News for the Week of February 18, 2007
Even though the circumstances of the case are pretty extreme, a recent legal decision in Florida represents an important heads-up about kids sending and uploading information about themselves online.
Teens' child-porn convictions upheld
It's not known how the police heard about it, but two Florida teenagers were prosecuted for taking sexually explicit photos of themselves and "distributing" them in violation of child-pornography laws. Last month a Florida state appeals court ruled 2-1 to uphold their conviction, CNET reports. What happened was, 'Amber' (16) and 'Jeremy' (17) [not their real names] took more than 100 "digital photos of themselves naked and engaged in unspecified 'sexual behavior.' The two sent the photos from a computer at Amber's house to Jeremy's personal email address. Neither teen showed the photographs to anyone else." They were both charged with "producing, directing or promoting" child pornography, and "Jeremy was charged with an extra count of possession of child pornography." For the full story on this case, click to the latest issue of NetFamilyNews.
Key child-protection challenge
This case is no anomaly; this is one of the key challenges for the field of online safety going forward: how to protect teens from themselves and each other - teens, who - as prominent pediatrician Sharon Cooper points out - are sexually but not yet mentally mature (see CNET). Here are other examples, in Connecticut and Virginia in 2005 and in India and New York in 2004; and it was the behavior at the heart of the Justin Berry case (see also this commentary at the beginning of last year's political and media storm against social networking, which - as you can see from the above cases - was not the start of or the only communications technology involved in this children's online-safety challenge. [For more info on what Dr. Cooper's talking about, see "Teenage Brain: A Work in Progress" at the National Institute of Mental Health.]
Key take-aways for parents & teens
Aside from the equally important ethical lessons families will draw from cases like these is the online-safety lesson. Young Internet and digital-media users need to know about the four characteristics of online digital media (from social-media research danah boyd at Alternet):
- Searchability - anyone, friend or foe, can find it.
- Persistence - anyone can find it basically forever - tomorrow or 30 years from now.
- Replicability - once they find it, they can share it - in emails, IMs, profiles, on file-sharing networks, etc.
- Invisible audience - you don't know who you're sharing it with, even if your page is private - you don't know what do with it.
Another key take-away: Young people's tech literacy needs the support of caring adults' life literacy as they navigate the choppy, uncharted waters of the social Web.
In other news...
- School violence apparently averted. A Connecticut high school student sent a link to a disturbing video in YouTube to a friend, who - when he recognized some people in the video - told his parents. The parents called the police, who later said they were grateful for that call. The video "showed teens firing weapons and igniting explosives," the Hartford Courant reported. The home of a 16-year-old in the video was searched. Police found weapons, a hit list with at least 20 names," and documents detailing a plan to attack them with "explosive devices and guns," according to the Courant. The boy was arrested and arraigned on "two counts of making bombs," the Associated Press reported.
- 2 new online-safety projects. They tackle the challenge of protecting online kids on two levels: in the home and at the strategic level. The household part is addressed with a new "4-1-1" service at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC.org). Up until now, the Center's CyberTipline.com has offered the public more of a "9-1-1" service in the area of child exploitation. Now it's covering the info-gathering part of the picture, NCMEC CEO Ernie Allen told BlogSafety.com's Larry Magid in an interview for CBS News. At the strategic level is the Family Online Safety Institute, just launched in Washington, D.C., and London. Here's coverage at CBS News.
- Teen dating abuse - study, hotline. A just-released study of teen dating abuse found that 71% of teens (13-18) "regard boyfriends/girlfriends spreading rumors about them on cellphones and social-networking sites as a serious problem, and 68% say friends sharing private or embarrassing photos or videos is a serious problems. The survey, sponsored by Liz Claiborne, Inc., as part of its 16-year focus on stopping domestic violence, also found that "a significant majority of parents are completely unaware of this type of dating abuse." The study is part of a national education campaign that also includes a 24-hour hotline (866-331-9474) that Liz Claiborne has committed to help fund for three years. The confidential teen hotline is operated by the Austin-based National Domestic Violence Hotline. Here's USATODAY on the hotline.
- Proposed IL ban on social sites. The law would ban social-networking sites from public schools and libraries in the state of Illinois. The legislation appears similar to the Delete Online Predators Act (DOPA) that was passed by the House last year but died before the Senate could vote, only more sweeping, CNET reports. "For one thing, the House version applied only to those schools and libraries that receive federal funding under the E-Rate program." But the Illinois law "would apply to social-networking sites on all publicly accessible library computers - apparently without regard for whether the user was a child - and on all computers 'made available' to students at public schools."
- Court dismisses suit against MySpace. A US district court in Texas this week dismissed a negligence lawsuit filed last June by the family of a girl who was sexually assaulted by someone she met on MySpace, Reuters reports. "In dismissing the suit, Judge [Sam] Sparks said that as an 'interactive service,' MySpace was protected from materials posted on its site by the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996." The law "generally grants immunity to interactive computer services such as MySpace so that they are not liable for content posted by users," the Associated Press reports in its coverage of this development. Judge Sparks also "noted that the girl lied about her age, posing as an 18-year-old when she was only 13," Reuters added. The minimum age at MySpace is 14. The family said it would appeal the dismissal.
