Sexting leads to teen's death

If you haven't yet heard it, there is a new word in the English language: "sexting". It is defined as the act of sending sexually explicit photos electronically, primarily using text messaging on cell phones. These photos are usually of one self, and are normally sent to a girlfriend or boyfriend. No longer do people need to go searching for pornography on the Internet - our kids are creating it themselves, and sending it to each other on their phones. And, Internet filters and logging tools that we set up on our home computers will not catch this - it is accomplished over the phone network, not the Internet.

Of course, what these kids are not thinking about are the unintended consequences. All too often, these images will be forwarded and will spread like wildfire among many of the individual's friends and classmates. Just in the past few months there have been several news stories about this on all of the major news stations, including ABC News and CBS News. And then there is the story of Jessica Logan that aired on NBC's the Today Show earlier this month. Jessica sent a nude picture of herself to her boyfriend - when they broke up, he sent it to hundred of other students in their high school. She was harrassed, started skipping school, and simply couldn't face her peers. Finally, she walked into her bedroom and hung herself in her closet. Heart breaking.

Apart from the extreme emotional toll that sexting can have on a teenager, there is also the very real possibility that they are breaking the law - if the individual in the picture is under age, the image is considered child pornography, which has very strict laws attached to it. Distribution of one of these images to an under-aged person is also illegal. Not only are these kids causing themselves potential harm by allowing innappropriate images of themselves to exist "out there" forever, but they are also putting themselves in a very real danger of having a criminal record at a very young age, and possibly finding themselves on the sexual predators list forever.

Not very smart. But then again, teens are not known for thinking about the future. As parents, we need to know how our children are using the technology that we put in their hands - and help them understand the potential dangers and long-term effects of a split-second decision.

Cybersafety Constituency - a non-denominational initiative

I am really bothered by this article by TheRegister today. It makes the incorrect assumption that because the new Cybersafety constituency was proposed by a mormon, and someone who supports CP80, then the constituency must be a Mormon initiative to kill free speech on the Internet. Rubbish. Complete conjecture, and not even close to reality. The Cyber safety constituency, CP80 and the LDS Church are three separate entities - any attempt to link them are nothing more than an attempt to scare people into voicing opposition to an initiative that would help many people and create a safer Internet environment.

Unfortunately, as evidenced by the comments posted today, many people are taking this article at face value and are now voicing opposition to the new constituency because they don't agree with the CP80 approach, when the petition clearly indicates that the new constituency has nothing to do with CP80 at all, but rather would simply be a non-denominational organization to help make the Internet safer for our families.

If you support this initiative, based on what is written in the official petition, then PLEASE send your email of support to: cyber-safety-petition@icann.org.

And, if you happen to not be a Mormon, please let them know that - we need to show some cross-denominational support for this initiative!

30 days to make a difference!

Have you ever wondered what YOU can do to help make the Internet safer for our families? You now have that opportunity - we have 30 days to speak up in support of a vote to implement a new Internet governance organization focused on making the Internet more safe for our families. Please take advantage of this chance to have your voice heard!

For those who are not familiar with ICANN ("Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers"), it is essentially the governing body for Internet and is the entity that is responsible for overseeing the direction of this global technology. You can read more about them here.

ICANN has certain consituencies that have voting rights and that help determine the general direction of the policies that govern the Internet (as far as such world-wide technology can be governed). Many of you may be familiar with the attempt to put in place a .xxx domain that would house the adult content for the Internet - it was ICANN that had to determine whether to implement this or not (ultimately, they decided not to, which is why we don't have a .xxx domain today).

There is currently a proposal in front of ICANN for a new consituency to be created, called the Cyber Safety Constituency. You can read about this on ICANN's website by clicking here. There is a link to the introduction letter explaining this new constituency, as well as the petition itself. You can read these two documents to get a better understanding of what this new constituency will be responsible for.

Before this new constituency is approved, there is a 30-day public comment period. This is where you come in - if you are concerned about the safety of your children online, and worried about the content that they can currently access, and want to do something about the online predators that are stalking our children - make you voice heard in support of this constituency by sending an email to cyber-safety-petition@icann.org and tell them you support the "Cyber Safety Constituency". All public comments will be posted here, so you can check back to see your comments and read the comments of others on this topic.

Please do not miss this opportunity to make your voice heard! Be part of the solution, and help get this new consituency created. I did - please join me.

Utah leads the nation in online porn

This Salt Lake Tribune article is actually quite disturbing. It is a story about a recent Harvard Business School professor's study that indicates that Utah is #1 in the nation when it comes to the purchase of online pornography. Add to this the fact that Salt Lake City has shown up toward the top of the list for Google searches for extremely graphic sexual content for several years, and it shows a very disturbing trend.

The good news here (if there is any) is that this study is only looking at online pornography. There are no indications of whether this trend holds for pornography consumption in general, or if it simply means that in Utah the consumption method of choice is online rather than other means. So, it could be that this study indicates that we as a state are more technology-friendly than any other state in the nation, and we simply prefer to do all of our purchases online. Maybe we would be #1 in online book purchases, and online clothes purchases as well. OK - I admit it - am really stretching here.

So, why is it that Utah ranks numero uno in this distinctive category? Utah is a very conservative state, which would lead some to argue that we, as conservatives, are all just a bunch of hypocrites, and that this is now proof that those of us fighting the pornography battle are really closet consumers. I would be wary of such interpretations of this data. The article talks about the trends in areas with young population (OK, so Utah certainly tops this list), as well as college education and higher income. Utah would rank fairly high in all of these areas. It is also a fact that many parts of Utah, including our capitol city of Salt Lake, are becoming more liberal - based on recent voting history and trends. So, I don't think we can link this strictly to conservative "hypocrites".

The thing that really scares me is the following quote from the author of the study: "Even when I control for income, age, education, and marital status, Utah residents still consume disproportionately more than people from other states". I have no answer for why this is the case, but it makes me extremely concerned - especially for the youth of this state. More needs to be done to study this trend, and find out why Utah residents are disproportionately interested in purchasing this material online.

Very disturbing indeed.

Utah Child Protection Registry

If you live in Utah, and have children, you need to visit this site. You simply enter your email adresses, and anyone who sends adult-oriented spam is required to remove your email adress from their list. Those that fail to do so will face felony charges and "substantial civil and criminal fines".

For those who don't live in Utah, check with your state governement - if they don't have a similar registry, then contact your legislators and ask them to create one! It may not end the onslaught of adult-oriented spam, but it certainly will have a positive impact.

Thank you State of Utah! I, for one, sincerely appreciate this initiative.

Cell phone porn - accident?

This is a really disturbing story. The very short synopsis is this: a Utah man recently took a pornographic picture of himself with his cell phone and attempted to send it to his girlfriend. He allegedly mistyped the number, however, and ended up sending the image to a teenage girl.

Now, one can argue the merits here - for instance, why was he typing in his girlfriends phone number - wouldn't she be in his address book already? However, that is not the point of this blog post. There have been several incidents in recent months where teens are sharing innappropriate images via their cell phones - I even blogged about that problem on this page last year. In those cases, the kids themselves were inappropriatly using the technology they had been entrusted with. This is different, however - distribution of pornographic images to a minor who in no way requested or showed any interest in the image in the first place.

At issue in the news story is whether this should be considered a crime, or whether it should be treated a an "honest mistake". Reading through the comments to that story show very clearly how this is not a cut-and-dried situation for many people. For me, however, it seems pretty black and white: whether it was a mistake or not, the individual distributed pornography to a minor, and should be punished for it. If you want to distribute that sort of content, be more careful about how you do it.

There are many corollaries in our legal system already: you cannot distribute alchohol to a minor, you cannot sell them cigarettes, and you cannot sell them pornographic magazines. Whether you do it intentionally, or just "forget" to check their ID, it doesn't matter - you are still guilty of a crime.

Similarly, if one hits someone with their car and kills the individual, there are consequences. Intent determines whether that person is charged with murder or manslaughter, but either way there are consequences.

In the case of the cell phone porn, if intent cannot be proven, there should still be some legal recourse, and the individual should have some sort of punishment.

For me, there are two lessons to be learned here:

1. For those who want to use their cell phone to share innappropriate photos with others - take extra care to ensure you are only sending it to your intended recipient. If you don't you will be punished via the law (I hope).

2. For parents who give their minor children cell phones (I am one of those, by the way), don't assume that because your children won't put themselves in a situation to recieve innapropriate images, that it won't happen. Stay very close to their usage of technology, and maintain an open dialog with them so they will tell you when this happens.

Whether it is on the cell phone, Internet, television or any other technology - our children will see things that we wish they wouldn't. As parents, we need to ensure that they will tell us when they do, so we can limit the undesirable affects of exposure to this content, and help them avoid it in the future.

The mom in the above story summed it up when she said: "This type of stuff didn't happen when I was a kid." You are right. Our children are growing up in a very different world than we did. It requires different parenting than we recieved.

Adult Industry Bailout? You've got to be kidding...

Fox Business reported this week that the Adult Entertainment industry (which is really just a politically correct way to say the Porn industry) wants to ask congress for some bailout money. This is obviously nothing more than a marketing stunt, and is not a serious request in any way. As was reported by Fox News 5 in Las Vegas the next day, the Adult Entertainment industry is actually booming, and doesn't appear to be affected by the slowing economy at all. They report that "The porn industry generated $12 billion in 2007, and it is not showing any real signs of slowing down."

Of greatest concern to me, however, are the following comments from the two articles:

"our Internet sales are up"

"...video sales have been falling by 15 percent a year since 2005, but the producers and filmmakers said that market segment is being replaced by Video On Demand and online streaming."

"The press release noted that DVD sales and rentals for the adult industry have decreased by 22% in the past year, partially because people are turning more and more to the Internet for adult content."

The bottom line is this: the Internet is indeed fueling the growth of the porn industry. Much of the content is free, with the express purpose of getting people to pay to be able to view more of the content - much like drug dealers who give drugs away for free in the hopes of getting a new paying customer.

And remember - anything that is available to adults is also available to our children - the Internet has extremely poor age-identification mechanisms.

If you are a parent whose children are online, do not let your guard down. The porn industry is growing, and our children are smack in the middle of that growth curve.