Keeping Children out of Danger on the Information Highway

Modern technology advances continue to move at the speed of  light, if not faster. With the growth of the internet and social media, applications protecting the most vulnerable among  children from perverse evil on the internet is an effort that grows and expands daily.

Even under the best of conditions, sexual predators still manage to murder the souls and wreck the lives of children and families throughout communities,  earlier this week State Rep. Tina Davis held a forum to educate parents about internet safety to protect their children.

Operation Safe Surf held in the auditorium of Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Bristol Township Wednesday night targeted strategies and provided information for  the community to prevent real life internet tragedies from occurring.

Part of Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane’s initiative to protect  children she said the state’s top lawyer recently said “social media and the Internet create a virtual playground for predators to profile and groom young people in order to exploit or harm them,” at a public appearance earlier this month.

David Shallcross, senior community liaison for the state attorney general,  emphasized parents roles in keeping children safe.

“Parents have to be parents, not their children’s best friend, ” when it comes to the many ways for predators to reach, communicate and target children,”  he said

The tragic stories of two young girls, one taken hostage by a male predator and held captive,  another murdered by a young man she had been chatting with for months pointed out what might not be so obvious to parents of children using various social media programs.

If you take a picture of your 6-year-old daughter at her birthday party, there’s equipment out there that can triangulate your location, right to your door. What was meant to be a happy event could turn into a tragedy,” Shallcross said.

Davis shared the experience of her daughter who was attempting to sell an item on a popular internet site.

“She started getting messages from this man at around 2:30 a.m. nightly and we dealt with it head on,”  Davis said.

According to the Youth Internet Safety Survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, one in five children, ages 10 to 17, received unwanted sexual solicitations online.

It’s the  “the scariest thing I’ve had to deal with in 16 years,” because authorities are usually called after something tragic has happened, Pennsylvania State Trooper William Griffith said.

If you’re seeing MIRL (Meet In Real Life)  on your child’s computer or cell phone  its time to be a parent,  Shallcross reinforced.

Its time to be the authority when it comes to who your children communicate with on the internet, its the best way to protect them from predators, he said.

The Operation Safe Surf program educates parents about online predatory tactics used for the most sinister of purposes and is sponsored by the Pennsylvania State Attorney General’s office.

Anyone who has information about child predators is urged to contact the Attorney General’s Child Predator Unit at 1-800-385-1044.