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Spreading "1 in 5" Number Does More Harm Than Good
First, what the 1-in-5 number actually means. It originated with a study done in 2000 by the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, which surveyed 1,501 Internet-using youth age 10 through 17. The actual relevant findings of the study were as follows:
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The 1 in 5 figure was the number that had received at least one instance of unwanted sex talk (including from other teenagers), or sex talk from an adult (whether wanted or not), in the past year.
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The proportion of respondents who received a sexual flirtation from an adult, followed by a request to talk on the phone or meet in person, was about 1%.
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The number of survey respondents who actually befriended an adult online and then met the adult in person for sexual purposes, was zero.
The actual proportion of respondents who reported that someone made sexual overtures and asked to talk on the phone or meet in person -- what the study called an "aggressive sexual solicitation" -- was 3%, and 34% of those requests were known to have been made by adults. And even this overestimates the proportion of minors who were truly "sexually solicited", because all it means is that an adult started out by talking to them sexually, and then made some request for offline contact, which could have merely been asking for a phone number. So the scenario that comes to mind when hearing that "1 in 5 children is sexually solicited online" -- of being approached sexually by an adult and asked for an in-person meeting -- had actually happened to no more than 1% of respondents, and probably much fewer than that.
And this is just considering the percentage of youth who received solicitations, not taking into account how they responded. Out of 1,501 youth surveyed, none of them reported actually meeting an adult in person for anything that they described as sexual contact. Two teens in the study had "close friendships" with adults that the authors wrote "may have had sexual aspects". One 17-year-old boy had a relationship with a woman in her late twenties that he described as "romantic" but not sexual, and they never met in person. Another 16-year-old girl became close to a man in his thirties, and they met in a public place, but she described the relationship as non-sexual, and she declined to spend the night with him. (While these could still be considered "close calls", it's worth noting that even if the 16- and 17-year-olds had actually had a sexual relationship with their adult friends, that would have in fact been legal in many U.S. states, and in any case it's not what most people think of when they hear about "children" being "sexually solicited online".)
Of course all of this depends on the accuracy of the answers that the youth gave to the surveyors. But the "1 in 5" figure was based on the youths' stated responses as well. People who cite the study can't have their cake and eat it too, taking the "1 in 5" number as accurate but discounting the fact that none of the teens surveyed reported a sexual relationship with an adult they met online.
These were the data that were available in 2000, when the "1 in 5" number started being spread. The authors of the original study followed up with a 2005 report, "Online Victimization of Youth: Five Years Later", in which the corresponding statistics were:
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1 in 7 respondents received unwanted sex talk or sex talk from an adult, at some point in the past year.
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The proportion of respondents who received a sexual flirtation from an adult, followed by a request to communicate offline, was again about 1-2%. (4% of respondents reported a sexual flirtation plus a request to correspond offline. The new study reported that 39% of all sexual solicitations were made by adults, but did not say what proportion of "aggressive sexual solicitations" -- which included requests for offline contact -- were made by adults.)
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Out of 1,501 respondents surveyed in 2005, two did report an in-person meeting that led to a sexual crime -- one was a 15-year-old girl who met a 30-year-old man in person and had consensual sex with him, and another was a 16-year-old girl who went to a party with an older male she met online who later tried to rape her. But even these incidents (which were both reported to law enforcement) do not mean that the Internet is a more dangerous environment for youth with regard to interaction with adults. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's own Web site links to a study -- also by one of the authors of the "Online Victimization" report -- which found that when all types of abuse are counted, 20% of females experience some type of sexual victimization before adulthood, compared to 2 out of 750 female survey respondents in the "Online Victimization" study who reported sexual abuse by someone they met online.
The NCMEC has
updated
their Web site
to say that "one in seven youths (10 to 17 years) experience
a sexual solicitation or approach while online", although the banner ads
still say 1 in 5. But I
think the 1-in-7 versus 1-in-5 is hardly worth nit-picking, when the real
problem is that
the statement "1 in 5 children is sexually solicited online" is written in
a way that virtually
guarantees it will be mis-heard and
passed along as a statement involving "online predators" or "pedophiles".
"Authorities Say 1 in 5 Children Has Been Approached By Online Predators"
reads the sub-heading
of a
story on ABC
news.
"20% of children who use computer chat rooms have been approached over the
Internet by a pedophile" says an
online safety
site
sponsored by the Albemarle County government in Virginia.
"One in five kids in America are approached by online predators" says a
Congressman's
press
release.
The NCMEC itself never says that 1 in 5 or 1 in 7 children is
"approached by a pedophile",
merely that they are "sexually solicited online". I still think this is
false because that is
not the proportion of minors who are literally solicited for sex, but
suppose that you expanded
"sexual solicitation" to include all sex talk, so that the statement was
"technically true".
That still misses the point, because the issue shouldn't be seen as a game
where sides try to make
their statements as alarmist as possible while still being "technically
true", like the kid with
his
petition to ban
"dihydrogen monoxide".
If you say something that is virtually guaranteed to get
passed along as a wrong and alarmist statement about "pedophiles", aren't
you at least partly responsible?
Why, then, does the NCMEC do it? Their site does have a "Donate" link, but
it's very low-key,
and the site generally seems to steer first-time visitors towards actions
that they can take with
regard to their own children. So I'm not cynical enough to think the "1 in
5" statistic is a
campaign to scare up donations; I think they really do believe they are
doing good by getting
people to believe that number and to take action based on it. The problem
is that there is
such a thing as too much worrying and too much overprotection. Sites like
Facebook are often
used to organize parties and events and send out venue changes, just
because that's the most
efficient way to do it, and if your parents ban you from getting on
Facebook, you'll miss out
on simple things like that. What good does that do for anybody? Critics
of overprotection
often say that overly sheltered kids may rebel later on and get themselves
in worse trouble,
and that's often true, but so what even if they don't? Your quality of
life is still worse
off if you're the only one in your peer group who can't get updates about
your friends' parties.
And your parents'
quality of life will be worse if they're constantly wringing their hands
thinking that there is a
1 in 5 chance their kid will be propositioned online by a pedophile.
So I would urge the NCMEC to reconsider what they're telling
people. Regarding the "1 in 5"
meme that's already out there, it's spread so far that it's probably too
late for the NCMEC
to put the genie back into the bottle. But any anti-censorship group
participating in a
debate about online safety should put the real statistics forward, and
since many in the audience
will have heard the "1 in 5" figure somewhere, take a minute to knock it
down as well. You don't
have to commit political suicide by calling out the NCMEC specifically for
spreading the "1 in 5"
number, but put the right numbers out there.
Unfortunately the subject of child safety is such that wrong information,
from any source, is
unlikely to be criticized if it's erring on the side of caution, but some
memes die faster
than others. Microsoft's
resource
page about "online predators"
says that "if you find
pornography on the family computer" -- not child porn, but regular
pornography -- that could be
a warning sign that "your child is the target of an online predator". I
think that's a wildly
irresponsible thing to be telling parents, but fortunately the meme does
not seem to have spread
beyond that one page, which probably not one parent in a thousand will ever
actually read.
Bullshit needs to be exposed and countered, even when propagated by well-meaning members of benevolent organizations.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
You'll become a social outcast. It is OK to lie about statistics because child molestation is so serious that truth and justice can be thrown out to 'get the bad guys'. Ends justify the means type shit. At least, that's how it appears to me. It's enough to make a guy avoid any and all children when in public.
Blar.
I think the idea here - by most of those organizations - is to err on the side of caution. As for politicians, what could be an easier subject to tackle then to say "I want to keep your kids safe online."?
I understand the point about not using misleading statistics. Yet defining the sexual solicitation broadly might not be a bad thing. The number of children being online as part of daily life is growing and will continue to grow. Tools for locating people online, personal information, pictures, etc, are increasingly available. At the same time, we are at a point where parents are less technical savvy then their children (at least in many cases) and might not be aware of some of the dangers. Using broad definitions, that are inclusive in defining what solicitation means can be useful. It gives a broad picture of the dangers children could face.
That being said, most sexual assaults happen from people children know, be it a family member or a neighbor.
-- All this knowledge is giving me a raging brainer.
You'll see that in just about every flamewar. Sounds like sexual solicitation to me!
we can get that number to 1 out of 4.
Unfortunately the American people are bombarded with scary warnings all the time. The NCMEC probably sticks with the "1 in 5" meme just to keep their message above the noise from everyone else trying to scare us. Between amber alerts, text warnings to college students about potential gunmen, and security campaigns to encourage paranoia on mass transit, people are overwhelmed with stuff they should be afraid of. It's too bad that they need to rely on a misleading statistic, but my suspicion is that I would do the same thing if I was the NCMEC marketing director.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
"The number of survey respondents who actually befriended an adult online and then met the adult in person for sexual purposes, was zero."
I am personally dating a person who did exactly that and was with said adult (she was a minor at the time, he was 13 years older) for a year. First it was casual sex, then it was a relationship.
If she were in the survey, would she spoil that zero number or not?
somewhere between false alarmism and false complacency is reality. some people drift too much towards alarmism, some people drift towards complacency. both extremes are wrong
you can always ferret out such people. the ones who see threats everywhere should be avoided. the ones who see no threat from anything anywhere should be avoided
but too much on slashdot you see a lot of warnings about dread and hysteria. well, the opposite is to be warned away from too: complacency has just as many dangers about it as hysteria
child abuse is real. terrorism is real. how much should you be concerned about either? it's obviously low but it's also obviously not zero. avoid those who aren't concerned at all and those who see pedophiles and terrorists around every corner, and you'll do ok in life
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's pretty easy to believe that the number is at least 1 in 5 if by solicited they mean they receive erectile dysfunction, enlargement pill, etc. spam. At work we have some non-personal, non-public e-mail addresses that are never used to sign up for any sort of list, and we get these types of mail all the time, along with replica watch, online casino and false diploma offers, plus numerous russian & chinese spam.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
A public servant who lies to the public should be thrown in prison for several decades.
Blar.
Reminds me of the myth that "1 in 4" women are victims of sexual assault. This sort of willful scare-mongering, and yes, lying, needs to stop. Once people realize groups that allege to be on the side of the victims are untrustworthy and corrupt, they'll transfer that to semi-hostile view of the much smaller number of, but still real, victims.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
These kids are probably contacted during the Superbowl too... the #1 time when men beat their women and flush their toilets in sync with the commercials. :-)
Isn't this a question of misuse of statistics then ? We know about lies and damned lies and...
I have difficulty deciphering if the article is about how the 1 in 5 number is a statistical misrepresentation when taken into account errors and so forth, or a more general commentary on FUD-spreading by certain organizations and institutions.
The statistical debate is clear, 1:5 is an inaccurate because it is too close to the indivisible unit of the problem, i.e, one person. It actually introduces an error rate almost comparable to itself, since there cannot be less than one person interviewed, the minimum error rate is 1. And thus 1:5 lies between bounds of 0:5 and 2:5. It also implies also an even spread of these cases, oversimplifying the problem.
Anytime you see social statistics on a sample size of many thousands or hundreds being represented in simple ratio of persons as 1:5 , assume that to be wildly inaccurate. Make this known , and we wont have to worry about the FUD.
Essentia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
... and didn't even read past the first line of the summary. Why doesn't Haselton just a start his own blog so that we can ignore him in a more convenient fashion.
Three Squirrels
The vast majority of people don't respond to subtlety or detail, they respond to soundbytes. People in power know this, so the veracity of the information is largely irrelevant to whether or not they decide to use it.
How do you get votes? Scare people into thinking their children are inches away from sexual molestation, tell them you have the solution; and viola, they vote for you! The state of American politics is just as much the fault of the sheep being fooled by this kind of crap as it is the shepherds feeding it to them. The truth is there to be found, but nobody cares to look.
i hear that 1 in 5 slashdot comments are horrible attempts at humor made by Anonymous Cowards.
I want to know the breakdown for various classes of solicitation and various classes of victims:
For young children in child-safe areas of the net:
* 1 out of x gets sent porn
* 1 out of x gets an explicit proposal: "wanna f***"
* 1 out of x gets something that is clearly out of line
Ditto for young teens in young-teen-safe areas, older teens in teen-safe-areas, and most importantly, kids and teens who are in "unsafe" areas where they can be expected to be propositioned.
Of all of those, I'd want to know how many improper messages and pictures were sent by adults, how many by youth, and how many by children. I would also like the breakdown of whether the person sending the message or image believed he was sending them to a youth or child.
If some 8 year old girl is hanging out in #quickie-hookup-now on IRC and she gets sent pr0n, who is to blame? I say the parents, not the person who sent it to her. The person who sent it probably thought "she" was a horny 60 year old man pretending to be an 8 year old girl and was going along with it.
If the 8 year old is 13 I'd blame the parents and maybe the youth, depending on whether the youth knew what she was doing.
If the "kid" was 15, I'd almost always blame the youth if she were hanging out in adult chat rooms.
Kids are far more at risk for actual harm from their own family members, neighbors, and family friends than from strangers. If you aren't harming your kids and you minimize the time your kids are alone with other adults, the odds of your kid being sexually abused by an adult go way down.
Of course, there is still the very real problem of abuse by peers or slightly older children or youth.
On in five statistic reports are completely made up.
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
I think it would be interesting to do a study using the same methodology for offline activities. For example, what percentage of 10- to 17-year-olds received "requests to engage in sexual activities or sexual talk or give personal sexual information that were unwanted"... at school? It's been a while since I was in high school, but I remember it happening to me... and I was a dweeb. So I bet it'd be pretty high.
The biggest problem with this survey is that it conflates two very different things: teen-to-teen interaction, and adult-to-teen interaction. Even though they qualify the teen-to-teen stuff they include by saying it has to be "unwanted", there's a fundamental difference between being hit on by that ugly kid in your Lit class, and being hit on by an adult sexual predator.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
A few years ago I spent some time playing an online multiplayer flash game. The individual games were fairly short and involved 2 or 4 players. Those online could send personal messages to each other to setup games, etc.
I think there were a lot of young adults there because I would often get requests like "ASL" (age/sex/location) and "wanna cyber" (engage in sex talk).
All of which could be considered solicitations and could easily be ignored.
A lot of such traffic could be suppressed if there was a public campaign to tell young adults that that "18 year old virgin" is most often really a 13 year old boy or a 50 year old 300lb woman on medical disability.
What difference does it really make if the number is 1 in 5 or 1 in 50? The point of quoting the statistic is to say that the internet is not Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, and parents need to take responsibility to protect and monitor their children.
The fact that the statistic is inaccurate just means that it's no different from most other statistics that get thrown around.
Think Communism of the McCarthy era, being gay or Jewish throughout much of history, pedophilia since the '90s and probably earlier, being of German descent in WWI, being of Japanese or German descent in WWII, being Muslim or Arabic in the year or two after 9/11, etc.
Society needs a bogeyman.
Today's bogeymen are terrorists, child molesters, and those who fail to protect potential victims from them.
This leads to overkill when it comes to anti-terrorism laws and protect-the-children laws.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
...how low should the true rates of online sexual predator encounters be before we can consider it "not a threat"?
Now I don't actually have children, but if I were a parent even 1/1,000,000 would be too high if it was my child who was the victim. I'm sure not everyone on Slashdot is a parent, but I'm sure a high percentage have child relatives that you care about. This kind of thing is so horrible, you probably don't need a direct experience to understand how bad it is.
While I usually laugh at the "Screaming toddler kicked off the plane" headlines, sexual predators of any age group (even those of adult victims) disgust me.
Although I don't agree with making up statistics just to scare through draconian legislation, I also fear that if the true statistics came out significantly lower, then people would suggest that protecting children from online predators is somehow unimportant.
Just a thought.
Beny"I'm a humble person really,
I'm actually much greater than I think I am"
1 of 5 children have been solicited online.
Children can grow up to be dentists.
Ergo, 1 of 5 future dentists are solicited online.
4 out of 5 future dentists recommend Dentyne.
Summary: Chew Dentyne and you won't get raped.
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
Almost every good-looking 7th grade girl has some smart-ass boy go up to her and blow a kiss or otherwise do what would be called "sexual harassment" if done in the workplace.
Many boys endure flirts - some wanted, others not - from the girls.
There is no doubt some homosexual flirting or outright deliberate harassment in Junior High School hallways also.
The proper response is not to "thinkofthechildren" and send everyone who blows one unwanted kiss to a girl to an alternative-education campus, which would be the moral equivalent of some of today's laws that govern adult behavior in the workplace. Thankfully, most schools take a more reasonable approach, teaching the kids that do this that it's not acceptable behavior and giving the victims of unwanted advances the emotional tools to spurn unwanted advances without feeling victimized by them.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that. -- Homer Simpson
If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0.
This article was written by someone who is either extremely anal, or, who has a vested interest in less awareness of online sexual predators.
Really, 1 in 5, 1 in 10, whatever. Legislators will use any statistic to do what the poster is afraid they will do.
So to be quibbling over the number is kind of a control freak, obsessive/compulsive thing.
Frankly, the whole thing is kind of creepy. It's something you might find championed by MBLA.
There is a very simple reason for holding on to fallacious statistics like the "1 in 5" here. If you changed that to the real percentage, parents would worry less about it, and feel like their child was safe enough without implementing even the most obvious common-sense measures to combat a rare, but very real threat. These groups probably feel they need to have a scarier number to sufficiently motivate people, so they latched on to a stat that, with enough obfuscation and fudging of the actual information, makes the problem seem more critical than it is. This is not to justify the practice (which, BTW, happens all the time in this world, not just in the "think of the children" spheres), but that is the probable reason for perpetuating a fallacious statistic.
Not to mention that there is a whole industry surrounding the issue that depends on scaremongering for its existence and profits -- think, for example, of all the cybernanny blocking programs being sold. (Brings back memories of the old "satanic ritual abuse" panic -- a lot of people made a lot of money out of books, TV shows, etc. devoted to the subject. Not to mention "therapists" who plied their trade of recovering bogus "repressed memories" at a pretty decent hourly rate...)
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
The "1 in 5" statistic is seriously skewed by the avalanche of propositions Taco receives. Yes Taco, we've seen the notches now stop reporting these incidents please.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
I would like to Digg this story to spread the word more...
A few generations ago, before they allowed women in, they had separate changing rooms for men and boys.
Even back before the current scaremongering, I've known several pools that had separate times for "adult swim," "kids and family swim," and "open swim." Adult meant nobody under a certain age. Kids and family meant no adults without a kid or youth escort.
This was more for comfort than safety: Adults who are not swimming with kids they are bringing are typically either swimming for exercise or doing an organized activity like Marco Polo.
While kids do these things too much more frequently they are just playing.
These activities tend to get into each others' way. It's simply easier to separate them by time.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
From the report:
Age of SolicitorYounger Than 18 Years 43% (All) 44% (Aggressive Incidents) 40% (Distressing Incidents)
So almost half of the sexual solicitations to children are BY children. That is a pretty worrisome figure. But than my next question is, how many adults have been sexually solicited online and how many by children? I've never been sexually solicited online by an adult, I have been by underage female teens (both online and offline). So who is thinking of the me, us, the adults?
I say 1 in 5 politicians are corrupt while the other 4 in 5 lie.
I can control when and where I drive.
I cannot control when and where a terrorist will attack.
I can control if my child will be a victim of incest at my hands. I have some control over whether she will be a victim of a family friend or babysitter, by choosing who she is allowed to be alone with.
I cannot control if my child will be a victim of a random kidnapping.
Lack of control causes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and frankly, it scares people beyond all reasonable proportion.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
So you're making light of an adult "merely" asking a minor for a phone number? While it's fair game to question statistical numbers being touted by politicians and child advocacy groups, like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, because you're concerned it might affect your ability to freely surf the net, it's irresponsible to paint sexual solicitation of children as no big deal. Personally, I'm more than willing to consider giving up some freedom to protect others.
Does this mean that they went ahead and arrested the 30-year-old and marked him as a sex offender for having documented and absolutely unmistakably consensual sex?
When is there going to be a push to inform teens that they can completely ruin a persons life accidentally by having a serious and consensual relationship with them unless they completely hide any contact they are having with adults online and don't let anyone know where they are going or who they are meeting with.
There are constantly cases in the news where these broad fear fueled laws are making criminals out of innocent people or even the supposed victims themselves.
so is "context" "control" "damage" "intent" etc.
in other words, your understanding of the issues seems to be summed up by actuary tables comparing relative risks. this is only part of the concepts in play. i won't be condescending and talk about the other (pretty obvious) concepts, but what i will say is that if statistics were the only way to think about these issues, the world be a lot simpler place. unfortunately, it isn't so simple
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Children everywhere are far more concerned about the Monster Under the Bed issue. Four out of five children surveyed would gladly get in a van with anyone who can take care of the MUBs. Don't you claim that jumping from the floor to the bed and vice versa, thus avoiding the deadly 'near-bed zone' does anything. The average MUB has tentacles that are FAR longer than any child can jump. And don't try to tell me the 'hiding under the covers so they can't see you' trick works. MUBs can smell fear, everyone knows that. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they can't smell you. Please, grown-ups of the world, who will stand up and deal with the MUBs?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Perhaps decades would be harsh, how about 4 - 6 with no parole? Non-profits are tax-free (and other perks) because they are being rewarded for helping society. I'm not sure how over-stating the threat of online child predation is really helping society. My cynical mind sees that as a way for the organization to justify its existence. Truth should be our goal in all endeavors.
Blar.
There is a huge quantitiative and qualitative difference between
1 in 5, 1 in 50, 1 in 500, 1 in 5000, etc.
"1 in 5" means you and 4 others in your classroom fall into this category.
"1 in 50" means 1 person in every other classroom.
"1 in 500" means one person in every 20 classrooms.
"1 in 5000" means one person in every 200 classrooms.
That's a big difference on the scare-o-meter.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
98% of statistics are made up on the spot?
if we calculated risk based on actuary tables, we would probably be better for it
but we don't. and we never will
therefore, the deeper lesson is that human emotion carries into the equations. and talking about the issues without taking human emotion into account is wishful thinking, and ultimately fruitless thinking, since you will never remove human emotion from the equation, we will never become emotionless machines
in other words, talking about risks as related to terrorism and pedophilia as something cold and rational seems to be the intelligent alternative to hysteria. but an even more intelligent approach is to consider the consequences and causes of the hysteria as well, because the more intelligent person realizes the hysteria will never go away. we are talking about the behavior of human beings arer we not? do you understand the full ramifications of that fact? it is a quantity you must account for in your thinking, or your thinking does not adequately address reality
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The other four out of five recommend sugarless gum.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
When we hear all these scare statistics about the number of "Missing and Exploited" children, and see all the posters at such places as Wal-Mart, the term basically scares the public into thinking that huge numbers of children are being kidnapped for rape.
If you actually read the profiles under the pictures, you see that many of the children have the same last name as the "last seen with adult". In other words, many of these cases are custody cases where one parent left the state either before the custody case went to court, or after a court decision the parent didn't like.
I'm not condoning running from the law here. But these children really aren't likely to be in any danger. They are with a relative - just not the one the judge ordered.
I think it's disingenuous to lump them together with the runaways and children kidnapped by strangers who actually are in danger. It elevates the level of public paranoia by making the number of dangerous kidnappings seem higher, and uses that elevated paranoia to get a sympathetic populace to essentially enforce orders from family courts instead of focusing on finding the truly endangered.
OK, so what if it were found that there was a 1-in-1,000,000 chance of a minor being approached with sex talk on Slashdot? What measures would you be willing to accept to prevent that? Age and identity verification of all members? Banned keywords? Moderator approval of all postings?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Though I am sure some are responsive to soundbites, sometimes I think they exist to stifle and intimidate opposition. A thought terminating cliche could be a good description. For example calling pedophiles, "baby rapers", even if they are two years older than their almost adult victims, and insisting that such people be branded in this way, really puts reasonable people on the backfoot.
No one really wants or has the motivation to get into a protracted and emotive argument with such people, and so remain silent. I think the silent majority really doesn't care about pedophiles as much as the media exposure would suggest, and I think most of the media exposure is fueled by a minority who actually enjoy hearing about, and overreacting to, such macabre and lurid reports.
May the Maths Be with you!
idontreadbennetthaseltonarticles
If children were taught to ignore, block, and/or report such behavior and they did so, the threat to that particular child would be approximately zero for come-ons. There would still be some risk for emotional harm if the person sent porn with his first message, but that's not common.
Let's look at a slightly different threat: The threat of repeat sex offenders.
Some repeat sex offenders are at high risk to re-offend, and should be locked up or monitored very closely.
Others are at no more risk of re-offending than your average person is of offending in the first place. To waste resources tracking them and to waste their human capital by denying them housing and jobs is inefficient and harms society and when those resources are diverted from child-welfare-promoting activities, it harms the very children the sex-offender laws are designed to protect.
There are many others that are between the two extremes.
While psychology and statistics are not exact sciences, when used properly they can be pretty good at guessing a person's likely recidivism rate.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
A/S/L ?
.. when it comes to child safety.
The bad thing is used everywhere in the media; namely that it is easier for a sexual predator to get in touch with children without being seen.
The good thing is hardly ever mention in the media; namely that the online world is just that: the online world. In order to molest the child, the sexual predator has to move the interaction over to the real world. So essentially, there is a buffer between the child and the pedophile that the pedophile has to overcome and if the child acts in a sensible manner, there is virtually no risk of ending up molested due to Internet encounters.
Of course, children do not always act sensibly (hell, adults do not always act sensibly), so the risk is always there. The risk, can however be minimised to such an extent that it is negligible by combining adult supervision and both child and adult education.
how big r u?
You can do or say things online that can cause real emotional harm.
Luring a 12 year old into an online romance then gradually calling her a slut and telling her if she loves you she has to cyber with your friends and send nude photos of herself is unhealthy for the child.
The same goes for sending a kid unsolicited porn, especially if the kid hasn't seen porn.
On the flip side, from a purely psychological standpoint, an online romance that is love-based and respectful can in certain circumstances be healthy, as can be providing a kid who is ready for it and who asks for it a sample of pornography. However, both are generally offensive to the kid's parents and therefore should not be done without their blessing. Odds are slim to none they will ever give such a blessing, ans slim just left town.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You dare to question the people who are just looking out for the children? Why, I bet you're a child molester yourself. Why else would you be defending them, huh? We all know that people who keep shouting about "privacy" are really just using it as an excuse to hide their evil, awful, perverted ways.
(Also, they're all terrorists who hate America.)
The statistic is now with us forever, just like the incorrect 1 and 4 women raped in college statistic.
Lies beget lies.
I engaged an unnamed "pro-family" organisation in an email discussion on their pornography statistics, that 12-17s were the largest consumers of Internet pornography. When pressed for the source, they cited "Internet Filter Review".
The cached version of this page http://web.archive.org/web/20070103225905/http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics.html cites: Largest consumer of Internet pornography - 12-17 age group.
Whereas the current version http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics.html has the more plausible: Largest consumer of Internet pornography - 35-49 age group.
A quick google confirms that there are still 260-odd references to the frankly ludicrous claim that a child can outpr0n an adult, although to be fair to the organisation I corresponded with, they did change their web site to reflect the update. When I did some digging into the sources for the stats overall, they included the 1986 Meese Commission Report (in and of itself considered unreliable), and Top Ten Reviews themselves (who do clearly have an interest in over-stating the scale of the problem) disclaim everything with:
"Statistics are compiled from the credible sources mentioned. In reality, statistics are hard to ascertain and may be estimated by local and regional worldwide sources."
try not to walk into that conversation acting exactly like that stereotype
the stereotype being: someone who is afraid of nothing
i warned that someone who is afraid of nothing, AND someone who is afraid of everything, are the extremes you want to avoid in behavior
the moderate, wise, prudent individual worries about something
the extremist idiots worry about nothing, or everything
and here you are, right on queue, telling us there is nothing to worry about
and you accuse me of being worried about everything, right after i said that such a person was stupid, in my own words, in the post you are replying to
incredible, the blindness
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Cowardly societies? No way, man! Simply, no effing way! My mom always told me if a stranger offered me candy, that I should just get in his van.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Just asked.
That's a pretty lame attack.
All it means if you include just asking for a phone number as abuse is that you think that your children (or others' children) are so weak willed they must accede to requests by anyone for private information.
If this is true, don't ever let them out of the house.
Yes, my children, and when we discussed it (after kicking the offender from the group) they assured me that while it was a practically daily experience at high school, it rarely occurred on-line, and they never gave the time of day in either situation.
Obviously then, my kids should count in that "1 in 5". However, I still think it's alarmist - kids have been solicited forever, and educating them about how to handle such situations without fearmongering is the correct course of action.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I taught my two sons that if they were ever solicited online to gather as much information as possible about the perv and then to extort as much cash as possible. I offered protection for a mere 10% cut, plus a 5% service fee for the network.
Big difference. He was annoyed by children, I am afraid the lazy tax-leeching parents will accuse me of some made-up child-related wrong-doing. You can never get your name back after being accused of doing something wrong to a child, even if the courts exonerate you. I just don't want to put myself in a dangerous situation.
Blar.
People take the dumbest statistics at face value. Best started his book Damned Lies and Statistics with a journal article's statistic that "Every year since 1950, the number of American children gunned down has doubled".
Those of us who have put grains of rice on a chess board know that North America is pretty desolate now.
When will the public wake up to the fact that 61% of everything that the news media reports is a lie?[*]
[*]clinically proven
1 in 5 of them are correct.
-x- Sorry my bad English. I'll have him tarred and feathered. -x-
How creationists find "evidence" for their theories.
Meh, I read it in a self help book. The author could be pulling shit out of his butt, you know how self help authors are.
Tony Robbins HUNGRY!
But it sounds good, and plausible, doesn't it? It may even be true.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I think this is a side effect of the poorly executed plans to ban indoor smoking. When Boston did this, the amount of cigarette butts on the sidewalks quadrupled overnight. I'm surprised Boston hasn't considered an outdoor ban yet.
contradicting yourself in your own words
read your post above, and observe the following, then get back to me when you figure out how to reconcile the contradictions in your own statements:
0 != 0.00001
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
now you have to realize that that phenomenon of human nature is a solid, unmoving factor in and of itself. that yes, someone is factually wrong on the perceived risk, but being factually wrong never stopped anyone from being a human being
in other words, simply saying that human nature is often irrational does not stop people from being irrational. and asking people to suddenly behave in ways no human group has ever behaved in the history of humanity, in every time period, in every culture, is not truth, or wisdom, or intelligence
you see a lot of people here saying "it is stupid to do {xyz}"
well yes, it is, but that doesn't stop people from doing {xyz}, so you haven't actually solved the problem
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The truth about how much the "Save Our Children" folks will lie to garner sympathy, donations, fame, etc., hit me hard almost three decades ago.
The Phil Donahue show interviewed a guy from the major child protection outfit of the day. (I believe, though I'm not sure, that it was the NCMEC, back before they obtained quasi-governmental, beyond-reproach status.) This was back when the first scares about "your children are being targeted by slavers/devil worshippers/perverts" were first gearing up. The rep plainly and unambiguously said that 50,000 children a year go missing.
50,000.
The entire audience was nodding their heads and agreeing about how this was a terrible problem. Something, however, bothered me about that number. Then I remembered - I had done a report in school about casualties during the Vietnam war. We had about 50,000 casualties during the time period I looked at for the report.
Everyone I knew had some family member who was killed or injured in Vietnam. NOBODY known to me had a family member who was a "missing child." Something was wrong here. If 50,000 children a year went missing, there wouldn't have been anyone in that audience; they would have all been out looking for their children.
I actually did some investigating. The stats they were quoting resulted from adding up every possible definition of "missing child." They included children who were being cared for by the (legally) non-custodial parent. They included every runaway reported, even if the runaway child returned 10 minutes after the police were called. They included throwaways. They included every damn thing they could possibly count, including certain "projections" for any numbers they thought unreported. In other words, they weren't even terribly circumspect about the fact they were exaggerating like crazy.
Then I did some research on what we think of when we think of "missing child" - a little kid, snatched by a stranger for nefarious purposes. There wasn't a lot of data. The only organization that had done much research was the Illinois state police. They concluded that by-stranger abductions of pre-high school kids happened at a rate of, roughly, 50 to 150 times a year in the U.S. Those numbers had been stable for some time and, afaik, remain so today.
Yes, some kids to get snatched, raped, and murdered. But there are so few that it's impossible to protect against it since the circumstances are so statistically anomalous that they can't be predicted.
We would actually raise healthier, happier, more social and caring children if we'd teach them to strike up conversations with and be trusting of strangers at every opportunity. Strangers are so statistically unlikely to be a threat that they can be entirely discounted as such. Those 100 or so kids are going to cross paths with a truly evil person and die every year, anyway; there's no need to instill fear in all the rest to protect against something that can't really be stopped.
You wanna really protect little kids against real sexual abuse instead of wasting resources protecting them against some kid on the playground who steals a kiss or a boogeyman so rare as to be practically nonexistent? There are lots of guys who are a little dodgy but not a real threat; they would never dream of snatching a kid off the street. Put them in the house with a constantly available little girl or boy, however, and temptation starts to rise. If you really want to protect kids, here's what you do: Don't let Mom's new boyfriend move in. Even more generally - don't trust family members just because they're family members; they're the ones who will betray that trust.
That, however, isn't neat and easy like scaring parents because their kids are using the internet. That would actually require morality, hard work, a principled approach to the way people live their lives. That's way too much work. It'll never happen. Better to just go back to scaremongering.
--- can't get anyone to look at their MySpace page.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
To be honest, I don't know a proper solution to it.
I do know that, just because a law is draconian and does have good intentions, does not mean it will be effective.
I was simply trying to point out the problem with ignoring the issue if indeed the actual statistics don't match up to the "1 in 5" lawmakers spew around.
Beny"I'm a humble person really,
I'm actually much greater than I think I am"
let the manipulators have free reign. because the only true bulwark against manipulation is people's own judgments. and the best way to build a good bullshit meter is to expose it to a lot of bullshit
;-)
;-)
meanwhile, if you destroy all of the sources of propaganda in this world, you merely breed a bunch of people who wouldn't know propaganda if they saw it
this is in fact one of the values of free speech. you don't realize it, but the implication of your words above is censorship. obviously, you are against censorship, so realize why your words above are wrong
with free speech, everything get spoken. all ideas. all of the bad ones and all of the evil ones, along with the good and intelligent ones. people must sort through all fo the bullshit in order to find the best ideas, and the only way they can do that is to be exposed to all of the propaganda and bullshit in the world to know it when they see it
there is no omnipotent governmental source to tell you what is a good idea or bad idea, you need to judge it for yourself. that is why i say don't censor racism or religious bigotry for example. let it out there, for everyone to see and be exposed to, so that most everyone rejects it. yes, a few feeble minds will accept the bullshit, but feeble minds will do feeble things no matter how much you shield them. it is far better to get the bullshit out there, to strengthen and train the majority of good minds out there
oh and btw, marijuana should be legal, but highly addictive and inebriating drugs like heroin, coke, and meth must be fought for ever. simply because yes, the negative effects of the war on drugs is real, but the negative effects of more tolerance of highly addictive/ inebriating is drugs is far worse
but i fully support your right to say the war on drugs is wrong. so when challenged and asked to defend your beliefs, other people who hear you will come to realize why your way of thinking is wrong
for heroin, coke, and meth, the war on drugs must go on forever, merely a maintenance function of civilization. its like taking out the trash. if you dont take out the trash, your house becomes unliveable. if you don't clean up the inevitable drug addicts and drug dealers in society, society becomes unliveable. they accumulate. so the war on drugs is really the same as "the war on trash"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Maybe you go a little too far. I agree that > 19% of kids encountering "unwanted sex talk" on the internet might be acceptable. But I wouldn't say that 1/1501 of kids actually having sex with adults they meet on the internet is per se an acceptable number, as you suggest when you say 'People who cite the study can't have their cake and eat it too, taking the "1 in 5" number as accurate but discounting the fact that none of the teens surveyed reported a sexual relationship with an adult they met online.' To me the margin for that particular category ought to be so small that this sample doesn't really measure it.
Well, if the statistic is still 1 in 5 after all this time, then obviously whatever measures have been put in place so far isn't working and should be scrapped. So, don't think of the children, it doesn't help.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
They actually define with online sexual exploitation, just before the the numbers the article quotes.
Further checking their site finds definitions and explanations for all the numbers they put out.
The problem you have is that mainstream news wants rating so they take items and change them as indicated in this article.
If you want some examples of the organizations spreading false numbers how about:
NOW and their most domestic violence takes place on superbowl sunday.
Anti-gun groups and their statements that you are one in three times more likely to be killed if you law abiding gun owner than not owning a gun.
Actually, at least the last time I was in a YMCA building, which was after they started letting women in, they still had separate changing rooms for men and boys. There were three changing rooms - one for men, one for boys, and one for "women & girls". Yep. Women, of course, are above suspicion in these matters.
Not that I didn't appreciate being able to change without a bunch of brats running around... but I found the implication a bit on the insulting side.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
If you're going to sit there and tear apart the statistics, don't try and make a case using another statistic that is probably just as corrupt. "Sexual victimization" could be a wide range of things and who knows how they've counted it. It could even include things like "did a boy ever whistle at you?".
I know plenty of former stoners who had a hell of a time quitting--some needed group therapy in order to quit their compulsive marijuana use (like for alcoholics). I know of no 12-step orange juice cessation programs.
Marijuana definitely lends itself to compulsive use, and it's totally ridiculous to say that "it isn't addictive" just because of the lack of physical withdrawal symptoms. Case in point: I get addicted to caffeine from time to time. When I become addicted, I suffer physical withdrawal symptoms (headache, tremors, irritability, etc.) if denied my caffeine fix. I have, however, never had any difficulties overcoming the withdrawal symptoms and quitting until my body gets back to normal. It's way easier for me to go off caffeine (despite the physical addiction that I suffer) than it would be for a stoner to go off of marijuana.
Defining addiction strictly in terms of physical dependence seriously underestimates the stoner's compulsion to use marijuana. I bet I could go off caffeine longer and with significantly less effort than you could go off pot. Of course, you could probably go off sex much longer than I could go off of caffeine...
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I write sci-fi for metalheads
What I like less is when the government tells someone how they can't use their property.
1429 Safar 19:
Note to self:
Find out where Haeleth lives and blow up nearest Walmart.
If children are instructed less to stay away from situations where they are in reach of sexual predators, these environments actually become safer. The logic is that the appetite of the predators is more likely to stay constant than to scale with the number of children at risk.
It might be worth pointing out that the "Crimes Against Children Research Center" is a non-profit whos existance depends on there being a perception that children are in grave dangers of suffering at the hands of a violent criminal.
:-)
They have an agenda just like the pervs on the other side.
Perhaps we should dismiss them both and come up with our own opinions.
Since when does 'teen' mean 'children'?
In some countries people become adults at something like 16-18, but I was under the impression that even in the US children become adults during their teens (except for drinking alcohol, strangely).
Am I missing something?
Max.
...pedophiles are the current popular scapegoat, and authorities' current mind control mechanism of choice manifests itself as a puritanical war on the sexuality of children and young people.
In this climate, bias, corruption and profiteering are rife.
Maybe, but if the majority actually disliked stupid arguments such as this, they would stop listening and the news media would stop reporting it. I think more likely is that the "silent majority" doesn't know what the fuck is actually going on, and will watch anything the news puts on the tube that draws their attention. They just listen to what they're being told. Whether they actually care or not is irrelevant if they're still watching.
Where the survey included consensual sex that they regretted the morning after.
Vermifax
Logout
"The smokers have only themselves to blame for outdoor bans. Indoors, they would never even consider throwing a lit cigarette on the floor and walking away"
I'm sorry but banning outdoor smoking is the fruit of well meaning control freaks espousing the kind of hyperbole and sloppy thinking that TFA is trying to deter. I've been a smoker for 30yrs and it has not turned me into a pig yet.
"As long as a large percentage of smokers don't care about the cleanliness of their environments"
So where does the rest of the fith come from? - Judging by the by a council tractor that rakes the beach a 100mtrs from here every day of the year, I would say beach pinics and recreational boating produce 4-5 orders of magnitude more litter than smokers. In other words one 'filthy habit' is completely unrelated to the other 'filthy habit'.
Your assertions and the laws they support are nonsensical and have the potential to intefere with my habit of having a smoke while watching the sunset or the odd thunderstorm from my local beach, that incidently MY rates pay to clean up after others who constantly trash it despite the well maintained litter bins ever 50m or so.
I do agree there is a particular problem with discarded butts and certain marine life and mandating paper filters rather than foam would eliviate that problem. My 'solution' to pigs in general is not fines or bans, I say make them clean up someone else's mess during a public holiday day, preferably in distinctive clothing along highways, trains tracks and beaches so other pigs get the message.
"Respect the rights of others if you want them to respect yours."
You have the words, but you fail to recognise that your post is a call for institutionalised 'lack of respect' based on nothing more than personal prejudice. Banning outdoor smoking is just another pooly thought out extention to the punative 'war on drugs' that if nothing else has demonstrated beyond doubt that the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions.
Now get off my beach (I don't have a lawn).
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
...is on the PNAC todo list. Whip up enough fear, and you can do just about anything - to anybody.
The PNAC list at http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf includes:
Page 57:Don't think that quote is relevant, or think that I am exaggerating its relevance to the issue of fear-mongering about the 'net?
Consider the major players who are in PNAC - you can find them at the bottom of http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
Then consider this quote from page 14 of the PNAC todo list:Then remember that the PNAC "todo" list was released in September of 2000, before the first Bush/PNAC election and before 9/11, and long before the 935 lies about WMDs et al were revealed to be lies.
Finally, remember who uses phrases like "decades of patient effort" and "maybe a hundred years" as you ponder the meaning of "the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein".Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
And that grass would have never ever burned from some other cause?
Let's not blame the careless smoker too much. Some neglectful party had to leave all that grass untrimmed, waiting for a spark.
"As the authors of the research upon which these numbers are based, we believe these statistics often have been misunderstood. The following points are important caveats that those using or quoting this statistic need to understand in order to avoid further confusion."
Full Text: http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/internet-crimes/1in7Youth.pdf
Grass untrimmed in the drought season ? It's not even growing anymore and if you cut it you kill it..