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Children shouldn't just have to learn about internet safety on their own, this is when problems occur cos they are vulnerable and unsure of the online world, this is when people can take advantage. I went on to one of the girls in my little sisters class on her Facebook page and she has posted a fake age to be able to sign up.
I didn't want to cause any problems between users by me posting this thread.
I live in a sheltered world? I moved out when i was 15, was homeless for 2 years, i've spent over 18 months of my life addicted to hard drugs, living in a crack den of sort, i've watched a friend be murdered in cold blood, and my best friend being hit by a car and had to listen to my mother being raped. My sister and girlfriend being abused. I was bullied throughout school, beaten within an inch of my life most weeks, been set on fire, burnt, publicly humiliated, stabbed by groups of thugs just because i was different. I don't even know who my real dad is. That's just the start of it. So please tell me how i lived sheltered! (Although through the course of those things the safest i was was online, but enough about my life)
I don't live a sheltered life I live a very toughened one, nothing much bothers me as such. Because of what i have been through.
Please please don't make assumptions of people, if anything people should assume the way i am on this forum is because i haven't had a perfect life as you seem to think.
Define what you mean by "black and white", I don't think in a linear fashion.
I don't think people give children enough credit, for their intelligence, or understanding of this technological world around them.
I did not have broadband, until i were but a man. Yet kids these days are born into the internet as such, they've not known things any difference, and this is where their awareness comes in.
Teaching kids to be safe online is a sensible idea, but at what age and when? Is it useful? I remember most safety lessons in school about sex etc, to be hugely not useful at all - or just to be going over things we already knew. Or it was too late and we were already doing it.
Just to give you an idea, 5 years ago when I was in year 10, I was made by my school and select few other people to be E-safety Ambassadors, we'd have to give assemblies and lessons to other students about how to be safe online and what not to do. I spent two years doing this, going off to various universities and meeting various computer related people to talk about E-safety. We also had a role, that if you were having trouble online, or being troubled, you could come to us for a chat about things and support.
After doing that for so long, I realised - that no one cares, not from year 7 to 11, or the primary schools. Just no one had an interest in it, for whatever reason it is. Just teaching people to be safe is an upwards struggle. So I quit.
E-safety people would laugh.
You have to make mistakes to learn from them, it's very very true. How does a kid learn not to touch a cooker? They touch it. And they never do it again.
What people really need to understand is we live in a horrible world, filled with nasty people, in nasty places, doing terrible things. And this will always happen, because we have freewill, It flabbergasts me when people think otherwise. It may not be what everyone wants as an ideal, and it doesn't mean you have to be one of them people. But it means inheritantly you're not safe anywhere. Like i said in my last post, the internet is exactly the same as the real world. You wouldn't start talking to an old man in the street, and give him all your names/address/phone numbers, so why would you do that online?
Black and white: right or wrong, no middle ground.
I don't think its the subject but the way that kids are taught something that means they stop listening. If they are being preached at and have an adult-set agenda, or can't see the point (i.e. it would never happen to me mentality). I think it needs to be taught at all levels, as soon as kids use the internet and it needs to be age appropriate (you're not going to tell primary school kids not to post naked pics online, where as you might need to with secondary school kids). Kids don't only learn by their mistakes - they don't learn to cross roads properly only after getting knocked down by a car!
If we teach kids to be scared of everything then we will only create a xenophobic society full of young people hateful of anyone that could be "dangerous", rather than cautious. We want children to grow to up to be adult who may talk to the old man on the street corner to find out he's actually half blind and waiting for someone to stop long enough to help him across the street and not a paedophile.
Why?
I hate facebook. When you're in my job and you see some of the things that could happen to people all you want to do is go back in time and make sure it wasn't invented. I spend a lot of time investigating online harassment and suspected grooming. We do what we can to educate kids in school on how to use it safely but it feels like punching waves some times.
Claire, this is what the politics and debate forum is like. People are going to disagree, it's what the forums for, not everyone is going to wholeheartedly agree with that you said in your original post.
:yes:
Welcome to P&D! It's not a good thread unless someone throws their toys out of the pram!
And on the subject, I think it's right that FB has a 13+ policy, but I don't think it's possible or even reasonable to expect them to strictly enforce it. Younger kids should be taught about internet safety and monitored while online. It is not Facebook's responsibility to parent anyone's child!
Realistically, if a child has access to the internet, then Facebook isn't going to be any worse than a load of other places.
Don't worry about it, Politics and Debate is designed for arguments! And even if things are said that you don't like, they're not your fault
Which actually taps into something important about Facebook; you can only control your own actions. I've seen stories recently of parents (admittedly probably kinda stupid ones) posting pictures of their kids in swimming costumes with no privacy settings attached and then finding out (via the police and some unpleasantness) that those photos have been shared by a paedophile ring.
What if the same parent had posted the name of their child's school? Even just the town, if it's small enough and you know the child's name, is enough...
I'm not saying we should wrap people up in cotton wool, but you wouldn't post your child's photo on a billboard in every town with the caption, "Fanny in her swimming costume on a break from her term at Rambsbottom Middle School, taken by Maggie May Smythe, who lives in Upper Ramsbottom"...
There is a lot of ignorance about who can see what you post, people don't take the time to look into it.
I think that the point is your "as long as" is precisely why children need our support as they learn. We don't just open a garden gate and hope they have some sense of self awareness not to run out into the road.
The only fears children are automatically born with are loud noises and falling. The rest is taught - either through experience or by parents. I'd rather teach my kids of the danger than let them find out by experiencing abuse for themselves.
Which is precisely why it became to tool for abusers.
That's a pretty simplistic viewpoint which take no account of evidence surrounding abuse and relationships between abusers and their victims. You really need to consider your words carefully on a site like this. These comments can come across as suggesting that the victim only has themselves to blame.
It's not a case that they "forget", it's as much that they just didn't know in the first place.
My parents did talk to me about the dangers of the internet, though as it was as new to them as it was to me at the time I don't think they really understood how dangerous it actually was. Also the family computer was in it's own room so it was difficult to monitor what I was up to. Though my mum did go through my phone several times and went mental when I had swapped numbers with a man. Though luckily he never really made any attempts to groom me - but it was a weird friendship and I eventually ended it when I realised how mentally unstable he was.
It was all too easy for people to get in touch with me. I was fortunate to not get sucked up in the ugly side of it but I understand how easily it happens. I can only imagine it being even easier now.
That's the spirit
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Look, guys, if you want your young children to have an online presence why dont you just create a page? That way you can monitor the activity much more efficiently and they can post updates to that. Though personally I wouldn't.
I run a site for survivors of internet sexual abuse and I can tell you that we, as a society, are failing young people by repeatedly offering the equivalent of stranger danger talks to them.
"Dont give info out to strangers" - okay, but what about the boy ive been messaging for a few weeks..not a "stranger" to me any more?
Secondly, what we need to be addressing is their understanding of what is okay in relationships. So many children are persuaded into doing things by being told this what good gf's do or what adults do or "if you loved me". They don't even recognise the abuse and manipulation
Most internet predators take the time to groom children. This means they will move through the ranks from stranger to closest confidant. And, they can/will systematically isolate your child from their friends, family and any outside influences. The more isolated your child is the more vulnerable they are.
Making child feel the abuser is only one to understand them. The only one who will love them.
Another thing to remember is that ALL children and teenagers are vulnerable to this abuse. In fact, the most vulnerable age bracket is from 12 to 16. Teenagers are socially awkward, want to fit in and want to be treated like adults. The perfect mix for a predator willing to offer them love, acceptance and treat them like an equal (at least seemingly to the child)
"why dont people just exit the conversation"
Some children with strong boundaries and sense of self will be able to. They will feel able to stand up to adults and have a sense of autonomy. In the exception of predators that are directly threatening.
However, other children will comply more readily. They wont feel able to disobey an adult or will worry about hurting their new friend's feelings. And a whole other host of reasons.
The point I am making is that it is never the child's fault. Even when that child is 15 and rebelling against their parents or other authority figure. It is a child/teen's propensity to act emotionally rather than more rationally that makes them more vulnerable. It is the adults around them that should act responsibly and respectfully..not manipulate that vulnerability for their own purpose.
Several reasons for me. Its facebook he wants, and facebook that his friends have. Im not over the moon about it but ive been kind of railroaded into it, and with my restrictions and regular checking on his page, plus limits on when he can use it, its not turned out to be as bad as i thought.
Im "reasonably" knowledgeable about internet safety and would come down like a tonne of bricks on anything inappropriate