SNS taking steps to protect teens online

Found this article about social networking sites (myspace, facebook specifically) taking some steps to keep teens safe online and offline.

I don't think this is enough. Well, I don't even know if it is feasible. I hope it is a way to help protect underage kids from predators. Ultimately, the key is parents knowing what is going on and helping to monitor their children. The article says this:

He said the best way to protect children is educating them about the dangers. Because the teenagers who fall victim to online predators are often alienated from their parents, he said, education programs should directly target children ages 13 to 15.

Here is another excerpt from the article:

In a 2006, Finkelhor found that one in seven children are sexually solicited online and that one in 33 are aggressively solicited. In a separate study he found that, over a one-year period, between 2001 and 2002, there had been 1,000 cases where someone was arrested for sex crimes against a juvenile where the Internet played a role in the crime.

"I really think the attorneys generals did a great thing to step into this vacuum and get this conversation going," Finkelhor said.

But he also cautioned that fears of online predation might be overblown and that the dynamics of such cases are misunderstood.

There is little evidence, he said, that the Internet or online social networks have led to more cases of sexual assaults on children, despite the solicitations.

He noted that since the early 1990s the incidence of sex crimes against children has dropped by about half, despite a steady growth in Internet use.