Joint Committee on Child Protection and Grooming

TheFredJ

while mst of the attention on the recent report of the joint oireachtas committee on child protection has focused on the issue of the age of consent, one interesting proposal which could have an impact on various social networking websites has gone largely unnoticed both online and in the mainstream media. in the committee's report they recomend:

the enactment of an offence of grooming a child for sexual abuse, prohibiting acts preparatory to or for the purpose of facilitating, the seual abuse of a child at some stage in the future, or placing a child in danger of being so abused.

http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/committees29thdail/committeereport2006/Child_Protection_Report.pdf

most social networking sites - which arguably facilitate grooming - do take this issue seriously and provide moderators to watch over who is saying what to whom ... but will this be sufficient and could we see actions being taken against the operators of a variety of websites and other online networks?

haz

TheFredJ wrote:

most social networking sites - which arguably facilitate grooming - do take this issue seriously and provide moderators to watch over who is saying what to whom

It is an interesting point. Recent research has shown an increasing tendency for younger people to use the web in ways that create a much greater degree of vulnerability than adults realise. The most pernicious of these is when young people use the web to fill in an emotional absence in their life, rather than to seek an emotional resolution. Adults might come to a social networking site to discuss pain or sadness, but many young people will seek some form of emotional experience to fill boredom and become receptive to whatever emotional experience is on offer, including potentially very self-destructive behaviours.

Adult participants and moderators may be unaware that someone discussing (for instance) physical self-harm with great passion and expertise had never considered the behaviour previously.

mountainyman

TheFredJ wrote:

06/Child_Protection_Report.pdf[/url]

most social networking sites - which arguably facilitate grooming - do take this issue seriously and provide moderators to watch over who is saying what to whom ... but will this be sufficient and could we see actions being taken against the operators of a variety of websites and other online networks?

No they do not. They have stay safe online tips but they do not moderate what people do and say. Frankly these social networking sites are a paedo's playground and series of cases waiting to happen.

MM

haz

mountainyman wrote:

No they do not. They have stay safe online tips but they do not moderate what people do and say.

The major social networking sites (lets say specifically Bebo and MSN Messenger) do have active monitoring of content, both by paid employees and by forum volunteers (just like boards.ie). They can not hope to read / view and monitor all the material posted, and in many cases choose to err on the side of not making a judgment - it is more defenceable not to have actively judged risks and not acted than to have consistently judged and made a once-off mistake.

But they do act, very rapidly, to any report of inappropriate material. Competent paedophiles will not be the subject of reports - and paedophiles exhibit competency, control and restraint in great measure. It is a very dangerous playground when people are given unrestricted opportunities to communicate intimately with complete strangers.