bloodrayne
01-22-2006, 03:45 AM
Cop Thinks Some Kids Are 'Screening' For Help
Lisbon, Ohio - Parents need to be on their toes and keep their eyes on what children are viewing on the Internet.
Salem Township Constable Dan Valentine issued a warning to parents in the county: Be familiar with what children are looking at on the Internet and limit what they are doing.
He said that a Web site called myspace.com was brought to his attention by some parents. After investigating myspace.com and a few others, he agrees this site and others are nothing but dangerous for children.
"Web sites themselves are not dangerous, but non-supervised ones, where children can post whatever they want, present serious and dangerous issues for kids," Valentine said in a press release.
Myspace.com is a popular site for children to post online Web pages. There are no regulations or requirements for people wanting to post information so young people post what they want. Unfortunately, some of this includes personal information, family information and pictures. There are no parental controls for the Web site.
"While kids might think they are talking or sharing with the same-age peers, there is no guarantee of this," Valentine said.
Valentine said that myspace.com has become a fertile area for pedophiles and unscrupulous adults to troll for victims, children and information on how to reach them.
He added that myspace.com has surpassed Google as the top site to be visited on the Internet.
Myspace.com will allow any visitor to search for men or women within a certain mile radius of a zip code.
He added that when he talked with parents of some youngsters who had been fighting, and it was discovered that the argument was over talking on the Internet, many of the parents didn't even know their children had been visiting the site.
"Parents need to know about this and beware," Valentine said.
Valentine said Internet safety needs to be followed by parents in order to keep children safe.
"If a kid minimizes the screen when you walk in the room, it's a red flag that they are looking at something they don't want you to know about," Valentine said.
He added that parents should know who is on the buddy list for the children, and they should examine the Internet history often to see what children are viewing.
Valentine said that he recommends minimizing the time spent on the computer.
"Control how much time they spend on the computer. If children are spending all day in school with friends, then they shouldn't need to come home and talk for hours with friends on the Internet," Valentine said.
He added that some schools were not aware that sites like myspace.com were being visited so frequently by students, but when administrators were notified, the software to block sites was made to include myspace.com and a few other sites.
Some other sites to be aware of include alldumb.com, xanga.com, rotten.com and facebook.com.
Parents are reminded to beware when opening some of these Web pages because some of them are graphic.
Lisbon, Ohio - Parents need to be on their toes and keep their eyes on what children are viewing on the Internet.
Salem Township Constable Dan Valentine issued a warning to parents in the county: Be familiar with what children are looking at on the Internet and limit what they are doing.
He said that a Web site called myspace.com was brought to his attention by some parents. After investigating myspace.com and a few others, he agrees this site and others are nothing but dangerous for children.
"Web sites themselves are not dangerous, but non-supervised ones, where children can post whatever they want, present serious and dangerous issues for kids," Valentine said in a press release.
Myspace.com is a popular site for children to post online Web pages. There are no regulations or requirements for people wanting to post information so young people post what they want. Unfortunately, some of this includes personal information, family information and pictures. There are no parental controls for the Web site.
"While kids might think they are talking or sharing with the same-age peers, there is no guarantee of this," Valentine said.
Valentine said that myspace.com has become a fertile area for pedophiles and unscrupulous adults to troll for victims, children and information on how to reach them.
He added that myspace.com has surpassed Google as the top site to be visited on the Internet.
Myspace.com will allow any visitor to search for men or women within a certain mile radius of a zip code.
He added that when he talked with parents of some youngsters who had been fighting, and it was discovered that the argument was over talking on the Internet, many of the parents didn't even know their children had been visiting the site.
"Parents need to know about this and beware," Valentine said.
Valentine said Internet safety needs to be followed by parents in order to keep children safe.
"If a kid minimizes the screen when you walk in the room, it's a red flag that they are looking at something they don't want you to know about," Valentine said.
He added that parents should know who is on the buddy list for the children, and they should examine the Internet history often to see what children are viewing.
Valentine said that he recommends minimizing the time spent on the computer.
"Control how much time they spend on the computer. If children are spending all day in school with friends, then they shouldn't need to come home and talk for hours with friends on the Internet," Valentine said.
He added that some schools were not aware that sites like myspace.com were being visited so frequently by students, but when administrators were notified, the software to block sites was made to include myspace.com and a few other sites.
Some other sites to be aware of include alldumb.com, xanga.com, rotten.com and facebook.com.
Parents are reminded to beware when opening some of these Web pages because some of them are graphic.