Online Evidence of Seriously Dangerous Teen Activities
April 13, 2011 at 9:50 am 1 commentA few recent news stories may have parents reconsidering the importance of monitoring their kids online, if they don’t already do so. Online chats and Facebook posts have provided recent evidence to crimes that teens then committed immediately following those online activities. And while not every post or status update foreshadows illegal activities or arrests, it’s crucial for parents to be as up-to-date as possible about their kids’ online and social networking activities.
The first noteworthy story took place in Jackson, Michigan when 18-year-old Cody Caldwell was charged for arson and conspiracy to commit arson after an old factory burned down. Immediately before the factory’s destruction, Caldwell had posted “Bye every body on facebook” on his wall. After the fire, Caldwell’s friends responded to the post with comments addressing the pending investigation.
The other, and far more tragic, story is in light of a crime that happened in March of last year when two British Columbia teens attacked, raped and killed 18-year-old Kimberly Proctor. However, just last week, sources including The Vancouver Sun received a series of texts and online chats revealing the involvement of 16-year-old Kruse Wellwood and 17-year-old Cameron Moffatt. In addition to discussing their plans in detail, Wellwood also told a different friend online that he was thinking about killing someone for “giggles.”
Of course, these are very extreme cases of teen behaviors, but the important takeaway is that teens will discuss anything – even potentially illegal activities – online. Parents should know who their kids are in contact with both on- and offline and know the different online outlets and social networks their kids are participating in. There is also a lot of adult content online that teens can easily access and be influenced by, so having some kind of filters or controls for that are important as well.
Have you ever been suspicious of what your teen or their friends were posting online?
Yes, I have been suspicious of what my youngsters do online, however, the best filters don’t filter enough. Hope is on the way I think. Image Vision Labs (www.ImageVisionLabs.com) has software that detects nudity, hate speech, hate logos, violence, weapons and copyrighted images on images, photos and in videos. Basically, not only do you get the traditional textual filtering, you get filtering of images, photos and videos for the bad stuff too. The current generation of youth have some amazing communication tools on their hands giving them abilities many of us have never been afforded. For instance, now multiple people can be informed of something in real-time no matter what the message. The “good old days” are gone where we picked up a phone and went down the phone list to notify our friends about our shenanigans. Its up to the public though to contact these social media websites and let them know you want a BETTER filtering system. Facebook and YouTube, I’m calling you out here!!! Think of the possibilities if Image Vision Labs’ software WAS in place. No nudity, no violence, no hate speech and no cyberbullying would be easy. The software would detect the bad stuff and Facebook or Myspace would know sooner rather than later about things that might be going on. Just sayin………