in 2005. The third sums up findings from 612 interviews with investigators at a nationally representative sample of agencies that deal with Internet sex crimes involving children.
In an article titled "Online 'Predators' and Their Victims," which appears Tuesday in American Psychologist, the journal of the American Psychological Association, Wolak and co-researchers examined several fears that they concluded are myths (See also Fact Sheet: Internet Safety Education for Teens: Getting It Right):
Internet predators are driving up child sex crime rates.
Finding: Sex assaults on teens fell 52 percent from 1993 to 2005, according to the Justice Department's National Crime Victimization Survey, the best measure of U.S. crime trends. "The Internet may not be as risky as a lot of other things that parents do without concern, such as driving kids to the mall and leaving them there for two hours," Wolak said.
Internet predators are pedophiles.
Finding: Internet predators don't hit on the prepubescent children whom pedophiles target. They target adolescents, who have more access to computers, more privacy and more interest in sex and romance, Wolak's team determined from interviews with investigators.
Internet predators represent a new dimension of child sexual abuse.
Finding: The means of communication is new, according to Wolak, but most Internet-linked offenses are essentially statutory rape: nonforcible sex crimes against minors too young to consent to sexual relationships with adults.
Internet predators trick or abduct their victims.
Finding: Most victims meet online offenders face-to-face and go to those meetings expecting to engage in sex. Nearly three-quarters have sex with partners they met on the Internet more than once.
Internet predators meet their victims by posing online as other teens.
Finding: Only 5 percent of predators did that, according to the survey of investigators.
Online interactions with strangers are risky.
Finding: Many teens interact online all the time with people they don't know. What's risky, according to Wolak, is giving out names, phone numbers and pictures to strangers and talking online with them about sex.
Internet predators go after any child.
Finding: Usually their targets are adolescent girls or adolescent boys of uncertain sexual orientation, according to Wolak. Youths with histories of sexual abuse, sexual orientation concerns and patterns of off- and online risk-taking are especially at risk.
ON THE WEB
For more research by the University of New Hampshire's Crimes against Children Research Center, go to www.unh.edu/ccrc/ ..more.. by Frank Greve | McClatchy Newspapers
February 5, 2008
How Risky Are Social Networking Sites? A Comparison of Places Online Where Youth Sexual Solicitation and Harassment Occurs
2-5-2008 National:
Abstract:
OBJECTIVE. Recently, public attention has focused on the possibility that social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are being widely used to sexually solicit underage youth, consequently increasing their vulnerability to sexual victimization. Beyond anecdotal accounts, however, whether victimization is more commonly reported in social networking sites is unknown.
PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS. The Growing up With Media Survey is a national cross-sectional online survey of 1588 youth. Participants were 10- to 15-year-old youth who have used the Internet at least once in the last 6 months. The main outcome measures were unwanted sexual solicitation on the Internet, defined as unwanted requests to talk about sex, provide personal sexual information, and do something sexual, and Internet harassment, defined as rude or mean comments, or spreading of rumors.
RESULTS. Fifteen percent of all of the youth reported an unwanted sexual solicitation online in the last year; 4% reported an incident on a social networking site specifically. Thirty-three percent reported an online harassment in the last year; 9% reported an incident on a social networking site specifically. Among targeted youth, solicitations were more commonly reported via instant messaging (43%) and in chat rooms (32%), and harassment was more commonly reported in instant messaging (55%) than through social networking sites (27% and 28%, respectively).
CONCLUSIONS. Broad claims of victimization risk, at least defined as unwanted sexual solicitation or harassment, associated with social networking sites do not seem justified. Prevention efforts may have a greater impact if they focus on the psychosocial problems of youth instead of a specific Internet application, including funding for online youth outreach programs, school antibullying programs, and online mental health services. ..more.. by Michele L. Ybarra, MPH, PhDa and Kimberly J. Mitchell, PhDb
December 16, 2007
Internet fuels federal crackdown on child porn
Controversy remains over connection between viewing images and molestation
12-16-2007 National:
Lewd photographs of children were disappearing from adult bookstores. Child porn magazines in plain brown envelopes were no longer reaching customers through the mail. It was the early 1990s, and experts believed that federal law enforcement efforts were ending child pornography.
"We thought this was one of those rare forms of social deviance, of criminal behavior, that had been eradicated," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "Except for a fixated group of hard-core pedophiles, we thought it was gone."
But an increase of Internet-fueled child pornography has triggered a new federal crackdown. Cybercrime, the majority of which involves child pornography, is now the FBI's third-highest priority, behind counterterrorism and counterintelligence.
Among those sent to prison on federal child pornography charges: the former head of the Virginia American Civil Liberties Union, an Ivy League professor, a sheriff's deputy, a Transportation Security Administration employee, an Army sergeant, a former Navy cryptologist, a contractor working at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and a National Institutes of Health researcher.
"The problem is as bad as it appears," said Arnold Bell, unit chief of the FBI's Innocent Images National Initiative. "There are not enough badges out there to cover all the people to be had in terms of offenders."
The crackdown on child pornography is a lesser-publicized effort than the pursuit of people who solicit sex from minors and are arrested, often through sting operations, when they show up for an encounter with someone they meet on the Internet. And it has touched off a debate over how often this type of crime leads to molestation of children and whether viewing photographs warrants years in prisons.
Some defense lawyers and treatment professionals say that the focus on pornography has become excessive. Many caught in the dragnet, they say, viewed images for their private gratification but never intended to hurt a child.
"Sending people to prison for five or 10 or 15 years for looking at pictures is killing an ant with a sledgehammer," said Peter Greenspun, who defended Charles Rust-Tierney, the former ACLU head sentenced to seven years in prison for downloading hundreds of images. "These people are being put on sex-offender registries, they are being ostracized from the community, for looking at pictures."
But the nature of the images alarms law enforcement officials, who say Internet child pornography is increasingly sadistic and depicts young children whose victimization fuels a growing market.
Many defendants obsessively collect huge numbers of images - the FBI recently seized a computer with 1.5 million images suspected to be child pornography - and many have molested children, officials say. People who download the images once or twice, possibly by accident, are unlikely to be prosecuted, officials said.
"You can't wrap your brain around what we're talking about here," said Bonnie Greenberg, a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office in Maryland. "We're not talking about a 16-year-old who looks like she could be 19. We're seeing prepubescent children who are being raped, babies, toddlers being tied up."
Underlying the debate are efforts by researchers to understand the perpetrators. Do people who view the images harbor a latent sexual interest in children that the Internet brings out, or does the Internet prompt the urges? And will people who view child pornography molest children?
Michael Seto, a Canadian researcher, said he thinks that an "invisible population of pedophiles" has lived in society all along but remained mostly hidden until the Internet offered relative anonymity and a community of like-minded people.
Whatever the role of the Internet, few dispute that it is the conduit for pornographic photos, films, videos and computer-generated images of children in lewd poses or involved in sexual conduct.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline received about 4,500 reports of children being victimized in its first year, 1998. This year, the center, which works closely with law enforcement officials, has collected nearly 100,000 reports, more than 75 percent for online child pornography.
But an increase in federal cases - a 28 percent spike in fiscal 2007 compared with the year before - could partly be due to a rise in the number of agents attacking the problem.
"Are there more offenses, or are we doing a better job? I think it's safe to say it's both," said Drew Oosterbaan, chief of the Justice Department's child exploitation and obscenity section.
The frequency at which people who view child pornography also molest children is a highly controversial issue and has been the subject of little research. The only federal agency that tries to track the correlation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, says that about one-third of the 2,713 people it has arrested since 1997 on child exploitation charges, primarily for trafficking in child pornography, also committed "contact offenses" against children.
A recent study of 155 federal inmates in North Carolina convicted on child pornography charges suggests that the number is higher. It found that 85 percent admitted molesting children. The study's co-author, Andres Hernandez, told Congress last year that "these Internet child pornographers are far more dangerous to society than we previously thought."
But some people who treat sex offenders say the risk is often minimal.
"There are a large group of individuals whose lives and families are absolutely being devastated because they looked at these images," said Fred Berlin, a psychiatrist who runs the National Institute for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Trauma, affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. "They had absolutely no idea how severe the consequences would be and had no interest in doing anything other than viewing images." ..more.. by Jerry Markon, Washington Post
November 12, 2007
The Net is a circuit of safety concerns
11-12-2007 National:
Notice the use of these terms: sexual predators, sex offenders, online predators, registered sex offenders. The failure to distinguish between these terms and these offenders will keep lawmakers blind as to how to solve these sexual offenses. eAdvocate
If you watch TV or read the news, you know sexual predators hang out on the Internet, looking for underage victims.
Dateline NBC's "To Catch a Predator" features men being lured by the promise of meeting underage girls. Several state attorneys general recently have called on social-networking sites MySpace and Facebook to ban registered sex offenders and make their sites safer. Newspapers have been filled with stories about the dangers children face when they post too much personal information. And victims have testified recently at congressional hearings.
Notice the coupling of the "To Catch a Predator" series and "Social Networking Websites" and "ban registered sex offenders (RSOs)," all together implying that RSOs are causing the online predation. Whats wrong with that folks ask? Simply this, it is not RSOs that have been caught preying online, it is NEW PREDATORS who have never before committed a sex crime. The failure to recognize this means legislation directed towards RSOs will not solve the problem of online predation. Neither the media nor legislators will recognize this! eAdvocate
Some worry that parents are falling victim to "predator panic" and overreacting to unlikely dangers, unintentionally turning children off to safety messages altogether.
"One of the misunderstandings that we think is widespread is that what sex offenders are doing is picking out kids (online) and stalking them and deceiving them and abducting them and raping them," says David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.
"That's not what's going on."
Abductions by strangers are so rare that many experts can't name a single case in which a predator attacked after only seeing a child's profile online.
'Grooming' their victims
In most cases, predators seek out vulnerable teens — those who post sexually suggestive pictures of themselves, talk about sex online or frequent places where hook-ups are made, Finkelhor says. They spend weeks, even months, forging a relationship and gaining the teens' trust.
Usually, those who become victims eventually agree to meet the perpetrator face to face; often they know that the person they're meeting is older. But by the time they meet him (usually it's a man), they often think they are in love. It's a process called "grooming," Finkelhor says.
"It's the kids who respond to somebody and start talking about sex that puts them at risk — or kids who use sites to communicate with lots of people they don't know, or put very sexualized images online," he says.
The Internet allows predators "to form supportive relationships with emotionally vulnerable teens," says Nancy Willard, author of Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens: Helping Young People Learn to Use the Internet Safely and Responsibly.
Though there are no comprehensive national annual figures on Internet crimes against children, Finkelhor says, overall sex crimes against children are down, with the notable exception of child pornography. Sexual abuse cases were down 51% from 1990 to 2005 — from 22.8 per 10,000 to 11.3 per 10,000 children, he says.
Feeling safe doesn't make it so
Studies show that most teens feel relatively safe online. A Pew Internet & American Life Project report last month showed that though children, especially girls, who posted pictures of themselves on social networks were more likely to be contacted by strangers, only 7% of online teens said they had ever had an interaction with a stranger that made them feel scared or uncomfortable.
And a report out last year by Finkelhor's center found that from 2000 through 2005, the number of children ages 10 to 17 who received unwanted solicitations online declined from 19% to 13%.
But calls to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's hotline have been on the rise, says president Ernie Allen. In 2005, there were 2,660 reports of online enticement of children; in 2006, there were 6,374. In the first eight months of 2007, there were 9,533. Some of the increase can be attributed to greater Internet use and increased awareness of the hotline, Allen says.
He agrees that education is a key to Internet safety. But he says the Internet does make it easier to prey on children.
"Just like in the physical world, those people who seek to prey upon kids go to where the kids are," Allen says. "We don't think the sky is falling, but there (are) adults hiding behind the relative anonymity of the Internet to try to achieve what they either can't achieve or can only achieve with great risk in the physical world. America's moms and dads really need to catch up."
Though it's good to educate children and parents about dangers, some experts worry that the message may backfire.
"If you are petrified of predators but are not worrying about cyber-bullies, loss of reputation, spending too much time online and the other less frightening but more likely dangers of online use, then you are misplacing your energy," says Larry Magid, co-director of ConnectSafely.org. "You're petrified of something that's probably not going to happen and failing to pay attention to the dangers that are far more likely."
Allen says messages should be balanced, but parents do need to stay aware of the problems. "The good news is that the vast majority of America's kids are much smarter and much more aware. …
"But the bad news is, there are a lot of (predators) out there who are still seeking, overwhelmingly for grooming and seduction. This remains a significant problem." ..more.. by Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY
October 14, 2007
Internet-initiated Sex Crimes against Minors: Implications for Prevention Based on Findings from a National Study
2004 JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENT HEALTH 2004;35:424.e11– 424.e20
Purpose: To describe the characteristics of episodes in which juveniles became victims of sex crimes committed by people they met through the Internet.
Methods: A national survey of a stratified random sample of 2574 law enforcement agencies conducted between October 2001 and July 2002. Telephone interviews were conducted with local, state, and federal law enforcement investigators concerning 129 sexual offenses against juvenile victims that originated with online encounters.
Results: Victims in these crimes were primarily 13- through 15-year-old teenage girls (75%) who met adult offenders (76% older than 25) in Internet chat rooms. Most offenders did not deceive victims about the fact that they were adults who were interested in sexual relationships. Most victims met and had sex with the
adults on more than one occasion. Half of the victims were described as being in love with or feeling close bonds with the offenders. Almost all cases with male victims involved male offenders. Offenders used violence in 5% of the episodes.
Conclusions: Health care professionals and educators, parents and media need to be aware of the existence, nature and real life dynamics of these online relationships among adolescents. Information about Internet safety should include frank discussion about why these relationships are inappropriate, criminal, and detrimental to the developmental needs of youth. © Society for Adolescent Medicine, 2004
Many young people who use the Internet encounter sexual overtures [1]. Advising families and young people about how to avoid these overtures and how to handle them when they occur has become a new responsibility of health-care professionals, health educators, and child welfare experts. In the absence of more scientific sources, professionals have had to rely on media reports, which have focused attention on Internet-related sex crimes, particularly those involving young victims who meet offenders online.
These media descriptions of Internet-initiated sex offenses against young people have emphasized their predatory nature, stressing how the Internet facilitates deception. Internet molesters have been portrayed as pedophiles who, pretending to be peers or benevolent adults, strike up relationships with children and then stalk or lure them into encounters that end in abduction, rape, or even murder.
This has led to prevention messages that advise youth not to correspond online with strangers, give out identifying information, or go alone to meet individuals they have met only online. Beyond the fact that this advice is widely ignored and seen as unrealistic by many young people [1,2], there are also questions about the accuracy of this characterization of sex offenses that occur as a result of Internet meetings. Basing prevention recommendations on media accounts of egregious crimes can lead to misguided public policy. Sex crime dangers have been particularly prone to mischaracterization [3,4], leading, for example, to an under-emphasis on the roles of family members, acquaintances and other youth in the commission of these offenses.
Also, these standard prevention messages seem to be crafted without taking into account much of what is known about youth social life and Internet practices. In fact, most adolescents who use the Internet converse online, at least casually, with people they haven’t met face-to-face; many form online friendships that become offline friendships; and most of these friendships are with other youth [5,6]. Also, some youth form online relationships with adults that appear to be benign or even beneficial [6]. At the same time, one study has demonstrated that youth were more likely to form online friendships or romances if they were troubled or, depending on gender, had high levels of conflict or low levels of communication with parents [7]. Adolescents with these sorts of problems may be more vulnerable to online victimization.
We designed the present study to examine the characteristics of sex crime victims, ages 17 and younger, who met sex offenders on the Internet and the dynamics of those crimes in an effort to provide a systematic and scientifically based description of Internet-initiated sex offenses committed against young people in the United States. We addressed several questions: (a) What were the demographic characteristics of the victims and offenders? (b) Where and how did online relationships arise? (c) What was the role of deception? (d) How did faceto- face meetings develop? (e) What kinds of sex crimes occurred and how often were violence, coercion
or abduction involved? ..more.. by JANIS WOLAK, J.D., DAVID FINKELHOR, Ph.D., AND KIMBERLY MITCHELL, Ph.D.
July 14, 2007
Internet Prevention Messages: Targeting the Right Online Behaviors
February 2007:
Abstract
Background Internet safety programs urge youth to avoid sharing personal information and talking with "strangers" online.
Objective To examine whether sharing personal information and talking with strangers online or other behaviors are associated with the greatest odds for online interpersonal victimization.
Design The Second Youth Internet Safety Survey was a cross-sectional random digit–dial telephone survey.
Setting United States.
Participants A total of 1500 youth aged 10 to 17 years who had used the Internet at least once a month for the previous 6 months.
Main Exposure Online behavior, including disclosure of personal information, aggressive behavior, talking with people met online, sexual behavior, and downloading images using file-sharing programs.
Outcome Measure Online interpersonal victimization (ie, unwanted sexual solicitation or harassment).
Results Aggressive behavior in the form of making rude or nasty comments (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 2.3; P<.001) or frequently embarrassing others (AOR, 4.6; P = .003), meeting people in multiple ways (AOR, 3.4; P<.001), and talking about sex online with unknown people (AOR, 2.0; P = .02) were significantly related to online interpersonal victimization after adjusting for the total number of different types of online behaviors youth engaged in. Engaging in 4 types of online behaviors seemed to represent a tipping point of increased risk for online interpersonal victimization (OR, 11.3; P<.001).
Conclusions Talking with people known only online ("strangers") under some conditions is related to online interpersonal victimization, but sharing personal information is not. Engaging in a pattern of different kinds of online risky behaviors is more influential in explaining victimization than many specific behaviors alone. Pediatricians should help parents assess their child's online behaviors globally in addition to focusing on specific types of behaviors. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2007;161:138-145.
Author Affiliations: Internet Solutions for Kids, Inc, Irvine, Calif (Dr Ybarra); and Crimes against Children Research Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham (Drs Mitchell and Finkelhor and Ms Wolak).
Full Report:
Online Victimization: A Report on the Nation’s Youth
June 2000:
Introduction
The Internet is an exciting new territory for many young people. Nearly 24 million youth ages 10 through 17 were online regularly in 1999, and millions more are expected to join them shortly. They go there to learn, play, meet people, and explore the world. But stories from law-enforcement officials, parents, and young people themselves suggest that not every online adventure is a happy one. The Internet has a seamier side that young people seem to be encountering with great frequency.
This national survey confirms many of the stories. Large numbers of young people are encountering sexual solicitations they did not want, sexual material they did not seek, and people who threatened and harassed them in a variety of ways. While many are able to glide past these encounters as mere litter on the information super highway, some experience them as real collisions with a reality they did not expect and were distressed to find. Some of these young people report being upset and afraid in the wake of their encounters and have elevated symptoms of stress and depression.
This report describes the variety of disconcerting experiences young Internet users say they have online and ways they react. It also provides a window into how families and young people are addressing matters of danger and protection on the Internet. Some of the news is reassuring. At the same time, it suggests that the seamy side of the Internet spills into the lives of an uncomfortably large number of youth and relatively few families or young people do much about it. It highlights a great need for private and public initiatives to raise awareness and provide solutions.
Nothing in this report contradicts the increasingly well-documented fact that youth and their families are excited about the Internet and its possibilities. They are voting for the Internet with their fingers and pocket books, even as they are aware of some of its drawbacks. But because it is destined to play such an important role in the lives of those growing up today, the question of how to temper some of the drawbacks of this revolutionary medium is worthy of thorough consideration now at the dawn of its development. ..more.. BY THE CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN RESEARCH CENTER, DAVID FINKELHOR, KIMBERLY J. MITCHELL, JANIS WOLAK
Note: While this study was actually performed by David Finkelhor at his research center in New Hampshire, the study is copyrighted by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and stored on their website.
See also the 2007 Update to this report "Just The Facts About Online Youth Victimization: Researchers Present the Facts and Debunk Myths" by Finkelhor
In addition, see the 2007 PEW INTERNET & AMERICAN LIFE PROJECT report "Teens, Privacy & Online Social Networks"
June 15, 2007
Just The Facts About Online Youth Victimization: Researchers Present the Facts and Debunk Myths
5-3-2007 National:
The nation's foremost academic researchers on child online safety presented their research and answered questions over a luncheon panel on May 3. This was the first time these prominent academics have appeared together to present their research, which, altogether, represents volumes of data on the state of online youth victimization and online youth habits. More than likely you have heard pieces of their research quoted (or misquoted) on Capitol Hill during the last 12 months as Congress struggles to understand these issues. The discussion covered issues related to online youth safety including recent trends and the latest research. A sampling of their academic works are posted on the Resources page. ..more.. by Dr. David Finkelhor, Director, Crimes against Children Research Center (CCRC), University of New Hampshire -and- Danah Boyd, Researcher, University of California, Berkeley and Fellow, University of Southern California Annenberg Center for Communications -and- Dr. Michele Ybarra, President, Internet Solutions for Kids and author of several studies on youth online
