Virginia has been a national leader in the area of youth internet safety. On Thursday, some in local law enforcement and education chimed in on social networking website Facebook's decision to partner up with attorneys general in 49 states, and the District of Columbia, to keep kids safer online.
Joe Showker is an instructional technology resource teacher for Rockingham County Schools and he is also on the National Advisory Board for Web Wise Kids, which teaches kids to how to be safe online. He says Facebook's changes help, but won't totally protect kids from predators.
"It's all good towards a good result, but yes the down side is there still will be predator activity, which means that parents have to connect with their kids. The school systems will still need to teach internet safety," says Showker.
Sgt. Bryan Hutcheson, Virginia State Police, agrees. He says the changes are a supplement to a parent's responsibility.
"Parental supervision, having the computer in a place where it's a common area, not necessarily where the juvenile has it in their room with the door closed," says Hutcheson.
Some of the changes Facebook has agreed to are:
- The site will send automatic warning messages when a child is in danger of giving personal information to an unknown adult.
- They will restrict the ability of users to change their listed ages.
- They will aggressively work to remove inappropriate content.
Hutcheson warns parents, "The predators you're talking about are generally much older than these juveniles, so therefore they are much more experienced and they know how to play tricks, they know how to play on the mind of a juvenile."