CyberLaw Blog

Archive for December 20th, 2009

Sexual offenders are using the internet to fast-track abuse: “(Daily Telegraph)
Sexual offenders are using the internet to fast-track abuse, according to new research. Previous studies into child sexual abuse had shown that offenders spent months befriending a young person, and in some cases their family, to prepare for the abuse. But latest research, from the European Online Grooming Project, shows that the grooming process by offenders using the internet is much faster. Rather than selecting one vulnerable child to abuse, some offenders also appear to target numerous young people until they find someone willing to meet them.
They are increasingly using social networking sites such as MSN and Facebook and are becoming technologically-advanced, often operating in communities sharing indecent images between countries, according to the research conducted by NatCen (National Centre for Social Research), Kingston University and Royal Holloway, University of London – which was presented at the UK Council for Child Internet Safety’s (UKCCIS) first annual summit. Prof Julia Davidson, from Kingston University, said. ‘The research shows that the grooming period has been speeded up with chat room communication becoming almost immediately sexualised’.

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

UK – Internet safety for children targeted: “(BBC)
Lessons in using the internet safely are set to become a compulsory part of the curriculum for primary schoolchildren in England from 2011. The lessons are one element of a new government strategy being unveiled called ‘Click Clever, Click Safe’. Children will also be encouraged to follow an online ‘Green Cross Code’ and block and report inappropriate content. The measures have been drawn up by the UK Council on Child Internet Safety, a new body comprising 140 organisations. see Click Clever Click Safe: The First Child Internet Safety Strategy. see also Son’s Rogue Tweet Taught Brown A Lesson (Sky News).

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

CN – China expands porn sting by shutting P2P video sites: “(IDG News Service)
Chinese regulators have taken a wide-ranging war against online porn one step further by closing a series of popular BitTorrent and other video-sharing Web sites in recent days. The move against video-sharing sites comes as efforts grow to stamp out porn elsewhere too. Regulators have cranked up their work to eradicate porn accessed by mobile phone and called for more control of vulgar content in online PC games. Last week state media also criticized Google and local rival Baidu over pornographic search results.

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

CN – China tightens Internet controls in the name of fighting porn, piracy, and cybercrime: “(Rebecca MacKinnon)
China’s blocking of overseas websites – including Facebook, Twitter, and thousands of other websites including this blog – is more extensive and technically more sophisticated than ever. Controls over domestic content have also been tightening. The past few weeks have seen four new moves which are not officially or overtly aimed at political content, but which have implications for the way in which the government controls all conveyors of all kinds of speech. First, late November saw the launch of a mobile porn crackdown. The draconian way in which this crackdown is being implemented involves a great deal of collateral damage for non-pornographic content. Second, Chinese the state-run media is going after the search engines again for turning up smutty results when users search for smutty information. Third, last week the government shut down more than 500 file-sharing websites as part of an anti-porn and anti-piracy crackdown, on the grounds that these websites don’t have proper licenses. Fourth, CNNIC, the organization which runs the .cn top-level domain has announced that it is no longer accepting domain name applications from individuals.

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

US – Study: 15 percent of teens have gotten 'sext' messages: “(CNET)
Sending explicit content, such as naked or near-naked photos, via text message – a phenomenon also known as ’sexting’ – is a familiar phenomenon among some teens, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. Older teens, especially those who foot their own cell phone bills, are much more likely to send and receive these images. While 8 percent of 17-year-olds with cell phones have sent a sexually provocative image by text, this number goes up to 17 percent among those who pay their bills themselves. In all, 30 percent of 17-year-olds have received explicit images on their phones. The survey also shows that while the exchange of nude images mostly takes place among romantic partners or potential partners of the same age, these images are also forwarded to non-partners or people in different age groups.

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

AU – Australia mulls mandatory ISP filtering: “(ZDNet)
Mandatory ISP filtering legislation is expected to be introduced in Australia around the middle of 2010, after which there will be a one year period to implement and activate the filtering technology. The Federal Government announced it will introduce amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act, which will by 2011 require all ISPs to block refused classification-rated material hosted on overseas servers.

(Via QuickLinks Update.)