Over the last couple days, I’ve seen an awfully good AP story, by reporter Matt Apuzzo, stir quite a flurry of fallout about kids online safety at blogsites. Matt focuses on MySpace.com, but the problems of too much information disclosure are persistent.
In December posts What Kids Reveal Online and Minimizing Kids’ Online Risks, I explored the dangers of teen blogging and what kids foolishly reveal.
Matt’s story reveals the disastrous results when kids reveal too much on their blogsites:
Police in Middletown, Conn., are investigating recent reports that as many as seven local girls were sexually assaulted by men in their 20s who contacted them through MySpace pretending to be teenagers. One girl allowed a man into her room while her parents were home, police said.
Parents have to be responsible for their kids. The time of taking responsibility is before any potential danger, not afterwards. If you’re a parent and you don’t know what your kids are doing online, you’ve abdicated your responsibilities.
These are public blogs. If they’re public enough for predators to read, why the hell aren’t they public enough for you?