Report downplays threat to kids online

The Internet may not be such a dangerous place for children after all.

A task force created by 49 state attorneys general -- and aggressively pushed by N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper -- to look into sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there is not a significant problem.

The findings ran counter to popular perceptions of online dangers as reinforced by depictions in the news media like NBC's "To Catch a Predator" series.

Cooper was quick to criticize the group's report.

In a statement Tuesday, Cooper said the report "relied on outdated and inadequate research to downplay the problem of child predators.

"Law enforcement officers across the country are telling attorneys general that children are being solicited every day and that technology companies must do more to keep children safer," Cooper said.

The Internet Safety Technical Task Force examined the extent of the threats children face on social networks like MySpace and Facebook, amid widespread fears that adults were using these popular Web sites to deceive and prey on children.

Look out for bullies

But the report cited research calling such fears a "moral panic," and concluded that the problem of bullying among children, both online and offline, poses a far more serious challenge than the sexual solicitation of minors by adults.

"This shows that social networks are not these horribly bad neighborhoods on the Internet," said John Cardillo, a member of the task force and chief executive of Sentinel Tech Holding, which maintains a sex offender database. "Social networks are very much like real-world communities that are comprised mostly of good people who are there for the right reasons."

The report is to be released today. The 39-page document was the result of a year of meetings between dozens of academics, childhood safety experts and executives of 30 companies, including Yahoo, AOL, MySpace and Facebook.

The task force, led by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, looked at scientific data on online sexual predators and found that children and teenagers are unlikely to be propositioned by adults online. In the cases that do occur, the report says, teenagers are typically willing participants and are already at risk because of poor home environments, substance abuse or other problems.

In what social networks may view as something of an exoneration after years of pressure from law enforcement, the report says that sites like MySpace and Facebook "do not appear to have increased the overall risk of solicitation."

Cooper has been sounding the alarm for more than three years about child predators using the social networking sites to find victims. In June 2006, Cooper sat on a panel for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. His appearance came a day after MySpace announced new safety features that would restrict adults' ability to look at the personal information of young users.

The following year, he unsuccessfully sought state legislation to require the companies to get parental consent before allowing children younger than 16 to join and post personal information. But in early 2008, MySpace and Facebook both struck agreements with Cooper and other attorneys general to adopt procedures to help keep predators away from children.

Cooper was not the only attorney general unhappy with the conclusions. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut attorney general, said the report "downplayed the predator threat," and failed to provide a specific plan for improving the safety of social networking.

"Children are solicited every day online," Blumenthal said. "Some fall prey, and the results are tragic. That harsh reality defies the statistical academic research underlying the report."

The attorneys general also asked the task force to evaluate technologies that can enhance safety for children online.

Among the systems the technology board looked at included age verification technologies that try to authenticate the identities and ages of children and prevent adults from contacting them. But the board concluded that such systems "do not appear to offer substantial help in protecting minors from sexual solicitation."

Nevertheless, Cooper praised the task force for identifying existing technologies that can help keep kids safer on the Internet. He said that the attorneys general will push social networking sites to implement them.