The War on Child Pornography, What to do?
By Robert T DeMarco
Third in a series of articles about Internet Crimes Against Children.
If you are a parent of a child between the ages of 10-17 it is likely that your child is receiving unsolicited pornographic images. These are typically sent by “bots” to everyone who enters a chat room where children congregate. If you don’t believe this then all you need to do is set up a profile describing yourself as a 14 year old and start entering a few chat rooms. It will not be long before you will start getting bombarded by unsolicited instant messages (IMs) with embedded hyperlinks that lead to pornography. It also won’t be long before you receive IMs from anonymous strangers asking you what you are wearing and asking questions of a sexual nature. Some of these anonymous strangers are adults disguised as kids looking for vulnerable or inquisitive kids. When this occurs you become a candidate for a more sinister and illegal form of pornography—child pornography.
Recently, I wrote a series of articles about pedophilia and child pornography on the Internet. As a result, many people asked me to write an article about what to do when a child receives a pornographic image or a sexual solicitation while on the Internet. There are three good ways to deal with this problem: use the CyberTipline offered by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), contact the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) unit near you, or call your local law enforcement department and ask for the Internet crimes unit. I will explain the importance of taking action below.
The best way to report a crime against a child is by using the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children CyberTipline. The CyberTipline contains unique categories for:
Article comments
1 - Ms. Tek
Geesh... No where do I see it mentioned:
Monitor what your child is doing on the internet.
Take personal responsibility.
If you don't teach your child not to take candy from strangers or leave them in the middle of a theme park without supervision, what do you think is going to happen?
This is nothing new... the new part is people wanting to take less personal responsibility. If you are going to breed and spawn then you are responsible for taking care of that child YOURSELF. Its not my job, your neighbor's job or the government's job. If you don't have the time to watch what your kid is doing on the internet, perhaps you shouldn't have had a kid.
My mother didn't let me do whatever I wanted and told me no was no and I couldn't watch whatever I wanted on tv, hang out wherever.
This is almost as bad as being in Britain which has this obsession with pedophiles are lurking in every pantry.
God forbid parents ever accept some responsibility in this day and age.
Welcome to drive through parenting.
2 - boomcrashbaby
Ms. Tek, you are welcome to baby sit in this house anytime you want. :-)
When I first got on the net, I went to chat rooms, well.. to chat. Now that I know what they are like, all I can say is if my daughter wants to talk with someone, she can use the phone.
Same thing applies to the tube. If I don't want my daughter to see something, I will monitor it, I don't need America to sanitize every channel and make it kid friendly, so I can let the tv raise my kid. Then daddy has nothing fun to watch.
3 - Ms. Tek
haha... BCB... most parents seem to be afraid that I am going to run off with their children and get them tattooed.
4 - Robert T DeMarco
RE: Geesh... No where do I see it mentioned:Monitor what your child is doing on the internet
Patience. I am working my way to an article which should create some controversy. "Should Parents Monitor the Behavior of their Children on the Internet?"
I can tell you already, sometimes the "spit" flows on that issue.
bob
5 - boomcrashbaby
Hmm, well since daddy's got a tattoo or two of his own, I couldn't really complain could I? She loves butterflies and Elmo from Sesame Street. Since tattooes are permanent, daddy votes for the butterfly.
6 - Ms. Tek
No worries.
No tattoos until 18. =)