Tackling internet paedophiles/perverts - Idea?
What do you think of this?
To tackle this problem, all I believe it requires is that people are 'verified' to have given correct registration information about themselves. This can surely be checked without infringing privacy rights?
Of course this would only apply to registration information, anything else is subject to the user's own choices.
For example, I am 23 years old. I'm fairly sure that under present conditions I could register with most websites as a teenager. This is inherently wrong, and I believe it should be impossible.
Also I see quite often that youngsters claim to be older, which can cause a lot of problems.
Just yesterday, I received 4 friend requests from users claiming to be between the ages of 20 and 24. I checked on the profiles, and it turned out to be one user, aged 13, promoting a 'live webcam' site. Of course, I was not impressed or amused in any way, and promptly rejected these friend requests
Answers:
I don't know, Retro, this sounds just a little too "Big Brother" to me. I am already seeing invasion on my PC from external sources and am considering going off line for awhile because of it. But having to give private info to chat on a public forum I think is pushing the envelope a bit.
For these young kids, it is the parents' responsibility to monitor what they are doing with their computers. If they are going to allow their children access to a world of knowledge, then they have every right and I would expect them to be aware of what their children are finding out there in the world.
Parents need to take responsibility for their actions, this action being allowing Internet access to their children. Let Big Brother get at me another way, please (if he can . . .).
I've just given up on sites like MySpace. :( Too many kids and pervs out there.
Good idea in theory, not workable in practice.
Websites cannot easily force someone to provide personal information -- and the websites that do will just lose customers to the websites that don't.
This method has been tried -- it doesn't stop people.
The system you suggest would require money and most websites are free. How would you fund such a system? Also, how would you verify age? Driver's licenses/IDs? But some people don't have one. Credit cards? Many people don't have one.
There really is no solid secure way of keeping the pervs off given websites. If someone opens up a teen site for girls, you can bet your sweet life that within mins the pervs will be on there.
I saw on TV couple days ago, think BBC, one of their journalists in her 20s signed up as a teen, saying she was 13. Almost immediately she was directed to a porn site by some perv.
It gets worse.
Really parents need to get more involved and know exactly what their children are doing on the Internet. I know this is going to be a hard and sometimes difficult, but it just has to be done.
The real problem is that most teens seem totally unaware of how they get tracked around the web. On site A they give their real name, on site B they leave their eal e-mail address and on site C they leave their home and/or mobile phone number[s].
All this info is collected together by the pervs who then track their intended victims around - grooming then starts.
Kids have just got to be made aware of the dangers and be tought how to be ultracautious and not give away vital information about themselves. Use a false name etc.
The best way I think is never to meet them in person, or if u do ensure it's somewhere public and inform someone u know that ur meeting that person and when to expect u back. It is the same as when u meet strangers first time, they might look 25 and say they are 25, but really be 18 and some sort of creep.
It'd surely work much better than the present jokes there are.
Retro, as in anyplace else, you have to do your OWN homework. OR, you can do like I do, and just assume that any new folks on your friends list is underage and until actual proof is obtained, just treat them as children.
Raji the Green Witch
I sometimes wonder, given that there are supposed to be so many internet paedophiles out there, if lots of cases of one 'grooming' a child aren't actually one paedo talking to another.
It's a cheery thought, isn't it.
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