07.15.08
Teen Safety: What are People Searching for on the Internet?
Yesterday I posted on teenagers and buying cars. I thought this was a pretty innocent subject.
When I checked my analytics tool I found a few visitors reached my blog by searching with some very skeptical key word phrases such as “preteen honey”, “preteen model galleries”, etc. Of course I am jumping to the conclusion that whomever entered those key words has some major issues. I could be wrong but sorry, that’s my initial gut instinct.
In fact, when I applied the Google key word search tool to my post yesterday, I entered the word, “teenager” and I was absolutely amazed and disgusted when I saw the popular search phrases on that word, such as “teenage sex” and much worse. These were not terms with just a few searches, rather there were thousands of searches.
I’m not naiive to think there aren’t a lot of very sick people out there but I guess this hit pretty close to home. As a parent, I try to do the best I can to educate my kids about Internet safety and monitor their actions. Most parents can just about turn on a computer and type an email. They have a very limited understanding of the Internet and find the whole online experience intimidating. Shouldn’t they take a concerted effort to educate themselves?
And as for Google and the major search engines that enable these searches, shouldn’t they have some responsibility here?
Stumble it!
Ron Davis said,
July 15, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Parents should educate themselves. Most have no idea of the dangers that lurk online. A good internet filtering software is a start (I work for a company that makes one), but you really need to understand what you’re fighting against. Many parents are aware that their 13 year old son could find pornography online, but few realize that the details your child put on a myspace profile could be used to physically locate him in 5 minutes.
Also, I’m not sure the burden for this should be placed on the shoulders of search engines. Sure, if somebody searches a phrase like “homemade teen sex videos” they are probably hunting for some (possibly illegal) pornography. They could also be a parent looking for an article about how teenagers are recording themselves in their rooms and posting the video online and how to keep it from happening. To expect a company like Google to determine the user’s intent is expecting a bit much.
Google does (and should) cooperate with law enforcement on issues like this, but it’s not Google’s responsibility to protect children online; the responsibility of protecting a child online lies solely in the hands of that child’s parent.
CreditMom said,
July 15, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Thanks Ron for your well thought out response.
I do agree with you that parents must educate themselves. I wouldn’t allow my 14 year old to have his own Facebook account until I literally set it up with him. I also have full access to it and check on a daily basis. There are many people that think I’m invading my child’s privacy but he knows I’m checking his computer and those were the deal terms.
In terms of Google, I partially agree with you but there has to be something that would help….I’m not sure what, but there is so much illegal content out there….if that could be minimized maybe there would be less searches, etc.
Ron Davis said,
July 15, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Kudos to you for closely monitoring facebook. That’s a potentially scary place.
I would love to be able to rid the internet of illegal content. The problem is that there’s no way to do it. Plus, people looking for that content are going to keep looking for it. Making it harder to find won’t keep them from looking. Also, I fear government intervention here would hurt more than it would help.
Companies like the one I work for will continue making internet safety products and trying to equip parents with the knowledge and tools to fight a rather uphill battle in protecting our children. When parents step up and take responsibility for protecting their kids…that’s where we’ll win in this fight.
CreditMom said,
July 15, 2008 at 11:09 pm
You have great points Ron. What do you think of the 3 major ISP’s attempting (notice I use the word attempting!) to block child porn? Do you think this will be effective at all or people will find a way around it. Personally, I feel people will find a way around it and the big 3 need to do this for their reputations. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=compliance&articleId=9095778
Ron Davis said,
July 16, 2008 at 2:02 am
Newsgroups are a real source of illegal material, and the big 3 could make access difficult, but there’s always a way around a block like that.
People who are looking for that type of material shouldn’t be just simply accessing it from home. That’d set them up to be found by law enforcement too easily. There are programs that will encrypt your traffic and make you appear to be coming out of some random foreign country. Accessing illegal material that way makes it *much* more difficult to track the end user. So while the big 3 can stop the direct access to the inappropriate newsgroups, the encrypted traffic will find a way off their networks.
As for removing the illegal stuff from their own servers, I would like to know why it’s there at all. There’s no reason for the big 3 US companies to have that on their servers, so making a big deal out of removing it seems pretty lame to me. But if it’s there, I suppose they should take steps to remove it.
CreditMom said,
July 16, 2008 at 6:57 pm
My thoughts exactly….why is it even there in the first place???
Thanks for taking the time to respond!
Scam said,
July 23, 2008 at 8:02 pm
To put things into perspective, I believe I am right in saying that sex-related key phrases are by far the most popular search terms across the internet.
For Google to block such searches they would have to design an incredibly complex algorithm, lose a huge amount of visitors and ultimately police the internet for us.
Would you be happy if a private company had the ability to censor web content and control what you can view?
I certainly wouldn’t.
‘Teen sex’ could of course relate to 19 year olds which is legal in the UK and likely of interest to males of consensual age.
Obviously pre-teen is an altogether different, and sickening, subject but it is unfortunately a sad fact of life.
Personally I think it is a good thing that my children are aware of sex, both legal and the less than desirable forms.
Of course I would never want them to view pre-teens but to wrap them up in cotton wool and shield them from reality? What does that achieve?
I want my kids to choose what to view on the internet, within reason, because that is part of maturing into adulthood - the ability to determine right from wrong and to make choices in life.
CreditMom said,
July 24, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Hi, I’m not a proponent of censorship at all. However, preteen sex is illegal. This isn’t a matter of censorship…it’s plain and simple against the law. When someone searches on the phrase “illegal preteen sex” the intent is pretty clear.
I’m not naiive to think there is an easy way to control this and perhaps there isn’t any way to control it at all…but it still bothers me just the same.
To your points on educating your children about the sick things that are out there and teaching them how to filter, I totally agree. It pretty much all boils down to the parenting and guiding your children so they make the proper choices most of the time. The problem is there are a lot of people out there that just aren’t that involved…but I guess that’s a whole other issue!
Scam said,
July 24, 2008 at 8:47 pm
I can certainly empathise with your last point - I know far too many parents who have absolutely no idea where their kids are most of the time, let alone what they are getting up to