Good Morning America Story on Sexting

This Morning, Good Morning America aired a town hall style meeting with teens and parents about Sexting. The piece features Perry Aftab of Wired Safety giving parents a few tips on how to check and see if your child has posted anything inappropriate online. It also features a teenage girl and her mother who share how she sent a nude photograph of herself to her boyfriend, who then forwarded the picture on to other people after they broke up. Here is the link to the video:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=7337547&page=1

Talk to your students and parents about Sexting. Let them know that Boston School Police and the Boston Police Department could prosecute students for breaking Massachusetts State child pornography laws including Chapter 272 Sections 28, 29, 29A, 29B, 29C. In summary, those laws basically say that you cannot distribute matter that is deemed harmful to minors, disseminate or possess obscene matter, or have anyone under the age of 18 pose for a picture in the state of nudity or engaged in sexual conduct. It is against the law for a picture to be taken and it is against the law for a person to forward that picture if they receive it.

Students that engage in this type of behavior could end up suffering serious consequences including arrest for a felony and registering as a sex offendor. Students who have taken nude photos of themselves and had them forwarded to unintended recipients have suffered severe emotional and psychological damage.

Another Sexting Story

Another day, another story about teenage sexting. Leroy Wong, A colleague of mine sent a link to this story from CNN. It is another case in which a teen is convicted of a crime after he sent out a nude photo of his ex-girlfriend via cell phone to friends. As is the case in many of these incidents, his girlfriend willingly sent him the photo of herself. Angry, after an argument, the teen decided to send the picture of her out to other people. As a result, he pleaded no contest to a felony charge of sending child pornography. He is now a registered sex offender in the state of Florida until he is 43 years old. He can't leave the country without making special plans with his probation officer and he has trouble finding a job because he is a convicted felon.

There are more and more cases like this popping up all over the country and it has set off a debate on whether or not teenagers should be punished so severely for sexting. There are those who consider it child pornography and that the offenders should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Then there are those who think that it is just teen indiscretion, child pornography laws were not made to be enforced in these types of cases.

One of the more interesting things that came out of this article is about a survey done by CosmoGirl.com and National Campaign to Prevent Teen & Unplanned Pregnancy. They surveyed about 1300 teens and young adults from ages 13-26 years old about sexting. Any of the findings they labeled as "teens" were from the group of 13-19 year olds. The results are very interesting including:

• 20% of the teens surveyed have sent nude or semi-nude photos of themselves
• 39% of the teens surveyed have sent sexually explicit messages
• 75% of the teens surveyed say sending sexually suggestive content "can have serious negative consequences"

So, 3 out of 4 kids surveyed know that there are negative consequences associated with sexting, but some of them are doing it anyway. In fact 44% of the teens say it is common for these pictures and messages to be shared with other people than the intended recipient. So the question is why do they do it? Here are the answers according to the survey:

Among teens who have sent sexually suggestive content:

• 66% of teen girls and 60% of teen boys say they did
  so to be “fun or flirtatious”— their most common
  reason for sending sexy content.
• 52% of teen girls did so as a “sexy present” for their
  boyfriend.
• 44% of both teen girls and teen boys say they sent
  sexually suggestive messages or images in response
  to such content they received.
• 40% of teen girls said they sent sexually suggestive
  messages or images as “a joke.”
• 34% of teen girls say they sent/posted sexually suggestive
  content to “feel sexy.”
• 12% of teen girls felt “pressured” to send sexually
  suggestive messages or images.

Along with this very insightful survey, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen & Unplanned Pregnancy website gives tips to parents on how to talk to their children about sexting. They also have a great tip sheet for teens as well, one that should be shared with all texting teens.

60 Minutes Report on Cyber Security

60 Minutes ran a story last night about computer viruses and the notorious Conficker worm that has been spreading to networks across the world.


Watch CBS Videos Online

Cyber Safety Mentors from the Greater Eggleston High School

Two weeks ago, the BPS Cybersafety Team was asked to present to the Greater Eggleston High School students as a part of their Health and Wellness Day at the school. The school lined up organizations to present on various issues of health and asked us to talk with their students about cyberbullying. So the team put together an hour long presentation for high school students about the different types of cyberbullying and strategies to avoid it. After the presentation, the students were encouraged to comment, ask questions, discuss what they just learned. The biggest response came when Felicia Vargas asked the group of students who would be interested in becoming a cybersafety mentor. The Greater Eggleston has a community service component in their curriculum and a lot of students expressed interest in becoming internet safety certified and teaching elementary school students about cybersafety strategies.

So this morning, three of those students came up to the offices of OIIT to become internet safety certified. They watched the videos from the iSAFE cybermentor certification program and we discussed the most important cybersafety strategies to teach elementary school students. Here were some of their ideas:

The students were quick to point out that the strategies to deal with cyberpredators were common sense things that a lot of teenagers already know, however, it is important for middle and elementary school students to understand that people sometimes misrepresent themselves online and try to take advantage of you.

On the topic of cyberbullying, the Eggleston mentors felt that it was important that students understand the consequences of their actions if they decide to be bullies. The consequences they have on their victims as well as the consequences they may face in school. They would also like to teach the students who are victims of cyberbullying to tell someone what is happening to them. They feel it is important that kids have someone who they trust to talk to and tell them if people are bullying them.

On the topic of Cybersecurity, the mentors felt that younger students need to learn how to be proactive when it comes to keeping their computers free of malware, instead of being reactive. One student said that she thinks most people don't learn about things like viruses and worms until they already have one on their computer and have to get it fixed. The solution they have is to teach students three important points about cybersecurity. First, they need to learn about what viruses, trojan horses and other malware are. Second, they need to understand how these things can affect their computers and third, they need to learn how to prevent malware from getting on their computers.

There were a lot more points that the cybermentors discussed this morning. They understood that their role in teaching internet safety strategies to elementary aged students is a very important one and all of them said that they felt that they were up to the challenge. They really want to bring their own experiences and real life examples into the classroom with them when they go out and teach those students. The next steps for them will be to go through some presentation skills training and practice what activities and lessons they will be using to teach students about staying safe online.

ID Theft - True Life Story

Okay, here is a true life story. The other day a friend of mine answers the phone. I hear him say to the caller, "No, I didn't make that purchase, nope, that one wasn't mine either." He talks for a few more minutes and then hangs up the phone. I asked him who called and he told me that his credit card company called because they noticed some irregular purchases on his account. Apparently, someone had gotten his credit card number and began to go on an online shopping spree. Luckily, the credit card company was on top of it, they notified my friend, put a stop on his card and notified the bank. After speaking to the bank, my friend decided to put a fraud alert with the major credit bureaus and file a complaint with the FTC. After an hour or two all of the work was done, and major damage to his credit was avoided. He does not know how his credit card account got into the hands of criminals, but he is very thankful that the credit card company was able to identify the issue and move quickly to stop it.

Identity theft rose by 22% in 2008, according to an article from CNET.com. A report on id theft was released last in February by Javelin Research. In the report it shows that electronic identity theft accounts for 22% of of reported cases. This data only reflects case of identity theft in which the victims know how their identity was stolen. Low tech methods of identity theft are still the most prevalent, with lost or stolen wallets the top method of identity thieves.

What can you do to protect yourself from electronic identity theft? Eric Esteves, from TechBoston sent a link to an article by Hiawatha Bray, who is an excellent technology reporter from the Boston Globe. He wrote this very helpful article about keeping your computer safe. The article explains antivirus software and how to keep Windows up to date. One piece of advice we never hear enough is not to download any software online unless it is from a reliable source! There are places online, such as download.com, that test programs for malware before they offer them to the public.

Sometimes, as is the case of data breaches, you have no control over if your personal data is stolen. Therefore, it is always a good idea to regularly monitor your credit report, and if you do see a problem, to contact your bank, credit card companies and credit bureaus immediately. The FTC website has a lot of great resources about identity theft and what you can do if you are a victim.

ABC World News Reports on 'Sexting'

ABC World New Tonight just aired a television report on Sexting. As we wrote in this blog last month, the media has really started to shed a light on this teenage cell phone practice.

Educate your children, there are many consequences to Sexting. One consequence is the chance that the picture you send will be sent to other people in your school, or posted online for the world to see. Another consequence is that you could be arrested for the picture you receive on charges of possession of child pornography.

Some Social Networking in the News

There are many posts that I have been meaning to write about Social Networking for a little while now. Since I haven't been able to keep up with them, here are the articles that I wanted to share with a small synopsis about each.

Study of Risky Behavior of Teens on MySpace

The first article is about a study done by two doctors about risky behaviors exhibited by teenagers in MySpace. According to the results of the study, over half of the teenagers profiles contained mention of a risky behavior such as violence, substance abuse, or sexual activity. What I found most interesting, however, was the results of the follow up study. In the follow up study, one of the doctors sent a message to half of 190 of the teenagers that they found on MySpace who publicly displayed a risky behavior on their profile. The email to those teenagers warned tham about displaying that type of information online. As a result of the email, 42% of those teenagers withdrew references to their risky behaviors from their profiles. Educating students about the type of information they publicly display about themselves online is becoming more and more important.

Teen Sues Facebook and Ex-Classmates

This is an unfortunate, but all too familiar story about how social networks can be used as a tool to hurt other teenagers. A student from New York is suing former classmates for defamation over a Facebook page that was created about her. The Facebook page allegedly included defamatory statements about the teen and caused her much emotional distress. These types of online defamation lawsuits are increasing, but what makes this one particularly interesting is that Facebook is also being sued by the teen. It will be very interesting to follow this case and see if Facebook is held responsible for any of the content their users post about others.

Facebook Advice for Parents

This next resource is a blog post with some Facebook advice for parents. This blog posts raises an interesting question for parents, should you create a profile on the social network you child has a profile on to monitor them? I see two arguments, one being that these online spaces are for teenagers to talk, share, create and parents that go on them to keep tabs on their children are invading on privacy. The other argument is that it is a parent's responsibility to know what their child is posting online, what pictures and information they are making public, and who they are talking to. A good parent would monitor who their children's friends are in real life, right? This article provides some tips for those parents who want to become one of their child's online friends.

Cool Facebook Story

The next blog post offers a positive about using social networking. This is from David Warlick's blog, 2¢Worth, which is a great blog about educational technology integration. David's title to this blog post is "A Very Cool Story", to which I concur, it is a very cool story and demonstrates the enormous potential that social networking can have in gathering information and problem solving.