RM colum February 15th - Internet safety is still an issue

RM column - February 15th - Internet safety is still an issue

Not that long ago parents’ biggest problem concerning the internet was probably concerning what their child was looking at, now there are many more issues involved and checking out the more lets say colourful side of the internet probably ranks along the bottom of the list.

Research now shows that one of the most wonderful evolutions of the internet, social networking sites pose one of the biggest problems for young people. Social networking sites include sites like Bebo, MySpace and Facebook and I have written a lot about them before.

Don’t get me wrong I love the social networking phenomenon and have gotten so much out of it but I have always been astonished and disturbed to see how much information our young people are putting on the internet for all to see and save.

We can see photos of the young people, we can sometimes see phone numbers, we know where they go and who their friends are. That is something I am not at all comfortable with.
This is leaving them open to all sorts of things like identity theft, abuse and bullying not to mention the potential of harming choices they will make in the future.

While it would appear there is a certain amount of ‘it won’t happen to me’ it does appears that some of the safety messages are getting through to young people but we do need to do more and remain vigilant about our children’s internet activity.

One of the things about the internet which many people overlook and it is a biggy is that all the information is saved for future reference and can be used against you.

Recently a college admissions staff member admitted to going into potential students Bebo and MySpace pages and checking them out. So if the student has things about themselves that are less than favourable they can probably rule out that college.

And what constitutes less than favourable? Well probably talking about getting drunk all the time with the pictures to prove it.

This can also follow through to work so for that reason alone it is seriously important to watch what you say and publish about yourself.

Webwise.ie (which provides advice on safely using the internet) has found that 71 per cent of young people have public profiles on their sites. So anyone anywhere can check them out.
Being added as a friend also poses problems where people accept friendships online from people they have never met. And bear in mind how easy it is to go online and lie about who you are.

So even if your profile is not public and only available to friends, if you add a stranger as a friend your previous safety action is breached. Webwise has also found that 27 per cent of Irish nine to 16 year olds have met someone new on the internet who has asked for information such as their photo, phone number, address or the school they go to.

In some cases this is innocent and just teenagers meeting online but it is clear there are those who want this information for sinister purposes.

Scarily 12 per cent of Irish young people admit to posting their phone number, 8 per cent display their address, 49 per cent their date of birth and 79 per cent their full name. I have to admit to making mistakes myself, it is an area where we are all still learning.

We need to drive home the message of being safe on the internet to our young people. This isn’t about not being cool and not understanding the interwebs or indeed enjoying the benefits the internet has to offer. We teach our children all sorts of safety rules from they are small and the internet is no different.

RM column July 6th - Lessons in Google

I wrote recently on how the whole family is becoming more and more technology-minded and it’s generally great, well except when they want to get on my computer when I am working.

So whether the Young Wan is browsing YouTube, Nanny her cheap flight sites or me anything and everything, the laptop can pretty much be on the go all the time.

When you consider the fact that Nanny lives a good bit away, far enough away that regular phonecalls are just too expensive, her recent foray into the internet and all its bounties is very welcome.

After all we can talk for free on Skype, or just chat through the excellent instant messaging service that is available for free with no messy downloading on Google Mail.

I tried unsuccessfully to get the Young Wan interested in it last year when she went away, but she was insistent on using the MSN instant message service involving downloads which is not something that every work place allows.

Besides if you are a bit of a computer novice, it makes absolute sense to keep things simple and what could be simpler than a chat facility where you can just chat.

So that’s how I have been keeping in touch with the Young Wan. She goes online and can see that I am also online and we can chat.

A funny thing happened though the other day that made me realise google chat has actually increased and benefited our communications, and more importantly my probably non-existent listening skills where she is concerned.

Take for example a situation recently the Young Wan opened a Bebo account and in a short period of time the former friends who were bullying her last year found her page on Bebo and started to post comments.

Given the grief they caused last year I probably would have hit the roof if we were having the conversation face to face. It is hard for me to understand why you would put yourself through that again. In real life I would probably rant/rave and ask a lot of questions the Young Wan is not really supposed to answer. She is just supposed to nod her head and agree with me.

If she gets fed up with this she may resort to becoming cheeky which then piles on even more annoyance from me.

However, we were chatting the other day online and she mentioned her new Bebo page and I immediately typed ‘are you wise?

She explained she uses it to talk to her friends who are not on Google mail, so I suppose it is fair enough she is older and wiser than last year. But she was chatting to some random fella who is into the same music as herself which I didn’t like at all.

She told me: “They are all weirdoes but what’s the harm if they don’t know anything about you? I replied: “Because you could inadvertently tell them more than you should.”

She added: “I’m not stupid mum! I just talk to them about music and all that. I’m not a baby I can handle it and it [the bullying] was a long time ago. It was just them being horrible its fine now.”

Well I can’t really argue with that, at all. Much as I want to fight all her battles and protect her from the nastiness of others, I suppose I can’t do that all the time. She is now growing up and becoming more and more mature and capable.

And the beauty of all this is because I am typing a question to her on Google chat, I have to wait on her answer. It’s a far cry from how sometimes situations like this are handled in real life when I sometimes don’t give her a chance to answer. It’s one question after another bombarded at her.

Mmm I think there may be a lesson for me here in Google chat!

RM column June 29th - ethugs and cyber bullying

God it has been a seriously long time since I published any of my columns and I don't know where to begin with them. I'll need to go back and check them out, some of which have been included here in some version, others are completely new. The last one I published was from May 31st and I reckon after that there were a lot of Junior Cert related ones which have already been posted here.

So I'll take a stabbing guess now and publish what I think to be the next one along, it probably isn't though. And I should do an update for this one, because the ending (as has happened over time) is not what I have initially written. I'll explain that again when I get the energy.

E-thugs and Cyber Bullying

New figures show that our young people do not appear to be learning how to use the internet safely or indeed responsibly with one third of American teenagers and one in five of UK teenagers who go on line claiming to be the victims of cyber-bullying.

While these figures do not relate to Ireland there is no reason whatsoever to think this is not happening here on our kids’ social networking Bebo and MySpace pages.

Branded e-thugs, cyber-bullies are using the internet to target others. Bullying on the internet has hit 39 per cent of teen social-network users in the States compared to the 22 per cent of teenagers who do not use social networking sites who have been bullied.

One of the biggest complaints is that personal information is being shared, embarrassing photographs are being published on-line without the person’s permission. This kind of thing could be devastating for any of us let alone those vulnerable teenage years.

The Young Wan is on holiday and recently set up another Bebo page. She has definitely learned from her previous experience where former friends targeted him in a nasty and vindictive campaign of bullying. This stemmed onwards and outwards and they even spread their vile to kids she was in primary school with.

This resulted in me visiting one of the perpetrator’s parents who were brilliant and understanding and we cleared the whole thing up and had the vicious remarks deleted from the site.

Now that she is away from the summer she misses her friends and has been keeping in touch using gmail and her new Bebo page. But one of the former pals has found her page and has been commenting with his normal-brand of idiocy.

The good thing is that she appears to not be too bothered by this. And that’s fine. My worry is that he will start to take it up to the levels he did last year where I was compelled to bring it to an unsuspecting parents’ door.

It is as if the kids feel the internet removes them from their actions; when in fact it links them to this bad behaviour in ways they could never dream of. Ways that could see the Guards knocking on their door. Or ways that will edge a vulnerable teenager over the edge, over something that possibly started off as a joke or a slagging.

That’s not to say I think they are unaware of the consequences of their actions, some of them don’t care at all and I know that.

As horrible as the playground bullying is, bringing that to the internet gives it another life, it spreads and could become linked to the victim for a lot longer than a bad nickname would.

A whispered rumour in a school takes on a whole new dimension on the internet. With rumours time passes and others become the centre of attention. Sometimes the rumour may not even make its way back to the person targeted.

However, when this rumour is put out on someone’s Bebo page it can get a whole new life.

We need to constantly talk to our kids about appropriate behaviour on-line; none of us would like to think our kids are bullies but everyone has the propensity to poke fun and at any time even that can get out of hand.

As I have said before talk to your kids about their internet use, make sure they know the very real dangers of giving out personal information, posting pictures of themselves online and of how they conduct themselves in relation to others. We know the effects of bullying is immense, the effects of cyber-bullying could be much more far-reaching.

You can read what I have written before about social networking sites here . If you have any stories on cyber-bullying I would be very interested to hear.

RM January 5th - Teens acting safely on internet

A UNIVERSITY study carried out in the States has found that most teenagers who use social networking site MySpace.com do so responsibly however the study also revealed there are still some areas of concern where our young people are leaving themselves vulnerable.

I have written about the dangers of Bebo and MySpace before and whilst I do not wish ever to give the impression that I think they are bad news and dangerous, I don’t. But I do know the information that is available on young people on these sites does raise cause for concern.

The lure of these sites are huge for lots of people and teenagers are no exception. Firstly they can decorate their homepages reflecting their personality. They can meet up online and chat with their pals. They can post pictures, upload music and generally be very creative with their pages.

They are so popular that your teen might be asked by their schoolmates for their Bebo homepage before being asked for their phone number.

There have been fears and scaremongering about the dangers of sites such as Bebo and MySpace, and while many of these do have some basis in reality, there are certainly many educational benefits to the sites and the vast majority of uses will not experience anything negative using the site. However this depends on the savyiness of the young person using them and does not take into account the growing incidences of bullying using these sites.

While I welcome the findings of the American study, you only have to have a look at young people’s profiles on Bebo to know there are still many, many young people giving away too much personal information on the internet. Or where 13 and 14-year-old girls give themselves names like sexygirl or lovekitten. That’s just too suggestive to me and completely inappropriate language for young teens. It is one thing to chat like that with pals, it is another kettle of fish posting it online for all and sundry to see.

The study found that half of teenagers in the study posted their pictures online, many also provided details descriptions of themselves, while 15 per cent included suggestive pictures of their friends.

It appears however that the safety message is getting through to young people with more than 90 per cent with public profiles not including their full name in the profiles. 40 per cent of teenagers kept their pages completely private to everyone bar their friends.

I’d like to say that you can see these more safety-conscious trends on the Irish teenager’s pages on Bebo. You can’t. We can see names, photographs, where they like to go, who their friends are. A wealth of information that really should not be put out into the internet is out there.

The best way to deal with your child using sites like Bebo and MySpace is to talk to them about the dangers and about what they should and should not be revealing on the internet. Banning your child from using these sites will not work, informing them and therefore arming them with the appropriate information is far more constructive.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column young wan young wanbebo MySpace

RM August 18 - Teens and the internet

Recent research has shown how internet usage and internet dangers has grown dramatically for our teenagers/kids over the last couple of years.

Consider the fact that 96 per cent of children use the internet as polled by the National Centre for Technology in Education site www.webwise.ie. Then consider that one in 10 use some kind of instant messaging programme such as MSN, Google Chat or Skype. (If you do not know what these are, go look on the internet and find out.)

One in fifteen of those surveyed say they have met someone in real life whom they met on the internet. In 2003 that figure was one in 23. That is some jump and in a very short period of time.

Of those one in 15 – 11 per cent of the nine to 16 year olds surveyed – said they met someone they first encountered online who tried to physically hurt them. ALL those incidents of physical and verbal abuse were carried out by an adult who pretended to be a child.

This information alone surely should be a wake-up call for parents.

Anyone who thinks their kid is equipped to deal with people like this, who think their kids are going to recognise this, is seriously deluded.

The statistics show that a serious amount of our kids are, by their internet usage, putting themselves unwittingly in danger.

I recently read arguments from people who used the analogy of riding a bike to explain their point how parents should not be worried about their kid’s internet usage.

Their point was that children can get hurt on a bike so is this a reason to forbid kids from riding bikes?

As cute as this comparison is – for me it is just that, cute. For a start you wouldn’t send your child out on a busy main road to play on their bike in the same way that nowadays we make our kids wear helmets so they do not crack their skulls on pavements or whatever.

It is no different with the internet.

There is no doubt the internet has transformed so much, from how we communicate with each other to the endless learning opportunities for young and old alike. And I think it is great.

But like everything it has its dangers.

What I found shocking is that 50 per cent of parents had not talked to their children about the children’s activities on the internet.

I can understand that.

I am in my mid-30s, computers and the internet have been part and parcel of my whole working life. I have always loved it and as a result have probably pursued more knowledge on it than has been necessary for my jobs.

The technologies of the internet have always fascinated me and for many other parents I know this isn’t the case. I had my daughter young; many other parents in my daughter’s year at school are at least 10 or more years older.

For many of those parents the internet is a weird world they have no idea about.

They maybe can send an email but beyond that amounts to massive amounts of confusion and just not being able to get to grips with it all. They just do not know and in some cases have no inclination to explore the internet because it feels a world beyond them; it is the classic generation gap.

I have had all these internet danger worries with my own daughter concerning Bebo as some of you may remember from previous columns and I think I have bored her to death with it all but I do believe she has listened to me.

Ach who am I fooling she is only 14. She is not able to deal with the wiliness of someone who is intent in dubious dealings on the internet.

She is starting out on the internet and along with her email she is mad about u-tube, any internet time she has spent has been looking at music videos though this has all been done with me in the room.

I do hope though I have given her important information along the way.

Parents need to arm themselves with information. If you know nothing about the internet, with September coming now is time to look at those local community education classes.

What are you waiting for? Find a course on computers and the internet, consider that a challenge from me.

Go on the journey, learn more and arm yourself with information. You will be pleasantly surprised and it will bring you closer to your kids (whether they like it or not). And let me know via email how you have gotten on.

In the meantime if you are worried about any of the issues I have raised; make a start by going to http://www.webwise.ie and check out the advice and information there.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs teens and the internet teenagers internet

Another post on strange searches

IN THE last week the top keyword search here has been regulation knickers with some 14 searches. No accounting for taste really! Of course the visitors have been drawn by something I wrote a year ago.

The Young Wan's favourite phrase 'my eyes have been replaced with muffins' has also figured as has someone searching for 'junior cert partys on the 15th Sep 2006 in Dublin'. I hope the searcher does well in the exam results tomorrow and has a good and safe night celebrating!

Other funny phrases include 'lazy eye emo fringe'. I remember being a teenager myself and visiting Tawdrey (a regular visitor here) in hospital and being acousted by an old dear who kept telling me how lovely my hair was, how like Veronica Lake it was, but that I would give myself a lazy eye so I should clip it back. I think my response was probably something like 'yeah yeah'.

One other bemusing search is 'footballers shorts and knickers in soccer history'. Wow sounds fascinating to me. Do tell us more...

To the person searching the phrase 'mum are weird'. Yes we are but we know grammar, mostly anyway. And to the person looking for 'names to use as your Bebo name' choose something not akin to you and safe.

And all that is only from the last week, there was also 'the sesame street beetles', 'red dog hugh red muppet', 'I'm going to the zoo', 'maybe I am red', 'how to annoy mums' (don't tidy your room)

I should do a post sometime soon on the strangest searches since I have been tracking them.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs strange searches

Teens and the internet - RM column August 3

Recent research has shown how internet usage and internet dangers has grown dramatically for our teenagers/kids over the last couple of years.

Consider the fact that 96 per cent of children use the internet as polled by the National Centre for Technology in Education site www.webwise.ie. Then consider that one in 10 use some kind of instant messaging programme such as MSN, Google Chat or Skype. (If you do not know what these are, go look on the internet and find out.)

One in fifteen of those surveyed say they have met someone in real life whom they met on the internet. In 2003 that figure was one in 23. That is some jump and in a very short period of time.

Of those one in 15 – 11 per cent of the nine to 16 year olds surveyed – said they met someone they first encountered online who tried to physically hurt them. ALL those incidents of physical and verbal abuse were carried out by an adult who pretended to be a child.

This information alone surely should be a wake-up call for parents.

Anyone who thinks their kid is equipped to deal with people like this, who think their kids are going to recognise this, is seriously deluded.

The statistics show that a serious amount of our kids are, by their internet usage, putting themselves unwittingly in danger.

I recently read arguments from people who used the analogy of riding a bike to explain their point how parents should not be worried about their kid’s internet usage.

Their point was that children can get hurt on a bike so is this a reason to forbid kids from riding bikes?

As cute as this comparison is – for me it is just that, cute. For a start you wouldn’t send your child out on a busy main road to play on their bike in the same way that nowadays we make our kids wear helmets so they do not crack their skulls on pavements or whatever.

It is no different with the internet.

There is no doubt the internet has transformed so much, from how we communicate with each other to the endless learning opportunities for young and old alike. And I think it is great.

But like everything it has its dangers.

What I found shocking is that 50 per cent of parents had not talked to their children about the children’s activities on the internet.

I can understand that.

I am in my mid-30s, computers and the internet have been part and parcel of my whole working life. I have always loved it and as a result have probably pursued more knowledge on it than has been necessary for my jobs.

The technologies of the internet have always fascinated me and for many other parents I know this isn’t the case. I had my daughter young; many other parents in my daughter’s year at school are at least 10 or more years older.

For many of those parents the internet is a weird world they have no idea about.

They maybe can send an email but beyond that amounts to massive amounts of confusion and just not being able to get to grips with it all. They just do not know and in some cases have no inclination to explore the internet because it feels a world beyond them; it is the classic generation gap.

I have had all these internet danger worries with my own daughter concerning Bebo as some of you may remember from previous columns and I think I have bored her to death with it all but I do believe she has listened to me.

Ach who am I fooling she is only 14. She is not able to deal with the wiliness of someone who is intent in dubious dealings on the internet.

She is starting out on the internet and along with her email she is mad about u-tube, any internet time she has spent has been looking at music videos though this has all been done with me in the room.

I do hope though I have given her important information along the way.

Parents need to arm themselves with information. If you know nothing about the internet, with September coming now is time to look at those local community education classes.

What are you waiting for? Find a course on computers and the internet, consider that a challenge from me.

Go on the journey, learn more and arm yourself with information. You will be pleasantly surprised and it will bring you closer to your kids (whether they like it or not). And let me know via email how you have gotten on.

In the meantime if you are worried about any of the issues I have raised; make a start by going to Webwise and check out the advice and information there.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo August 3

Keep your kids internet safe - RM column April 20

I have been very lax about posting the Echo columns so here's a couple from the last nunber of weeks, I haven't scanned them hence the delay so apologies in case you have been waiting ;)

Red Mum Column April 20

CONSIDERING the fact that an estimated 6,000 people sign up to the internet community site Bebo every day in Ireland. Also consider the Microsoft equivalent MySpace has grown from 4.9m visitors in 2005 to more than 67m currently, so it is worth exploring what your teenager is doing on the internet.

Many parents haven’t a clue where to begin to find out or indeed what they can do about it, but there is a lot you can do.

Parents must be more aware of the information their children are imparting on the internet And we need to hammer home to our children that certain behaviours are just not safe, such as posting pictures of yourself on the internet.

I suppose some people could put this down to hysterical Mummy but I have said before that I love the internet and I am grown up enough to realise the dangers and take the necessary precautions such as NEVER giving out phone numbers and the like.

It is frightening the amount of personal information our teenagers are giving away from phone numbers to information on where they’ll be at any given time, what they look like, what they like, take one look around Bebo and see for yourself.

While the vast majority of what goes on in Bebo or MySpace and the like is totally harmless, fun and sometimes informative, there are occasions where this is not the case.

I read recently about an incident where a 17-year-old female Bebo member from a small town up North has been linked to by a man in his mid-20s who told her that he had seen her about the town and suggested they should meet up. Now if that is not frightening, what is?

So let us imagine that you bought the apple of your eye a PC or a laptop for Christmas. Did you buy it and that was it?

Or did you install some of the Internet Nanny programmes where you can set what they can and cannot view on the internet?

Internet Nanny programmes allow you to set with a password the kind of sites that can be viewed on the internet.

And come on remember what it was like being a teenager. For most teenagers the draw of the more shall I say savoury side of the internet is great. Of course it is and even if your teen isn’t interested in that at all, their friends might be and peer pressure is very tough to handle.

Besides it is actually easy to stumble across the dodgier sites on the internet.

A scary statistic from Netsmartz.org showed that one in five children have received a sexual solicitation online.

Now without scaremongering this is an American site and in Ireland we do not have the level of internet participation as in American so the statistics I have quoted are somewhat watered down here. However they do give food for thought.

You can also check what your child has been looking at by checking the computer’s internet history. Once you are in the internet press the CTRL button and at the same time press the H button.

This will give you an idea of where your teenagers have been surfing. Of course they may be a step ahead and have already removed the history.

So if you are worried check out some of the programmes that you can install easily which will prevent access to particular sites.

And talk to your child about the dangers of the Internet; everyday is Halloween on the internet, people are often not what they appear.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo April 20

Sinister threats on Bebo following murder of teen

SLUGGER's Belfast Gonzo reports on quite sinister going-ons on Bebo in relation to the awful and tragic murder 15-year-old Michael McIlveen in Ballymena.

There are links to the people's bebo home pages in the Slugger post which will chill you.

I did mention cyber-bullying in my previous posts on Bebo and how easy the site can facilitate this, a fact that seems to be played down a lot by some of the other sites who linked to my posts extolling it's virtues.

The links provided by Slugger are plain frightening and so full of hate and demonstrate Bebo at its worst.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs Slugger O'Toole Bebo

Young Wan doesn't want Bebo page

I JUST gave the Young Wan the news that I had relented and would allow her to set up a Bebo page and can you believe it, she doesn't want one...

Was this down to my talk/s on it, reading my column, or some mad maturity spurt?

While I would like to think it was any of the above I think it has more to do with the fact that she has since discovered that half of her teachers are on Bebo.

She is happy enough to use the false 14-year-old pretend profile that I established just to check out her pals, and I'll let her while I am watching.

Young people are mad.

Oh and full marks to the Young Wan for scoring full marks in a French test, the only one to do so in her class. From having an awful start to the week with the Young Wan acting all bold, I am sitting here on a sunny Friday afternoon before a bank Holiday weekend delighted.

Tecnhorati tags:redmum Irishblogs Bebo

Uh-oh Bebo - Red Mum's U-turn

I GOT up this morning to find the Young Wan completely immersed in Bebo instead of getting ready for school. The day I feared has arrived - she has worked out that she is able to use my laptop.

We talked about Bebo again last night and I did try once again to stress the dangers of what people were doing by actually showing it on Bebo. While I may think I was informing her in a practical way, I think she may have just been acting interested but was actually more interested in checking out people's pages.

I will be changing my laptop password to ensure unsupervised internet access doesn't happen again, apart from anything I have no net nanny installed.

But I am also thinking of allowing her to set up her own Bebo page under my supervision. I figure if she has worked out the laptop, it won't be long before she susses that internet cafes work just as well, and better when Mummy doesn't know about it.

So that means I can keep an eye on it, keeping her safe while allowing her to do what the vast majority of her classmates are doing. I can help and advise her on a suitable name, ie not sexygirl, maybe the Young Wan, but I don't she will go for that.

I'm not comfortable about this U-turn at all but at least this way she knows I am watching so will (hopefully) behave herself and I know she is safe and not sneaking behind my back with a Bebo profile I do not know about.

Sometimes you need to choose your battles. And I have a feeling that unless I grab this by the horns, it is probably inevitable that she will do it herself and I won't know about it. Oh I hope I don't regret this decision...

Tecnhorati tags:redmum Irishblogs Bebo

Another Bebo post; more (probably) to follow

I WAS going to start this post saying ‘one last post about Bebo’ but I realise I would telling porky pies because last week’s Red Mum Echo column concerned how parents can offer some internet nanny protection which emanated from my last Bebo post and is still to be posted yet so in those terms alone - it ain't over. Besides Bebo will run and run.

I got some great responses from the post which I felt I should draw attention to, firstly there is Irish Eyes’ all-round response listing pros and cons and concluding, I think, that if students are becoming addicted spending their time on the site instead of studying there is a problem.

I also liked his analogy of the toilet or potty-talk that is prevalent in the site amongst the Young Uns. I have found the way young people communicate with each other makes me very uncomfortable and maybe that’s a generation thing or maybe I just think looking through Bebo profiles and seeing 14-year-old girls describe themselves in terms that wouldn’t be out of synch with Lolita, and it frightens me.

A pal of the Young Wan is one of the many young girls who have called themselves sexy girl, it is just not appropriate. I can understand why they do it but it is dangerous.

We can see pictures of this young girl, we know where she likes to hang out, what she likes, the works.

Another point which was raised by Irisheyes concerns the fact that once it is on the internet it is on the internet and can be found – the google presence in this case can be damning to these kids for years to come.

If companies do searches on potential employees now, that could become the norm, so surely it could become the norm for colleges to do such internet researches on prospective students.

Since I wrote the last piece on Bebo here and the additional Echo column which I haven't put up here yet and signing up to Bebo as a 14-year-old I came across comments from other Beboers about the Young Wan who was actually mentioned by name.

The comments were made by a girl and they were not nice, so I made a phone call to the concerned parties and told them to remove the comments by that afternoon; thankfully they were removed.

(I make that sound calm and rational, but in fairness when I saw the comments I could have strung people up!)

Interestingly I also learned today of a school that has suspended pupils this week for things they said on Bebo. If bloggers have to be wary of libel then so do Beboers whether they are 14 or 40.

But I started this post to highlight some great points made by others to my original post, do check out Adam who did great investigative journalistic pieces that would put those who have commented on Bebo in the Irish media to shame, really, check them out.

He comments on my piece saying:

A while back I noticed the dangers of Bebo, specifically the way that contact details used to be displayed to friends. In theory that was fine but people were very lax in who they added as friends which is where I came in under the guise of an attractive woman. Over a period of a week I discovered that over 40% of the people who accepted my request for friendship had their contact details displayed!

I actually read this before the cult of Bebo hit our household and meant to comment because I was so impressed with how he viewed it all and how methodically he put substance to his gut feelings.

And I am also impressed with Padraic a 17-year-old who wrote a comment on the positives of Bebo and even shouted out support for the Young Wan. In fairness to him he argues sensibly about the positives of the site and I have to stress again I completely understand it’s appeals – I really do.

Padriac seems to be, dare I say, sensible, (sorry Padriac what young person wants to be called sensible?) and if I was his parent I would be reassured about his Bebo activity, he seems to have it sussed. Fair play.

He says:

"Not being a parent and only being seventeen would probably not put me in the best position to judge you, my own parents or anyone else's for the sheer concern they have for their children's welfare. but I still can't help feeling you've crossed the thin line between concern and paranoia.

Another response came from Paul and he says:

I’ve been a user of the internet almost since it began and I’ve learned a lot. But I’ve always stayed clear of the chat rooms and such.

My blog is my first foray into the idea of putting myself out there and I’m learning that even at the age of 32 and being fairly streetwise, when it comes to the internet I’m still occasionally naïve and make some mistakes. But better me now than my kids in the future.”

And of course Rick O’Shea linked to my original post and him being a Beboer I’m delighted to have his contribution, and as he says himself it is different, he has his safeguards up. Having a public persona, Bebo is a great tool for him but as a Daddy he recognises the implications.

“as a parent myself, looking at some of the 900 or so kids who've linked up with my page it terrifies me the amount of information available. Mates, places they'll be meeting up, photos, even phone numbers in some cases.....”

And there are other responses too from Paul and In My Head, Emma C, and Omaniblog so go check them all out and always remember when on the internet ‘be careful out there!’, seriously do be careful.

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Me No to Bebo - RM column April 7

YOU would be hard pushed to have missed Bebo recently. It is the latest internet craze that allows members to interact in an on-line community and it is been one of the media’s topics over the last couple of weeks.

From radio DJs such as RTEs Rick O’Shea to secondary school children have all signed up to the service and the Young Wan’s pals are no different. After all it is estimated that 500,000 people in Ireland have signed up to Bebo with so many thousand coming on line each day.

So it is not surprising that the Young Wan wants to join up too. But before I would allow that I decided that I would check it out for myself.

While there are some people who you can read about, such as Rick O’Shea, to comment you need to sign on. If you wish to view secondary school details you have to sign on first and join a school.

So I did as a 14-year-old schoolgirl, no bother at all. All you need is an email.

I was able to check out the kids’ profiles, their pictures, their blogs, who their friends are, who considers themselves as their ‘groupies’ and I was disturbed.

Most of these young people have signed up in their own names and the information about themselves they are freely giving away is more than scary. Even though the terms and conditions of Bebo state that you shouldn’t use your own name, the kids are.

Being a blogger myself, where I keep a sort-of internet journal, I love the internet, I love what I can do there, from storing my photographs to contributing to a Dublin Blog.

And I can certainly understand wholeheartedly the fascination and appeal of something like Bebo and the other services like it such as MSN’s MySpace.

And even though I keep my own online journal I have tried to some degree to maintain a certain level of anonymity. There are just too many nutters out there.

Those nutters are sure to love Bebo.

Talking to the Young Wan about this and the dangers of it, particularly going online using your own name and giving away details of your life as well as posting pictures.

But I realise that the Young Wan’s head is almost exclusively full of the fun aspects of the site and how so many of her pals are members.

When talking to her about it I said: “Look how easy it was for me to sign up pretending to be something I am not, what if you are talking to someone only you do not know that they are 45 years old…..”

And that’s as far as I got before she interrupted saying ‘well I might talk to them but I wouldn’t meet them and I wouldn’t keep talking to them’.

What I was about to say was “45 years old and a paedophile?”

She was just not listening to me at all, she’d gone off on some Bebo daydream. And I think she is under the ridiculous notion that she could spot danger, when it is perfectly clear this isn’t the case.

If my mind wasn’t made up before hand, it is now.

While she might start off only talking to those she actually knows, this will change and do not think it wouldn’t. Part of the service is that you can link to other students in other school and on and on.

The scenario where a nutter or whatever can pretend to be a cute teenage boy is all too real. So if some cute boy gets in contact with a teenage girl, do not tell me that they won’t be flattered and intrigued. Of course they would, that’s also the appeal of Bebo.

And let’s imagine this ‘cute boy’ corresponds over time, only in reality they are not a ‘cute boy’ at all, they are the 45-year-old man I was talking about earlier.

Now the Young Wan is a smart child/young adult to whom I have exhaustedly talked to over the years about being safe. Yet despite all that in theory, in reality she obviously doesn’t realise the full implications or how a young person can be manipulated.

And this is all aside from the fact that many teens are now immersing themselves in Bebo spending hours and hours online. As I said while I love the internet, reality is reality and something has to give with this amount of online time.

So it is me no to Bebo.



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