To celebrate the fact that I’m generally behind the times when it comes to tracking down & reading blogs, I’m linking to a good entry by David Brake of Media @ LSE on the concerns parents have about their children’s web use. I’m about seven months late on this entry, but, given some of the articles & discussions to which I’ve linked lately, David’s mid-July entry remains relevant. Brake takes a matter of fact approach in his discussion, noting that

Fairly recent (2000) US research indicates only 7.5% of sexual assaults on children and adolescents were perpetrated by strangers (and quite a high proportion of assaults on teenagers are perpetrated by other teens, not predatory adults). The tens of thousands of ’stranger on pre-teen’ assaults in the US each year are terrible crimes but by far the majority of children will never face this danger. Is it worth creating a climate of pervasive fear and limiting childrens’ freedom to explore (and yes, even to make mistakes) in an attempt to tackle this? Just as adults’ civil liberties can be endangered in the ‘War on Terror’, those of children can be imperilled in the ‘War on Perverts’.

Brake adds two links to some other entries he has written on issues of privacy & surveillance. Both are worth reading.

EP