New Tools Help Fight Online Predators

By NewsFactor Network | February 27, 2007

According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, one of every seven children between 10 and 17 has been solicited for sex on the Internet. It’s the kind of statistic that can frighten parents into pulling the plug.

Parents who would rather fight back are getting help.

From MySpace, the world’s top social networking Web site, to the computer labs of Boston’s public schools, specialists are working to fend off the exploiters with a mix of technology, law enforcement, and Internet education.

Computers in Boston schools use blocking software to fend off predators. But Leo Carey, who teaches computer safety to seventh-graders and high school seniors at Boston Latin Academy, said the real danger lurks at home.

“They’re going to be at home 15, 20 hours a week on the Internet,” he said, and many home computers lack filtering software.

Boston school officials are rolling out a new online safety campaign, in cooperation with i-SAFE Inc., a federally funded nonprofit foundation that offers a five-hour online training program in Internet safety. Each Boston school’s technology support teachers, those assigned to help students use computers, will complete the program.

But young people are more likely to listen to people their own age, says Kimberly Rice, chief information officer for the school system.

“We’re looking for students to become mentors,” she said. The schools will recruit high school students to receive i-SAFE training and share it with their peers and with younger children.

The mentoring effort began last summer, when Rice recruited high school students to design an online safety campaign. While the schools already had some Internet training materials, the high schoolers were unimpressed.

“They said this isn’t good for little kids,” Rice said. “Little kids won’t understand this, and my little brother or sister needs this information. … Can we create a campaign for them?”

The students crafted…

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