Kids hanging out online – how to keep them safe

Today’s most popular teen hangout really packs ’em in. In fact, you can meet more than 110 million people there on any given day. And they can show up in disguise, so they can pretend to be anyone they want to be. Real friend, or foe? You’ll never know. That’s the teenage hangout that is MySpace, the No. 1 social networking site on the Internet.

A teen haven, a parent’s nightmare
Teens tend to love MySpace and Face¬Book, for lots of teen-type reasons. It’s a place to hang out and talk to their friends, 24-7. A place for socially shy kids to find new friends, and for those who feel “different” and disconnected to find others who share their interests. It’s a place to try on new personas: You just adjust your “profile,” the MySpace bio that tells everyone what you’re all about. It’s a clique that won’t reject you: All you have to do to get in is log on, answer a few questions, upload a few photos, and you’ve got a profile. You’re in with the in-crowd.

But from a parent’s point of view, there are downsides and dangers, and plenty of them. Among the millions of MySpace members are more than a few who come with bad intent, including child predators. According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, one in seven teen Internet users said that they’d received an unwanted sexual solicitation. And such solicitations can end tragically.

Unfortunately, many teens unwittingly play right into predators’ hands. Barbara, a mother of a 13-year-old who asked that her last name not be used, was shocked to discover that her daughter’s MySpace profile, which listed her age as 16, was rife with risqué pictures and all kinds of identifying information. “Anyone could have found her,” Barbara says. “And to be honest, it looked like she wanted them to.”

Protecting your progeny
MySpace says that it’s working hard to keep young users safe. For example, their Terms of Use note that kids must be at least 14 to use the site, and they automatically assign users under 16 a private profile. That’s helpful—assuming that users are telling the truth when they sign up. But that’s a big assumption, says Allan Kush, deputy director of WiredSafety.org, the world’s largest online safety group. “MySpace and other social networking sites do absolutely no verification to ensure that people are who they say they are,” he explains. “So even if they catch a predator today, all he has to do is sign up tomorrow under a new name. Unfortunately, the reality is that the job of keeping kids safe falls to the parents.”

Here are some steps you can take:
Educate your kids about the very real dangers that lurk in cyberspace. Your kids may know more than you do about today’s technology, but they tend to grossly underestimate its risks or to believe bad things happen to other kids, not to them. “Parents need to convince their kids that they’re not invincible online,” says Kush.
Keep your computer out in the open. When your kids know that you can walk by anytime, they’ll be less likely to involve themselves in sketchy situations.
Watch out for Web-enabled phones. These days, computers aren’t the only place that kids can connect to the Internet. “You might want to think twice before you get your kid a cell phone with all of the latest capabilities,” warns Kush.
Set the rules. Make sure your child knows exactly what you will and won’t allow online. And if he goes out of bounds, remember, you’re the parent. You can always pull the plug.