LEWISTON – Despite a growing number of stories about violent crimes involving teens lured by online predators, the use of blogs and social Internet sites continues to grow.
Millions of people are using such sites to post information – sometimes personal and intimate – about themselves. An estimated 58 percent are between the ages of 13 and 19.
Some become victims of pedophiles who pose as peers online and lure teens to out-of-the-way meeting places. A man was charged with sexual molestation in Lewiston on Tuesday after allegedly attracting a 14-year-old girl to a downtown motel room and plying her with drugs.
Others reveal seemingly innocent details.
Nikki Lynn, for example, a 17-year-old from Waterford, disclosed her age, hometown and high school on her MySpace.com page. She also revealed that she likes cheeseless pizza, prefers Burger King to McDonald’s, and has tried drinking alcohol.
She knows it’s dangerous to meet people through the Internet, but has done so in the company of friends. All the guys she’s met, she said, “have turned out to be really good guys.”
Lynn is certainly not alone in her activities, and compared to a small number of Central Maine students, her site is pretty tame. Some teens, however, post nearly nude photos of themselves and write explicitly about their sexual identities and interests. Others reveal their innermost thoughts.
It’s normal teen behavior, say public safety officials and Internet safety watchdog groups, but it can be dangerous. It also can lead to problems – now and later in life.
“When you’re online, you’re in public,” said Parry Aftab of WiredSafety.org. “People think you’re talking to your computer. You’re not. You’re talking to 700 million people and they want to see your page.”
Aftab added that employers, scholarship committees, colleges and schools commonly search sites like BlogSpot and MySpace for information on potential hires or students. While many teens may be making up stories when they boast online about partying or their sexual exploits, someone who doesn’t know them well won’t see through such posts.
“You are who you portray yourself to be,” Aftab said.
On MySpace
West Paris mother Michele Cox had no idea her older daughter had posted personal information online until she stumbled across the teen’s MySpace spot. Her daughter’s name, age, hometown and school were listed and she had a photo on the page.
Cox checked links between her daughter’s page and others, finding similar information – and more. “They had surveys on there about sex. They had surveys on there about drugs. I mean, it’s disgusting,” Cox said. One girl even posted dozens of pictures of herself in skimpy outfits.
Cox found the experience scary, and has since sent messages to her friends telling them to check on their teens’ online activities.
The kids, she said, “just have to be taught how to be safer.”
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, users of the organization’s CyberTipline have made 14,831 reports of “online sexual enticement of children” since the service began in March 1998.
There have been 329,501 reports of child pornography discovered online or elsewhere.
Sgt. Glenn Lang of the Maine Computer Crimes Task Force said part of the problem is most teens don’t feel vulnerable and don’t think twice about whom they might run into online, or where their pictures may end up. When children are using the Internet, he said, parents “have to be involved with their cyber lives, just like they are with their real lives.”
The number of computer crimes reported in Maine has grown steadily, Lang said, but there are no good statistics because such crimes are vastly underreported.
A National Juvenile Online Victimization Study that looked at arrest reports from 2,270 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies between July 1, 2000, and June 30, 2001, estimated that more than 2,575 arrests were made for Internet sex crimes against minors.
“This estimate is by no means a full measure of the number of Internet sex crimes against minors or even the number of such crimes known to law enforcement,” the study results reported. “Many sex crimes against minors, perhaps the majority, never come to the attention of law enforcement.”
The study found 39 percent of the arrests involved Internet-related sexual assaults or sex crimes such as the production of child pornography.
Another 25 percent of the arrests involved undercover law enforcement officers posing as minors and involved no victims.
Lang said helping teens be safer online means asking questions about what they’re posting and whom they talk to. Parents should also encourage teens to keep all identifying information off the Web.
Pedophiles, he said, have been known to resort to tricks like asking teens online about the weather or their school mascots to hone in on the teens.
Trend not slowing
Teens are likely to continue posting online, and most think their pages on blogs and sites like MySpace.com are safe, even when they post personal information.
A MySpace search for Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in western Maine generated more than 50 pages put up by students. Looking through the “friends” and “comments” sections of users’ sites, links to other Oxford Hills teens turned up. In their online bios, many claimed they were 18 or older.
Nikki Lynn said students have to pretend they’re older or they won’t have access to MySpace searches, or be able to be searched.
According to the MySpace terms of agreement, those found misrepresenting their age may have their profiles deleted without warning, but hundreds of sites where local teens misrepresented their ages were easily found.
Genevieve from Norway actually is 18. She asked that her last name not be used, then admitted she unabashedly proclaims her love for late-night talk show host Conan O’Brien on her page.
She has no intention of dating through the Internet and tries to limit what she posts about herself. Others post things that are risqu just to get attention or to seem cool, she said.
“Then the nude pictures that people put up are just a way to get a message across, or to get someone’s attention,” Genevieve added. “I don’t believe that people honestly think about the fact that those pictures probably will come back to haunt them someday, and they will regret it.”
A 17-year-old Lewiston teen who asked not to be identified said she spends five to six hours a night online. All of her friends have MySpace or similar pages. She doesn’t like it when her parents look over her shoulder when she’s online, and doesn’t think they’re aware of what’s on her MySpace page. Online, she discloses that she drinks and smokes and may have tried drugs.
She feels safe making such things known, even though she discloses her name, date of birth, hometown and school. She protects herself, she said, by doing things like identifying perverted messages sent her way as spam.
She doesn’t worry about future potential employers finding her page.
“They can’t look at a page and decide if they want to hire you or not, it’s not right,” she said.
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