AVID viewers of Coronation Street have been watching with interest the events which have been going on with Sarah-Louise Platt. Sarah-Louise has not had a particularly easy life, becoming a young teenage mother is difficult enough, but she, like many teenagers, turned to modern technology to help her.
The nation's youth is changing. When I was young we had written pen-pals. We exchanged photographs and addresses and, for quite a few years, most children would write to someone in another country. Modern children don't need to have these written pen-pals. Why try and write or type onto tissue paper posing as air-mail paper and wait for weeks to receive a reply? In this modern age of communications a person can get a response in minutes through e-mail. But more than this it is possible to get an instant response, a response from anywhere in the world can be sent in real-time through the use of a chat-room. This is where people log on to a part of the Internet (or use a special program using an Internet connection) and can type to each other: it is the equivalent of a text-based telephone call, although you can even send pictures or music while typing.
This technology has tremendous potential. It is not just international friends that can be made but national ones too. There are chat-rooms set up for just about anything, and people can talk about a particular pop-group, television programme, or even just have a general chat. Again this can be hugely beneficial to children, allowing them to find new friends from different parts of the globe, which can only help their development. It's simple, it's innocuous but it can have its drawbacks.
The main issue of concern is where chat-rooms are being used to find and befriend children. Sarah-Louise Platt encountered a mild form of this difficulty when she first began using chat-rooms. She began chatting to someone, found that he lived near her and arranged to meet him. When she turned up she discovered that it was her best-friend's boyfriend. Nothing particularly harmful happened - except for a great deal of loud-volume shouting - but it illustrates one of the crucial difficulties in this whole area, it is almost impossible to be sure who you are talking to. If you do not use a webcam - and most people do not because they can be infuriatingly slow - then there is no particularly easy way to decide even the age or sex of the person you are talking to.
You can go on to a chat-room and be whoever you want to be - age, sex, career, are all irrelevant because no-one knows. Some suggest that this is all part of the fun of chat-rooms but it can also be a significant danger, as Sarah-Louise finds out when things turn nasty.
Coronation Street is fictional, but unfortunately this particular story-line is not. There have been numerous cases where adults have used the Internet to befriend children. Some cases involved adults posing as children, others stated their age was considerably lower than it was.
With adults like these, the motivation is sexual. The process is known as "grooming" and is not restricted to on-line activities, but the use of chat-rooms has caused concern to experts because it makes the first contact much easier, as the anonymity of the Internet allows people to pretend they are someone they are not.
Once contact has been established, then the traditional pattern of grooming is to keep chatting to them using chat-rooms, email and then mobile telephones. Again all of these ensure the anonymity is still present. If there has been a significant lie about age then he may start to admit a greater age. The steps will be small because by then the paedophile will hope that the child now considers him to be a friend - or indeed her boyfriend - and so will forgive what he will portray as a "white lie".
Eventually the adult will persuade the child that she is "in love" with him and suggest a meeting takes place. Whilst it may seem unlikely that this could happen, it is not. Most paedophiles are not stupid, they are intelligent people who can manipulate children into believing things. Think about how teenagers react to compliments, for instance. How often do teenagers "fall in love" with people?
A illustration of how this can happen can be found in a book written by a victim. The book, called Katie.com, is by Katherine Tarbox. It is powerful reading and shows how the grooming process can work.
So are the dangers of the Internet such that children should avoid chat-rooms? Can anything be done to combat paedophiles on the Internet?
As part of a government-led Internet task force on child protection, I am helping examine the whole issue. But the immediate concern is the chatroom and the Government is considering whether new laws are required in this area. There is already a commitment from ministers to act if necessary.
But there is also a need for the industry to help. Again there is a commitment to do this. The industry is developing technological solutions to the problem and there is a growth in the moderated chat-room, where Internet conversations are monitored by adults.
The final piece of action required, however, is to be undertaken by parents and children themselves. The Internet - and chat-rooms - can be an invaluable educational and social development tool. There should be no panic, don't stop using the Internet, but there should be an awareness of the dangers and how to stop them.
AN excellent site which helps educate both parents and children was set up by Childnet International, a charity which is dedicated to protecting children on the Internet. The site's address is www.chatdanger.com.
The basic rules of safe Internet surfing are not to give out personal details, and certainly not an address or post code.
Remember that the people you meet on-line are strangers. It is very easy to believe that the people you chat too are friends, but do you really know who they are, how old they are and what they do? Without that information - and a way of checking it - how can they be true friends? Physically meeting on-line pals can also be risky. Think about what could happen. Don't go alone and also be wary if there is any suggestion that you should travel long-distances by yourself, or if there is a suggestion that you should keep it a "secret" from friends or family.
Sarah-Louise Platt survives the story-line. Unfortunately there are teenagers across Britain, and indeed the world, who are not so lucky.
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