2008 Woodie Awards
Authorities say many teens at risk on social Web sites
Associated Press
Issue date: 2/23/06 Section: News
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On MySpace.com, teenagers can find kindred spirits who share their love of sports, their passion for photography or their crush on a Hollywood star. They can also find out where their online friends live, where they attend school, even what they look like.
And so can adults.
Parents, school administrators and police are increasingly worried that teens are finding trouble online at sites like MySpace, the leader of the social-networking sites that encourage users to build larger and larger circles of friends.
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, underscoring just how in the dark parents often are about one of the most popular Web activities for teens today.
There are other reports like these scattered around the country, prompting some parents and schools to equate the likes of MySpace with the Internet's red-light district, even as many experts believe that the worries are greater than the actual dangers.
Joseph Dooley is among those who has heard it all before. A retired FBI agent who supervised the agency's first undercover Internet task force in New England, Dooley remembers when America Online chat rooms were the rage. Teens posted detailed profiles of themselves and chatted with any of AOL's subscribers.
Chat rooms soon gave way to services like MySpace, but Dooley said the rules haven't changed and parents need to become more engaged.
"Let the kids know, on the Internet, you don't know who you're talking to," Dooley said. "Parents aren't the friends of their kids. Parents needs to know and observe what their kids are doing."
That can be daunting for working parents. Keeping tabs on the kids used to mean knowing where they went after school, not whom they talked to in their bedrooms.
And so can adults.
Parents, school administrators and police are increasingly worried that teens are finding trouble online at sites like MySpace, the leader of the social-networking sites that encourage users to build larger and larger circles of friends.
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, underscoring just how in the dark parents often are about one of the most popular Web activities for teens today.
There are other reports like these scattered around the country, prompting some parents and schools to equate the likes of MySpace with the Internet's red-light district, even as many experts believe that the worries are greater than the actual dangers.
Joseph Dooley is among those who has heard it all before. A retired FBI agent who supervised the agency's first undercover Internet task force in New England, Dooley remembers when America Online chat rooms were the rage. Teens posted detailed profiles of themselves and chatted with any of AOL's subscribers.
Chat rooms soon gave way to services like MySpace, but Dooley said the rules haven't changed and parents need to become more engaged.
"Let the kids know, on the Internet, you don't know who you're talking to," Dooley said. "Parents aren't the friends of their kids. Parents needs to know and observe what their kids are doing."
That can be daunting for working parents. Keeping tabs on the kids used to mean knowing where they went after school, not whom they talked to in their bedrooms.