Dear Editor,
I would like to correct Miss Dilm on a few points that she made
in her letter to the editor and anyone else who shares the same
view.
Dear Editor,
I would like to correct Miss Dilm on a few points that she made in her letter to the editor and anyone else who shares the same view.
First, I am a sexual assault detective for the Gilroy Police Department and I have a really good idea of what is out there on the Web. I’m sorry to break this to you, but your view of the Web is the typical teenager “tunnel visioned” view with the “it won’t happen to me” or the very dangerous “I know it all” attitude.
I know it sounds mean but I see the results of that type of thinking everyday, day in and day out, year after year. And it’s not getting any better, it’s just getting worse. The predators are getting smarter in the ways of the Internet and the kids are getting sneakier, trying to hide their information from the people who are trying to protect them, while the parents are being left in the dust scratching their heads wondering what happened.
I have and still do investigate Internet crimes as part of my duties. I have arrested men who thought they were meeting 12- and 13-year-olds, so they could victimize them.
Those were just the men who showed up for a meet. That is not to mention the 100s, yes 100s, of other men who sent me explicit photos or Web cam shows while having sexually explicit chats. Even though they did not show up to meet my fake child profile for one reason or another, they did commit a crime and they would have victimized a real child.
I usually don’t go into chat rooms to find these guys, they find me. I turn on my Instant messengers and wait until they contact me. It usually does not take long before the IMs start. These guys are out there searching the Web, looking, hunting and preying on children.
You wrote, “Are these people really the ones who should be deciding whether MySpace is bad or not?” My answer is “yes,” yes they should be, because teenagers typically only look at one or two sides of the box and ignore the other four or five sides, as in this case.
I am happy when children and teenagers look at things the way that you do. It tells me that you have not been traumatized by the outside world. You have the feeling that you are safe and secure and nothing would or could happen to you.
The reason you feel that way is because your parents, your teachers, your school administrators and your police department have stood between you and the world, protecting you from it. You have no idea what is outside of your little world, as it should be, and you should thank us instead of belittling us with a letter to the editor that makes it sound like you know everything and we know nothing.
Second, I disagree with you that there are more than 23,000 users on myspace, it is more like 53,000,000. That is just a little bit more than 23,000. So, if the number of child predators on MySpace was one quarter of 1 percent of the users, that would equal 132,500 predators. That is more people than there are in Gilroy, Morgan Hill and all of the South County area combined.
Third, your comment about the Web “can” be dangerous, is off course. It IS dangerous. And if you approach the Web with the mindset of, there are people out there hunting you, you will be better prepared to handle a situation before it gets out of hand. Don’t ever be afraid to tell someone about being solicited.
When I grew up and your parents grew up there was no world wide Web. We did not have computers. We did not have cell phones with cameras and text messaging, well we did not have cell phones. If we wanted to call someone we used a pay phone or waited until we got home.
The Center for Missing and Exploited Children conducted a study with the Department of Justice in 1999 about how many children between the ages of 10 to 17 have been solicited while on line. They found one out of five had been. That study, as far as I know, has not been redone. That study is seven years old and I think those two numbers are much closer together now. More people are on the Web than ever before and there are more computers in homes with high-speed connections and a lot of kids have their own computer. Cell phones are now Web capable not to mention the BlackBerrys and PDAs and so on.
The reason I believe that, is because I have made six profiles on Yahoo, just to use Yahoo as an example, of girls and boys who are 12 and 13 years old. Everyone of them have been solicited more than once. That’s just Yahoo.
There are thousands of blogging sites and instant messengers, and because of that, I believe, the 1999 study is way off the mark.
People are always asking me how do they protect their children or how do we stop the predators. I have come to the conclusion that there is no single one way, or a cookie-cutter type approach to the Internet. The only single way I can think of is to get rid of the Internet and computers all together. Then we can go back to the days of not talking to or taking candy from strangers.
The only advice I can give you is just be aware of where you are and who is around you at all times. Don’t be so focused on talking to your friends on your cell phone that you don’t see the stranger watching you, stalking you. The Internet is the same way. Don’t think that predators don’t know who you are or where you live. There is a good chance that all the information he needs to find out is listed on your MySpace profile.
It could be a photo with a school logo on it, a sports uniform with a number, or a friend that posts your name or something so miniscule that you think nothing of it. But the predator takes all those little clues and pieces them together. Or that boy or girl that you think you know or maybe they said they met you at one time, might not be who you think they are. It might be a predator stalking you, gathering information on you.
That is just part of the real world of the predator on the Internet.
Mitch Madruga, Gilroy
