For those of you sitting around waiting for the Big Game on this Super Bowl Sunday, as a prep to my Monday 2/2/2009 afternoon post, I wanted to pass along a May 2007 discussion sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee.
The research conducted by several of the social scientists seated on the panel is cited in the final report of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies.
The findings by the task force that "...sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is not a significant problem..." doesn't quite mesh with the expectations of this country's Attorneys General, who actually created the task force in the first place.
Florida very own Attorney General Bill McCollum signed on as a task force member back in January 2007. (Read the his press release here).
“Unfortunately, cybercrime is very prevalent on the internet, and I commend MySpace and its parent company, News Corporation, for working diligently to protect our children,” said Attorney General McCollum. “We must take every opportunity to make the internet a safer place for children, and I encourage other social networking sites to adopt many of the design changes announced by MySpace today.”
Bill McCollum has been predictably mum since the release of his sanctioned report.
Stunned that the results of the task force report infer a "We Were Wrong All Along" connotation, several AGs have publicly discredited the research cited within the report as "outdated and inadequate". (Funny. It's okay to pass sex offender laws based on "outdated" DOJ research.......hmmmm).
What's really going on here?
The AGs are attempting to obscure the truths brought to light by the researchers.
New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte said that while the report was an important step forward in identifying how to combat online predators, it relied on "outdated and inadequate research that downplayed the effects of child predators."
"The task force report is one piece of information, but I don't want people to be left with the impression that there is not a problem," Ayotte said. "Unfortunately, we still see cases here in New Hampshire and across the country where children are being solicited."
We'll talk about just who is soliciting who tomorrow.
Until then, take a listen to what our lawmakers and top law enforcement officials have been keeping to themselves and what our media has chosen not to report to everyday Americans.
The "Just the Facts About Online Youth Victimization" discussion is now listed in my sidebar, along with links to the respective panel member's websites and research.
Regardless of the Attorneys General protests, the findings of the report is getting out to all the right people. Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies was presented during the fifth annual "State of the Net" conference Wednesday, January 28, 2009 in Washington, D.C.
Oh, to have been a fly on that wall.
Just The Facts About Online Youth Victimization
--danah boyd,
Researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a Fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society
panel video and audio PDF transcript
--danah boyd,
Researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a Fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Last week, i had the honor of joining three amazing (quant) social scientists on an Internet Caucus panel in DC. David Finkelhor (Director of Crimes Against Children Research Center), Amanda Lenhart (PEW), and Michele Ybarra (President of Internet Solutions for Kids) all presented quantitative data while i batted qualitative cleanup...I was very pleasantly shocked to find that all of us were completely on the same page and that most of the press coverage of Michele and David's work has been terrible in representing the implications of their findings...:
The video is presented over several nine minute segments and should it fail to run through completion here at Smashed Frog, feel free to watch the panel discussion in its entirely here at danah boyd's website.. Around segment four around the 4:05 marker, this declaration by danah boyd really jumped out at me.
"...If you are a police officer pretending to be a 14 year old seeking sexual solicitation, you can get it...but this is not what the teenagers are doing..."
