A report which stems from rows over MySpace’s protection of children has concluded risks to youths online are overblown. It also says children are at more danger of being bullied online by peers than solicited by older pedophiles.

The report comes from the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, a group set up after MySpace agreed to work with 49 state attorney generals to identify and minimize risks to children. The group involves most leading internet and social networking firms, plus child safety experts.

The full report, which concludes a one year study, has several conclusions, many of which will come as little surprise to those who’ve given the subject more than a momentary thought. It finds online dangers “are not radically different in nature or scope than the risks minors have long faced offline.”

For example, it finds that children are not at equal risk, and those who take risks in everyday or have troubled lives are more likely to find problems online than those from stable backgrounds, regardless of what technology they are using.

Unsuitable content such as pornography is not necessarily a problem with all children according to the report. Rather than children being exposed to a barrage of pornography, it’s usually only seen by those who’ve intentionally looked for it – usually older teenage boys. The report’s authors say parents should be less concerned about adult porn online and more about unsuitable content created by children themselves.

It also appears that most sexual solicitation of minors online comes either from fellow children or those aged 18 to 21, with few coming from older adults. The stereotype of adults posing as children to lure them into a meeting may also be misleading: police studies suggest that in most cases involving adults having sex with underage children they met online, the child was an adolescent who was fully aware they were meeting an adult.

The report’s authors have called for more investigation into the issue, particularly on the problem of verifying the age of users. While automated systems can check someone is truly an adult, those which try to verify a child is a certain age (for example, with discussion forums which require users to be at least 13) are difficult because there are few public records for teens which aren’t covered by privacy laws.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 3:00 pm under Adult content.

Read more entries by John Lister.
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