Police, parents and children’s organizations are alarmed at the growing trend of “sexting”, where young people send explicit and indecent photos to each other using their mobile phones. Did you know that one in every five teenagers say they have electronically sent, or posted online, nude or semi-nude images of themselves?
It's not just the risk of sending the photo on a mobile device that's causing concern, now police say predators are increasingly trolling social networking sites to find explicit pictures taken by teenagers of each other. They then contact the young people involved, using the photos to blackmail them into committing indecent acts.
Murad Ahmed of the Times Online reports that what started out as risqué fun among adolescents has spread quickly and with serious consequences. In the past year, there has been a huge rise in the number of pictures being stored on hard drives by pedophiles that have been taken by teenagers in relationships.
Often the photographs are taken by teenagers in relationships who then split up and place them on social networking sites such as Facebook or BeBo. The pictures also get passed around by friends at school, leading to cyberbullying.
New research in August 2009 revealed that a quarter of all youngsters between 11 and 18 have received a “sext” by phone or email. Controversial cases of sexting in the U.S., England and Australia have resulted in campaigns to educate young people about the dangers of their behavior. Teenagers across America have been arrested on child pornography charges, cases of cyberbullying and suicide as a result of sexting are on the rise, and there have been reports of high school graduates losing jobs or college scholarships as a result of being identified in sexually suggestive pictures on the Internet.
Attention Parents! You need to educate your kids about keeping track of their digital footprint, not only for online privacy issues, but because it could come back to haunt them in a serious way. As a parent, it is your responsibility to teach them about these things. It's understandable if you don't know yourself, so start by reading the digital footprint definition, and sexting and cyberbullying -- and read the "see also" and "more info" links. Read through NetLingo terms like these once a week with your kids and have them be the expert and explain it all to you. The point is do whatever it takes to open up the lines of communication so your kids know they can come to you about cyber safety issues if and when the need arises.
The message is this: If you don't want an image of yourself to be seen by other people, don't take it because once you share content electronically, you've lost control of it. Pictures are like a cyber-tattoo, it is easy to publish information but difficult to get it removed. Oh and BTW, adults: This goes for you too!
ITS,
Erin
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