Respected researchers at the Crimes against Children Research Center have released an excellent new paper debunking myths about the use of the Internet to get underage sex. Much of the information contained in the press release and the paper has been published before but it bears repeating.

Most Internet-initiated sex crimes involve adult men who are open about their interest in sex. The offenders use instant messages, e-mail and chat rooms to meet and develop intimate relationships with their victims. In most of the cases, the victims are aware that they are talking online with adults.

A majority of the offenders are charged with crimes such as statutory rape, that involve non-forcible sexual activity with adolescent victims who are too young to consent to sexual intercourse with adults.

What is new (at least to me) is their assertion that:

adolescents’ use of popular social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook do not appear to increase their risk of being victimized by online predators. Rather, it is risky online interactions such as talking online about sex to unknown people that increases vulnerability

The paper is freely downloadable:
Online “Predators” and Their Victims: Myths, Realities, and Implications for Prevention and Treatment, by Janis Wolak, PhD, David Finkelhor, PhD and Kimberley J. Mitchell, PhD Crimes Against Children Center at the University of New Hampshire and Michelle L. Ybarra, PhD, Internet Solutions for Kids, Inc., in American Psychologist, Vol. 63, No.2 .

I am discussing different motives for starting and continuing blogging. Some are what I call ‘intrinsic’ - ‘I like writing, blogging is writing, therefore I blog’. Some are ‘extrinsic’ - ‘I blog because I want to raise my profile and improve sales of my book’. But there are some that are harder to fit. Like habit - ‘I blog now because it’s something I have gotten used to doing every day’. Or ‘I got started blogging because I read about it in a newspaper article and it seemed interesting’. Or ‘I had to have a blog to read my friends’ comments and once the space was there I couldn’t resist filling it.’ Is there a good way of grouping these alongside my other categories?

I have a very similar problem with the way that I look at what my sample of bloggers expect of their readers. Some are blogging to specific readers - eg friends and family (they don’t much care what they get back from them). I have called these monological blogs. Some are in a dialogue with readers they feel they know (dialogical), and some to or with readers they don’t really know (”telelogic” - because this is the kind of communication that CMC particularly enables.

So far so good - but what about those who blog and who like the idea of having an audience but aren’t thinking of anyone in particular as readers and don’t particularly need to hear back - eg “I blog because I like to write”? Or - in the extreme case - people who blog but though their blogs are open to the world they think of them as only for themselves? So far I am calling these “a-communicative” uses but that term doesn’t seem quite right to me.

My instinct is that there is a single term that spans these two cases, but I would be interested in hearing suggestions for terms for either case or both.

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School’s 10th Anniversary Conference

THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET

May 15-16, 2008

Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

http://www.berkmanat10.org

ABOUT

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The Berkman@10 conference celebrates the Berkman Center’s ten years of researching and pioneering development in cyberspace.

The promise of cyberspace is just as great as it was ten years ago, if not greater. Some of the challenges we face in studying it, and in building out into it, have changed; others persist. Through this conference, we hope to share and deepen knowledge about future challenges and opportunities on the internet and investigate how best to approach the next decade online.

The two-day conference will include talks from leaders in our fields as well as more intimate conversations covering the most compelling debates about the future of the internet, from security to politics, from identity to democracy, from education to innovation - and much more.

Academic researchers, policy experts, lawyers, entrepreneurs, corporate leaders and anyone concerned about the future of the internet are invited to join us.

REGISTER

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Register now by visiting the Berkman@10 website: http://www.berkmanat10.org.

ADMISSION FEES:

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–$500 corporate/for-profit

–$300 non-profit/government/academic

–$100 student (with valid student ID)

Scholarships are offered on a limited basis. Media passes are available.

The program fee encompasses breakfast and lunch on both days, a cocktail event on May 15, and all conference materials.

INQUIRIES AND MORE INFORMATION

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Please direct any questions or media inquiries to Catherine Bracy (cbracy@cyber.law.harvard.edu) or Amar Ashar (ashar@cyber.law.harvard.edu).

If you would like to continue to receive information about the conference, please opt in here: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/lists/subscribe/berkmanat10

To register, or for more information, visit: http://www.berkmanat10.org. Seating is limited.

To learn more about the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, please visit our homepage at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu