Sen. Conroy: you must block Facebook

David Heath
Tuesday, 29 December 2009 03:03

Opinion and Analysis

An admirable intention, but one based on a very flawed argument.

However, it seems that the filter will only address a very small proportion of potential exploitation incidents.  For instance, just before Christmas, there were reports of a 52 year old Englishman convicted of grooming an 11-year-old girl for sex.

In this particular incident the girl's parents became aware of the conversation happening via Facebook and took over all interactions with the man, alerting the Police at the same time.  After two arranged meetings, the man was arrested.

In my memory, this is all too common – we regularly hear of such contact being made via Facebook MySpace and so on.  Laura Chappell the well-known networking analyst has spoken regularly on the topic of Internet child protection.  Interestingly, her primary focus has ALWAYS been on grooming and predatory chatting.  In personal conversations with Laura, iTWire has learned that she has also spent considerable time with various law enforcement organisations masquerading as young children - she knows what's happening in the real world.

It is very obvious that there are considerably more children at risk of unwanted sexual contact via social networking than will ever be protected by the current Internet filtering plan.

Senator Conroy, if your intention really is to protect the children, please ban Facebook, MySpace and all of their ilk.  You will save more children than any other protection regime available.