Safe and Secure

I both envy and worry about young people who are growing up in the age of the Internet.

I envy them for their lifelong access to a media that's diversified enough to bring them news, information, and opinion from an enormous number of sources.

There's something to be said for having access to thousands of media outlets. Unlike those of us who grew up in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, young people who smartly use the Internet to consume news today don't have to worry about everything being filtered by a small, elite, and typically white male cadre of journalists working for one of only three broadcast networks or one or two local newspapers. And it's no longer a one-way street. Today's news consumers can also be producers thanks to blogs, social-networking sites, YouTube, podcasting, and microblogs like Twitter.

But, as I look back at the career of Walter Cronkite, who died last Friday, I also worry that young people are finding it harder to come by trusted sources for news and information. The Internet's strength as a news resource is also its weakness. We never will nor should return to the days of only a handful of media outlets, but today's diversified media landscape and especially the Internet, do bring new challenges to consumers of news.

One of the things I loved about the "CBS Evening News" with Walter Cronkite was that it was watched by a high enough percentage of the population that it created a shared experience. When we heard Walter tell us "that's the way it is," we had something that we could all talk about the next day. We all knew it was true even if we didn't all agree on how we should interpret the implications of what Cronkite told us happened.

Every day after returning from work, my father would open up his copy of the Los Angeles Daily Mirror (the long-defunct afternoon paper published by the same company as the Los Angeles Times"). He would then turn on the black and white TV to watch Cronkite on CBS or perhaps Huntley-Brinkley on NBC but, more often than not it was Cronkite who shared our living room for that half hour. As a young boy, I didn't necessarily pay close attention to the news but I did absorb portions of it. When big stories broke, my dad would summon me to watch the news with him or summarize over dinner what he read in the Mirror.

Not always, but sometimes at school the next day, kids would talk about some of those stories along with the entertainment shows most of us watched such as the "Ed Sullivan Show" or Walt Disney's "Wonderful World of Color."

Looking back, it seemed as if all of America--or at least the slice of it I knew--had a shared experience. If nothing else, our family shared its media experience, probably because we had only one TV set, one newspaper subscription, and no Internet. The closest thing I had to my own personal media was my bedroom table radio and, eventually, a transistor radio that I got to control all by myself.

We also had dinner together every night in a room with no TV, a household telephone that almost never rang during dinner hour, and no mobile devices that let us exchange text messages with people outside the room. The only people we could hear from or talk to were each other. Having dinner together was one tradition my wife and I maintained with our children.

I'm not longing to return to the repressed, racist, sexist, and homophobic days of the 50s and 60s and I don't think we'll ever--or should ever--have another "most trusted man in America" like Walter Cronkite, but I do see some value in looking at what we might be missing as we move forward, not to repeat the past but to ensure a better future.

Without an almost universally respected news anchor to tell us "the way it is," we have to figure it out for ourselves. It's not that we don't have resources--we have more than ever and that's a good thing. But it does put more pressure on us to think critically about what we see, hear, read, and say.

Today's media environment provides an opportunity--and responsibility--for parents and schools to teach critical thinking. Not only must young people learn to "consider the source" of what they take in but also think critically about what they post in a world where just about every young person is now potentially an author, photographer, and videographer. Kids--who may never even know who Walter Cronkite was--need to have a miniature version of him inside their head by asking questions such as "Is this true?" and "How do I know it's true?." And when they're about to post they need to think carefully before they broadcast their own versions of "the way it is."

This post was adopted from an article that appeared on SafeKids.com.

One problem with most of today's Internet safety messaging campaigns is that there is only one set of messages for the entire population of youth and parents. But, an extensive literature review conducted by the Internet Safety Technical Task Force Research Advisory Board found that "not all youth are equally at risk" and that "those experiencing difficulties offline, such as physical and sexual abuse, and those with other psychosocial problems are most at risk online."

To be effective, the Internet safety community has to find ways tailor its messages based on particular risk factors. Not to do so would be like inoculating an entire population for a disease that affects only a small number of people while not inoculating the very people of are most at risk. I've often worried that most of the teens and parents who are consumers of safety messages are the very people who least need to hear them.

Broader expertise needed
In addition to redefining online safety, we also need to expand the discussion. When online safety advocates gather at conferences, the room is typically filled with public policy professionals, technology experts, lawyers and sometimes representative of law enforcement.

But the cadre of professionals needs to also include psychologists, physicians, counselors, social workers, youth workers, clergy, tech educators and others involved in the lives of young people. And young people themselves need to be part of the discussion, not just to listen and parrot what adults tell them to say, but to help think through the issues, help adults understand the difference between real and imagined dangers and come up with messages that will resonate with other youth.

Internet safety and the "sexually toxic culture"
We must also look at behavior in light of the culture in which youth are being raised. I would never suggest that society should be prudish or suppress sexuality, but I am concerned by the extent to which overt sexuality--starting at a very young age--is being promoted by the media, fashion industry, music, TV, movies, everywhere. Young people are growing up in what sexual abuse prevention specialist Cordelia Anderson has referred to as a "sexually toxic culture."

Anderson chairs the National Coalition to Prevent Child Sexual Exploitation that has drawn a connection between commercial and individual sexual exploitation with youth risk and even child sexual abuse. Kids posting or sending sexually provocative photos (sexting) according to Anderson, "is behaviorally consistent with what kids see all around them."

Overcoming this larger cultural issue is not going to happen overnight nor will all stakeholders agree with Anderson and other members of the Coalition that it's a contributing factor to teen risk. But there are plenty of studies to show that risky teen behavior is influenced by the media, social, and cultural environment around them.

The one thing I am sure about is that kids' use of the Internet doesn't take place in a vacuum. Technology doesn't put kids in danger nor will it prevent them from danger.

Disclosure: I serve on the National Coalition to Prevent Child Exploitation representing the non-profit group, ConnectSafely.org.

In 1994, when I wrote Child Safety on the Information Highway, the first widely disseminated Internet safety publication, I advised parents not to let kids put personal information or photos online and--because of what turned out to be an exaggerated fear of predators--I urged them to avoid online conversations with strangers. Back then, along with trying to keep kids away from porn, Internet safety was mostly about protecting children from dangerous adults.

But starting around 2005, a new phase of the Web--often referred to as "Web 2.0"--prompted some Internet safety advocates to focus on ways kids could get in trouble for what they post on social-networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. It was in that year that Anne Collier and I founded BlogSafety.org (later renamed ConnnectSafely.org) so we could provide a forum for discussing safety issues on the interactive Web. It was also around that time that politicians and the media, especially the TV show "To Catch a Predator," started whipping up fears of predators trolling the Web for vulnerable children.

But statistics show that the likelihood of a young person being harmed by an online stranger is quite rare, and sexual solicitations and harassment are most often from peers. And to the extent it has occurred, it affects teens, not young children. Based on studies by the Crimes Against Children Research Center, the overwhelming majority of crimes against youths continue to take place in the "real world," mostly by adults known to the child.

Teens interact with 'real world' friends
That doesn't mean that the Internet is a risk-free zone. It's just that young people are far more likely to be harmed by other youth or the consequences of their own online behavior than by adult criminals.

Their interactions are largely with people they know from the real world. As danah boyd (she prefers a lower case d & b) observed in her doctoral dissertation, Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics (PDF), "teen participation in social network sites is driven by their desire to socialize with peers. Their participation online is rarely divorced from offline peer culture; teens craft digital self-expressions for known audiences and they socialize almost exclusively with people they know."

This understanding of youth risk led to a whole new phase of Internet safety education focusing on such things as cyberbullying and urging youth to avoid posting material that could be embarrassing or get them into trouble with authorities and potential future employers. Recently, the focus has turned to the emotional and legal consequences of "sexting,"--kids sending nude pictures of themselves via cell phones or the Web. But as Collier observed in NetFamilyNews.org, we run the risk of "technopanics" over sexting and bullying.

What we've learned from observing how kids use the Net, mobile phones, gaming devices, and other interactive technology is that there is really no distinction between online and offline behaviors. Technology is woven into their lives. They don't go online, they ARE online. So it's really about youth safety--not Internet safety.

It's about helping young people make wise choices not just in how they use technology, but in how they live their lives. Internet safety is more than just the absence of danger. It also includes finding ways to use technology for learning, collaboration, community building, political activism, self-help, and reaching out to others.

These are not just philosophical arguments. They're pragmatic because preaching about safety or trying to lock down the Internet doesn't protect kids. Trying to instill fear--especially based on myths--actually increases danger because it causes kids to tune out good advice.

Filters as fences
Sure, there are technologies that can keep kids from using social-networking services or visiting inappropriate Web sites. But, like fences around swimming pools, the use of filters at home and school can't protect them forever. That's why we teach kids to swim. Not only does knowing how to swim help prevent drowning, it empowers them to thrive in the water instead of fearing it. The same is true with technology. Filters and other parental control tools often make sense for young children, but as kids mature into teens, we must pull back on the technological controls in favor of self-control.

In an e-mail interview, Larry Rosen, professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and author of Me, MySpace and I: Parenting the Net Generation observed, "sadly, too many parents think that using technology to track their children's keystrokes or restrict access to certain Web sites is sufficient parenting. It is not. Parents must be involved with their children's virtual lifestyles developing trust, being aware of any potential problems, learning about the technologies they use, and communicating often."

This post is adapted from an article that first appeared in the Palo Alto Daily News.

As a followup to my post from Tuesday about the ability for someone to view porn from within Bing, I just heard from a Symantec spokesperson that the company's Internet monitoring and filtering service, OnlineFamily.Norton (review), can't yet prevent Bing users from searching sexually explicit terms for Web sites or videos. The company plans to add Bing to its protected search engines in the next release. Other major search engines, including Google, are covered by the software's SafeSearch feature.

In the meantime, Symantec recommends that parents use OnlineFamily.Norton to block access to all of Bing--which isn't particularly good for Microsoft.

OnlineFamily is a free Windows and Mac application that can be used to block sites and monitor a child's online behavior. Unlike some Internet-monitoring programs, it doesn't operate in stealth mode so, if parents use that feature, kids know that their Web activities are being watched.

Because Bing plays videos within its own site and doesn't require the user to click through, checking the browser history or using monitoring programs like OnlineFamily would only show that they visited Bing.com, not what videos they watched from within the site.

"Sexting" is the practice of taking a sexually revealing picture of yourself, typically from a cell phone, and sending it to someone. Legal consequences aside, it's a dumb thing to do, especially for younger age groups in which it has become something of a fad.

Even if you are comfortable with the person receiving the image, you never know for sure where else it might land. Digital images are easy to copy and forward, and even if you trust your friend's discretion, it can be accidentally forwarded or seen by others with access to your friend's phone or computer. It's not uncommon for such images to find their way to other people's cell phones and even Web pages, where they can be seen by anyone, copied, searched for, and redistributed, perhaps forever.

For minors, there's another risk: serious legal consequences. Creating, transmitting, and even possessing a nude, seminude, or sexually explicit image of a minor can be considered child pornography. It can be prosecuted as a state or federal felony and can even lead to having to register as a sex offender.

Crazy as it seems, some prosecutors have gone after kids for taking and sending pictures of themselves. There was a case in Florida a couple of years ago in which a teenage boy and girl photographed themselves nude and engaged in "unspecified sexual behavior."

One kid sent the picture to the other, and somehow, the police got involved. They were tried and convicted for production and distribution of child porn, and the teen who received the image had the additional charge of possession. An appeals court upheld the convictions.

In January this year, three teenage girls from Pennsylvania were charged for creating child porn, and the three boys who received the images were charged for possessing it. And, according to CBS News, a Texas eighth-grader in October spent a night in jail after a coach found a nude picture on his cell phone, sent by another student.

It's sadly ironic that the very child porn laws that were written to protect children from being exploited by adults could wind up having a devastating impact on the lives of children who, while acting stupid, have no criminal intent. For some perspective on whether this issue is overblown, see Anne Collier's post in NetFamily News.

It's hard to know how prevalent the practice is. But if you believe the results of an online survey commissioned by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, about 22 percent of teenage girls and 18 percent of boys admit to having "electronically sent, or posted online, nude or seminude pictures or video of themselves."

I'm not completely confident about the results of this study, which was carried out by a market research firm and not subject to academic peer review. But I think that it's fair to assume that a significant number of kids are doing this.

Perhaps more interesting than the survey's overall number is the breakdown of why teens take and send these pictures. Of those who reportedly sent such pictures, 71 percent of girls and 67 percent of boys said they sent or posted content to a boyfriend or girlfriend, while 21 percent of the girls and 39 percent of the boys say they sent it to someone they wanted to date.

As you might expect, peer pressure plays a role. Of those who sent such content, 51 percent of teen girls cited "pressure from a guy," while 18 percent of teen boys blamed pressure from girls.

While sexting is troubling, I think it's important for us all to take a deep breath and refrain from passing new laws or using child pornography laws that were designed to protect children from exploitation by adults.

I suspect that sexting will diminish over time. Kids aren't stupid and, faced with the facts, most will wise up. We also know that kids who get in trouble online are the same kids who get in trouble offline, so when teens repeatedly do sexting, or other stupid or risky things online, it's important to intervene early and often.

The best thing for a parent to do is to have a nonconfrontational conversation--perhaps over dinner--to ask your kids if they've heard about sexting and what they think about it.

You might not get a straight answer, but you'll open up a dialogue that can go a long way toward helping your kids understand how to minimize legal, social, and reputation risks. There are more tips on ConnectSafely.org, a nonprofit Internet safety site I help operate.

Boy, am I glad the Internet and camera phones weren't around when I was a kid.

I've been an Internet safety advocate since 1993 and right now I'm discouraged and angry about what's going on in this field. I'm angry because people who ought to know better are trying to mislead the public with false information about online risks which is diverting attention away from real risks. And I'm not alone. Many respected online safety organizations and leading youth-risk researchers are trying to shift the discussion away from mostly predator danger to youth behavior risk. Thanks to some politicians, it's an uphill battle.

Online safety groups and public officials should be spending our time educating families on how to avoid real risks that affect most kids-- like bullying, harassment and unwanted exposure to inappropriate material. We also need to do a better job of identifying and reaching the small minority of "at risk" kids who are putting themselves at greater risk by the way they behave online.

At issue is the constant drumbeat of predator panic coming from state attorneys general including Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Roy Cooper of North Carolina who are co-chairs of the Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking which represents attorneys general from 49 states. Although their rhetoric is purported to help protect young people from harm, the actual impact of their campaign to rid social networks of predators may be inadvertently putting young people at greater risk.

In addition to shifting attention away from more common online dangers, they have proposed the use of age-verification and parental controls which could actually increase risk by driving teens "underground," possibly to overseas sites that are far more dangerous than sites like MySpace and Facebook.

What's more, all the hoopla is disrupting the work of several of the most respected non-profit Internet safety organizations which, ironically, have to spend resources countering this misleading information at the cost of focusing on how to help young people use the Internet more safely.

A bit of background

For more than two years these and other elected officials have been talking about predator dangers on MySpace and other social networking sites and calling for the use of age-verification technology to help separate minors from adults. A year ago, the working group of Attorneys General entered an agreement with MySpace to form a Task Force to study the issue. After months of careful consideration including a review of all research, the Task Force came back with a report that questioned the prevalence of predator danger and also questioned both the desirability and effectiveness of using any single technology to verity the age of users. Instead of carefully considering the report, it was rejected out of hand. The attorneys generals reaction to the report was best summed up by Blumenthal who recently said it was "based on outdated and incomplete data -- falsely downplaying the threat of predators on social networking sites." I have a great deal of respect for much of the work that Blumenthal, Cooper and other attorneys general do for public safety and to protect consumers but when it comes to Internet safety, they continue to rely on anecdotal evidence rather than available peer-reviewed academic research (PDF).

Disclosure: I served on the Task Force as co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization that receives financial support from several Internet and social networking companies including MySpace and Facebook. I also served as a member of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force and am the founder of SafeKids.com.

Now there's a new argument based on the disclosure last week that MySpace has evicted 90,000 registered sex offenders from its roles. In a press release, Blumenthal said "This shocking revelation -- resulting from our subpoena -- provides compelling proof that social networking sites remain rife with sexual predators." But what Blumenthal failed to point out is that 90,000 is not the number of currently or recently evicted registered sex offenders (RSOs) on MySpace but a cumulative number based on all the RSO's MySpace has ejected since two years ago when it adopted technology to identify and remove RSOs from its roles.

Facebook too

In the mean time, Facebook has been under attack for its own reported predator problem. Tech Crunch, last week, ran a story with the headline "Thousands Of MySpace Sex Offender Refugees Found On Facebook." It reportedly got the information from John Cardillo, CEO of Sentinel, the security company that helps MySpace and other social networking sites identify registered sex offenders so that they can be removed. Facebook is not one of Sentinel's customers but says that it employs other methods to attempt to identify registered sex offenders and others who might endanger its members. This includes relying on Facebook members and working directly with state databases and state attorneys general according to Facebook spokesperson Barry Schnitt.

But, the attorneys general who are screaming about predators don't seem to have information about specific individuals harming children. Facebook according to Schnitt, "is not aware of a single case where a registered sex offender has contacted a minor through Facebook." The same is true on MySpace. According to MySpace chief security officer, Hemanshu Nigam,"not one of the deleted MySpace offenders has ever been prosecuted for criminal misconduct with a teen on Myspace."

Based on surveys with teens, I suspect that this is largely because the vast majority of teens are savvy enough to avoid these creeps.

As you would expect, officials from both Facebook and MySpace say that they are doing all they can to rid their sites of registered sex offenders. Of course, that doesn't mean they'll be 100% successful. Short of shutting down their services, I can't think of anything that can be done to completely eliminate even registered sex offenders, let alone the much larger number of offenders who haven't been caught and convicted.

They're everywhere

At the risk of contributing to the paranoia, it's important to point out sex offenders are also in the real world. Unless we decide to keep them in jail forever, they are going to be among us. They go to malls, they shop at grocery stores, they live in neighborhoods and many have jobs. I know for a fact that there are registered sex offenders living in walking distance from my house and I have no doubt that my children have encountered them in the real world.

And then there are the ones who haven't been caught. It's a known fact that some of them teach in our schools, patrol our streets, preach in our places of worship, work in our hospitals and clinics, and coach our kids. What's worse, family members, according to the Crimes Against Children Research Center, account for "a quarter to a third of offenders." Strangers make up the smallest group with estimates ranging between 7% to 25%.

Strangers who meet their victims on the Internet represent an extremely small percentage of all cases, especially compared to family members. It's analogous to worrying about being killed in a plane crash instead of focusing on driving safely. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is one of several safety organizations that no longer condone the use of the phrase "stranger danger."

As I've pointed out in previous articles, researchers who study sexual assault cases have found very few actual cases of children being sexually molested as a result of a contact they made on the Internet. It happens, but it happens in far fewer numbers than other forms of sexual abuse. And when it does happen, it is almost always a case of a teenager who is taking extraordinary risks online including -- in most cases -- engaging in sexual conversation with a person known to be an adult. I'm not saying this to blame the victims or excuse illegal behavior of adults, but to point out that how young people behave online affects their risk.

It's time that all of us -- politicians too -- start looking for real solutions and talking with real experts, not just relying on anecdotal data and provocative sound bites.

For more perspective, check out CNET News' Caroline McArthy's post on this subject

There's a war of words brewing, with several Internet safety organizations, researchers, and social-networking companies on one side and some state attorneys general on the other.

Earlier this month, the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, run out of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, issued a report stating that Internet predator danger to kids is not as high as some have claimed. The report was immediately criticized by a number of attorneys general including Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania. And on Monday, an Internet safety organization in Oregon published a study that claims that data from press releases on Corbett's own Web site fail to back up his claims about Internet dangers.

The new study (PDF), from the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use (CSRIU), challenges recent assertions by several state attorneys general that young people are at significant risk from online predators on social-networking sites. It specifically analyzes press releases from the Pennsylvania attorney general about cases in the Keystone State. Attorneys general from Connecticut, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania criticized the task force report, arguing that it understated the problem of online predators in social-network services such as MySpace and Facebook.

Disclosure: I served as a member of the Berkman Task Force, representing ConnectSafely.org, a nonprofit Internet safety organization I co-founded. ConnectSafely receives financial support from MySpace, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, AOL, and other Internet and social-networking companies.

The task force report stated that the likelihood of youth being harmed by online predators on social-networking sites is sometimes exaggerated by media, law enforcement, and politicians, especially compared to dangers such as cyberbullying that kids face from other kids. It was based on analysis from all available refereed research studies conducted in the United States during the past nine years. The task force was created as a result of an agreement between 49 state attorneys general and MySpace.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper told The Wall Street Journal that he believed the "research was outdated and doesn't take into account the explosion of social-networking sites." Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told the Journal "the report may be read as downplaying the threat of predators." In a letter, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster said the report's findings were "as disturbing as they are wrong," adding that "the conclusions in this report create a troubling false sense of security on the issue of child Internet safety."

In a press release, Pennsylvania AG Tom Corbett called the report "incredibly misleading" and said it "significantly lessens the progress we have made in implementing safety techniques for children using the Internet." "The threat is real," he added, saying, "In the last four years, my office has arrested 183 predators, all of whom have used the Internet for the purpose of contacting minors to engage in sexual activity." He also said that "outdated statistics and academic projections are of little comfort to the minors who have been sexually victimized by online predators."

The arrest of 183 Pennsylvania Internet predators in the past four years is indeed troubling, but the CSRIU study analyzed reports about those cases and concluded that "only eight incidents involved actual teen victims with whom the Internet was used to form a relationship." Five of the cases lead to inappropriate contact and in four of the incidents the teen or parents reported the contact.

One hundred sixty-six of the arrests were based on sting operations where the alleged predator contacted an undercover police officer posing, in most cases, as a 12- to 14-year-old girl. Others were for possession of child pornography. Perhaps most significant in terms of the danger of social-networking sites, according to study author CSRIU Executive Director Nancy Willard is that "despite the fact that the Pennsylvania child predator unit posted fake teen profiles on MySpace for over two years, no successful stings originated through MySpace."

Willard said "the overwhelming majority of the stings occurred in chat rooms, with the others initiated through instant messaging." Chat rooms and instant-messaging services have long been considered the most high-risk online places for teens. Chat rooms are generally unsupervised; communication takes place in real time, and some chat rooms are set up and used primarily for the purpose of meeting potential sexual partners.

The CSRIU study also found that "there were only 12 reports of predators being deceptive about their age," which is consistent with the research cited by the Task Force.

The only connections between the predators and social networks, according to Willard, was one incident involving an actual teen victim where communications took place on MySpace and another case in which a police officer who was arrested for sexual abuse of many teens with whom he had interacted in the line of duty through his MySpace account. Willard said that "in five cases the predators reportedly looked at the fake teen's MySpace profile or suggested that the agent look at their profile."

One predator in a sting provided the agent with a link to his Facebook page and, "in five of the stings that took place in a chat room, reference was made to the fact that the predator had either looked at the teen's MySpace account or suggested the teen look at his profile," said the CSRIU study. But, again, the initial contact was made in a chat room, not on MySpace or Facebook.

Kevin Harley, spokesperson for Attorney General Corbett, said, "We are a pre-emptive investigative unit. What we have done is capture predators who are soliciting before they ever meet a real adolescent or commit the act the first time." He said that cases where victims are identified are typically turned over to local police and prosecutors and not handled by the state Attorney General. Harley said that the Internet Safety Technical Task Force "totally minimized the existence of a problem."

To put this issue into context, in April 2008, the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape reported (PDF) that last year the state's rape crisis centers and sexual assault programs provided services to 9,934 children who were sexually abused.

For more perspective on this issue, see Anne Collier's post in NetFamilyNews.org

(edited at 10:40 PM PT 1/29/09 to add link to Collier post)

Last week I wrote about the final report of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force that dispelled some myths about predator danger, pointing out that--while predators remain a threat--teens are far more likely to be bullied, harassed, or even sexually solicited by another young person than by an adult predator.

The task force, on which I served as a representative of the nonprofit ConnectSafely.org, was asked by a group of state attorneys general to evaluate technical solutions for keeping kids safe online. One of the most heralded technologies--supported by several attorneys general--would be to mandate technology that would validate the age and identities of minors.

Some of the proposed age-verification schemes would require access to school records--a controversial notion in its own right. Most would require some type of parental involvement or approval, including requiring a parent's approval before a teenager could use an interactive service like MySpace or Facebook.

On the surface that seems reasonable. After all, parents must concur before their kid can get a driver's license or even a tooth extraction. But medical care and driving are not the same as expressing oneself or seeking out information. Requiring age verification or parental permission could take us down a prickly and potentially dangerous path.

To begin with, as my fellow task force member Marsali Hancock, president of the iKeepSafe Coalition, observed in her blog, "we have no consistent and credible way to determine who is a custodial parent and who is a child. In today's Internet environment, this obstacle is insurmountable." Add to this some very strong concerns about privacy, security, and potential commercial misuse of student data, and the obstacles to these schemes get bigger and bigger.

Even if age could be verified, there is a big question over whether it would accomplish anything, considering that kids are more vulnerable to harassment by other kids than being harmed by adults.

As an addendum to the task force report, my ConnectSafely.org co-director Anne Collier and I attached a memo in which we observed that the very children who are most at risk are often those who come from homes where the parents are least able or willing to provide support. The very parents who ought to be increasing supervision of their children's online activities are those who are least likely to do so, regardless of the tools available to them, because at-risk kids often come from homes providing limited support.

There are also parents who for a variety of reasons--including political, cultural, or religious beliefs, ignorance of the facts, or fear--would deliberately prevent their teens from accessing social-networking sites.

Unintended consequences

Keeping kids off these services could, in some cases, have severe, negative unintended consequences. A graphic example is the number of referrals directly from MySpace and Facebook to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which is evidence that peers are among the most important referrers of troubled teens. Undoubtedly, there are teenagers alive today who might not be if it weren't for social-networking sites.

Other examples of unintended consequences include teens who are abused, neglected, or otherwise mistreated at home being denied access to a venue for discussing issues pertaining to their own families, including how to find help. There are teens seeking support when caught up in divorces or domestic conflict where the legal guardian wishes to "protect" them from their other parent. I also worry about teens who might lose access to resources to help them find their way out of eating disorders, drug use, cutting, and other self-destructive behavior.

There are parents who, for a variety of not-so-good reasons, might deliberately try to suppress their teen's exploration and expression. I'm reminded of a scene from the movie "Milk'' where Harvey Milk gets a call from a gay teenager in Minnesota who is on the verge of suicide because his parents want to "fix" him. I've also heard cases of kids being denied access to information that is counter to their parents' political or religious beliefs.

I also worry about teens who think they might have a sexually transmitted disease being prevented from getting help, and pregnant teenage girls being unable to explore their options.

I am most concerned that at-risk youths will suffer as a result of age verification because it will be almost impossible for them to get parental consent if their parents aren't around to give such consent or don't have the skills to complete the forms. Among them would be some children whose parents will be reluctant to fill out forms in fear of deportation or other legal consequences, as well as teens of parents who are in the United States legally but lack the language skills or literacy to comply.

Click below to listen to my interview with the task force chairman, John Palfrey

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Harvard Law Professor and former Berkman Center director John Palfrey has been a busy guy. For most of the past year he has chaired the Internet Safety Technical Task Force which, as I explain in this longer post, just released a report showing that predator danger for kids is not what a lot of people feared.

I sat down with Palfrey Washington DC on Wednesday January 14th just before he took the stage at the State of the Net conference to deliver the task force's final report.

As I disclose in the podcast, I was a member of that task force, representing ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety group I co-direct.

Listen now: Download today's podcast