Sexual predators: NOT an internet threat to kids

Take one newly pervasive communications medium that makes some people apprehensive. Add concern about sexual exploitation of children that makes everyone apprehensive. Stir in a few highly publicized cases of pedophiles luring innocent young kids to horrible fates via email or Facebook. Season with echoes of Hansel and Gretel. And what comes out of the oven? Full-blown hysteria that every child with an Internet connection faces substantial risk from sexual predators. The hysteria may be real. But the actual threat is negligible. Last year, the attorneys general of 49 states created the Internet Safety Technical Task Force to investigate sexual solicitation of children by molesters who troll for targets using sites popular with kids, among them, MySpace and Facebook. The 278-page report concluded that there's no real problem.

source: Article 'Sexual Predators: NOT an Internet Threat to Kids' by Michael Castleman; www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/200908/sexual-predators-not-internet-threat-kids; Psychology Today; 16 August 2009