1 in 25 Kids Online Solicited for Pornography

From USA Today reporting on a recent story :

One in 25 youths who surf the Internet are asked at some point during the year to transmit a sexual picture of themselves, a study to be released today finds.

Kids who comply could become both victims and perpetrators of child pornography, says study co-author Kimberly Mitchell, a psychology professor at the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center.

"They're being asked to produce child pornography," Mitchell says, noting that doing so is a felony. "We think most children don't fully understand the stakes here. They may just see it as rudeness or sometimes even flattery."

With evidence such as this, internet services may be legally liable for not doing more to prevent related crimes by online predators. In addition, it suggests that parents and other responsible adults need to be regularly monitoring children on the internet.

Comments

[Ilah]

Unfortunately, the article doesn't mention the other key findings in the survey upon which it is based (found here: http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/CV138.pdf )

Online solicitation of youth declined by about 30% over five years, and the reason believed to be behind the decline is the increased awareness and saavy of the kids. IOW, educating kids on how to avoid solicitation works. If we were serious about reducing solicitation further, we'd be talking about expanding that education.

That becomes more apparent when one looks at the findings under "Aggresive Solicitations." There, various percentages of kids who were solicited had the solicitor call them, arrive at their home, send them gifts, or buy them travel tickets. None of those would have been possible had the child not disclosed personal information over the internet.

In at least one of the picture solicitation cases noted, the person was a previous friend of the solicitor. Alas, that portion of the study lacks the components found in the other areas: how many of the solicitors were considered teens versus adults, and how many of the solicitors were previously known to the kid reporting.

Also, I'm extremely curious as to where the reporter got the "1 in 3 exposed to child porn" number. The survey specifically states it did not ask the question! Of the 1000 kids surveyed, only two mentioned stumbling upon child pornography.

[Dave]

It's just more sensationalism as reported by USA Today. Although I'm not too good at math, I'd like to know how Melissa went from 1 in 25 kids asked for pictures to 1 in 4.