Oh. My. God.

[andrewducker]

I just cannot believe the sheer stupidity that is rife amongst people who claim to know better.

This BBC news story

A forensic psychologist spoke about the dangers of online journals, or blogs, and pictures posted directly online.

Rachel O'Connell said adults could use weblogs to learn about children.

She said: "This is just a paedophile's dream because you have children uploading pictures, giving out details of their everyday life because it's an online journal."

She described a scenario where a group of paedophiles could exchange information on a child's movement, potentially leading to an abduction.

For Fuck's Sake! How many actual children are actually kidnapped by actual paedophiles in a year? And how many will get something good from being able to share their lives with others and find likeminded children? I'd have _killed_ as a kid to be able to not feel alone from the ages of 11 to 18. The internet would have added unimaginably to my life and LJ would have made it so much more worthwhile.

But apparently there may be paedohpiles out there so we should lock up our children.

Maybe we should make them wear Burkhas so that they don't inflame the lusts of any passing paedophile.

I just feel speechless with rage.

Comments

[deililly.livejournal.com]

It is getting out of hand.

Like how parents can't film their kids at their school shows in a lot of places. Obviously it isn't parental pride, they are making dirty videos. Utterly bonkers.

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

Some people are so motivated by fear.... I feel sorry for the forensic psychologist.

And she seems to completely absolve the parents of any responsibility here as well. I mean, if your kid is online all the time, it's your responsibility as a parent to be aware of what they're doing, at least to have a little "don't have cyber sex with perverts" chat.

Okay, that last bit was a little flippant, but I find myself unable to express how I feel about this woman's statements.

[derumi.livejournal.com]

O_o;; I wonder if Rachel O'Connell is related to Ceara O'Connell. That'd be a mindfuck for me (especially as Dr. O'Connell doesn't appear to be from the US - CA or NY).

What kind of sick person poses as a child online, anyways? @_@ Besides Rachel and pedophiles, I mean.

[armoire-man.livejournal.com]

I am of two minds. I am right there with you on this, because I want my daughter to have a vast and lovely life online when she gets old enough to type.

BUT...the web is a vast and powerful search engine for paedophiles. It's much *more* than that, obviously, but it is *also* that.

One of my LJ friends commented awhile back about how she found out that her daughter was chatting very earnestly (and secretly) online with a middle-aged man who was trying to set up a secret meeting.

She found it out only because, after she got suspicious of how her daughter was treating her computer time, she snooped on her daughter's browser history and a few other things, which she hates doing. There is nothing that will alienate a kid more than such distrust, and there is nothing that certain kids need more than exactly this kind of watchdogging. It's a big, fat parental mess.

All-paranoia-all-the-time is worthless, but any discussion of kids-on-the-web requires at least a soupcon of paranoia or it's not being realistic.

If you had told me, say, twenty years ago, that I'd be reticent about posting my six-year-old daughter's picture online because I didn't want perverts masturbating to it, I'd probably have turned red and told you to get your sorry, filthy mind out of my sight.

But, that's exactly what I consider, every time I'm tempted to put a cute picture of her up on the web, for all those reasons. It's a brave new world.

Don't get it either

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

Because... children are so scarse these days that you have to track them down using the internet or what?

[dragonscholar.livejournal.com]

The majority of molested and kidnapped children are molested or kidnapped by people they know.

Somehow this keeps getting forgotten, probably because people don't want to admit it.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

I was going to make a flippant comment about cars being a paedophile's dream because they allow them to travel to another area to look for children. But on reading the article I think it ought to be pointed out that she doesn't seem to be actually advocating banning of blogs or stopping children having them - what she's doing is pointing out some of the dangers that people may not have thought about. To take the car analogy again, we don't have to ban the automobile to take measures against people using them unwisely.

I'm all for kids having blogs. But a lot of parents aren't aware of the potential issues, and I think they need to be made aware of that, though in a manner that would give a sense of proportion.

[opusfluke.livejournal.com]

Excuse me but did I just slip into the Monkey Dust Universe? First there's the Jodi Jones boyfriend killed her bacause he is a *Goth* (looks more like a ned to me) and then I read this in the Metro paper this morning. Yes, nanny. No, nanny. Five pounds of flax, nanny...