By: LINDSAY REDDING
PhillyBurbs.com

Open communication is still the key to protecting children, parents were advised – especially when it comes to social networking.

As their children begin using Facebook, e-mail and cell phones, parents today are finding a whole new set of dangers to worry about – like cyberbullying, sexting, and online sexual predators.

“I’m very nervous about the whole cyber-space issue,” said Earlene Biggs of New Hope. Biggs, who has three grown children, now cares for her 12-year-old niece and is discovering that technological advancements have made parenting today a lot different from 10 years ago.

Biggs came to the Central Bucks Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday to participate in a discussion on the new issues facing parents in the age of the Internet, led by family therapist Fabian Salgado of Growing Within Counseling in Doylestown.

Read more about keeping your children safe online

By Tom Smith
The Times Daily

It seems harmless, a click of a cell phone camera and the push of a send button.

But a sexually explicit photo transmitted to friends has far-reaching consequences that most teens and adults don’t realize. Among those consequences is possible prison time.

“More and more people are sending these photos and don’t realize that when it’s sent to one person, it can go on forever,” said Franklin County District Attorney Joey Rushing. “It can end up anywhere.”

Sexting – the term used to describe this new trend that is particularly popular among teens – refers to sending sexual pictures or messages by cell phone and is quickly becoming a problem, according to local law enforcement agents.

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Christian Newswire

WASHINGTON, March 16 /Christian Newswire/ — Enough Is Enough (EIE), a non-profit organization dedicated to keeping children safe online, commends the Witherspoon Institute on the release of its new study, The Social Costs of Pornography: A Statement of Findings and Recommendations.

“Any child with unrestricted Internet access is just one click away from accidentally or intentionally viewing an abundance of free material, from soft-core pornography to prosecutable material depicting live sex shows, orgies, bestiality, violence and child sexual abuse,” commented EIE President and former Child Online Protection Act (COPA) Commissioner, Donna Rice Hughes. “For the past fifteen years, Internet pornography has invaded our homes and pornifed our culture. This important report serves as a wake-up call to parents and caring adults that no child or adult is immune to its damaging impact.”

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WCPN

Technology can be a great thing, but it can get people into a lot of trouble very quickly. Last week, ideastream hosted a panel discussion aimed at students on the serious consequences that can arise if they’re caught sexting – sending nude photos via text message. ideastream®’s Ida Lieszkovszky has this report.

Judge Thomas O’Malley was one of 5 panelists – most from law enforcement – assembled at the ideacenter on Friday before an audience of about a hundred students, with many more tuned in through television. O’Malley told a story of eight local high school students that ended up in his court for sexting. It started with just two: while they were dating, the girl had texted nude photos of herself to her boyfriend. When they broke up, he forwarded those photos to some of his friends, until eventually 100 students had that picture on their cell phones. O’Malley asked the eight students charged to survey 200 of their classmates about sexting.

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LD News

WARREN, Pa.—Police say a New York man sent nude and lewd text messages to several teenage girls in northwestern Pennsylvania after accessing their personal information on Internet social networking sites.

Pennsylvania State Police in Warren don’t believe 26-year-old Adam Larson ever met any of the “thousands” of girls he claims to have texted between June 2008 and December 2009.

Rather, they say he collected cell phone numbers of 14- to 17-year-old girls from MySpace and Facebook and then would send mass text messages to the girls. Police say Larson sent nude photos of himself, requested the same from the girls and offered his Jamestown apartment to those who would run away from home.

Police expect Larson to surrender in Warren on Monday. The Associated Press could not locate a home telephone for him.

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By Adam Wise
Wisconsin Rapids Tribune

Local authorities want parents to know some teenagers are using cell phones in ways that could cause embarrassment — or land the teens in legal trouble.

Twenty percent of American teenagers have shared nude or semi-nude photos or video of themselves with others, according to a national study, and officials say the problem is prevalent locally.

In Wisconsin Rapids and the surrounding communities, teen “sexting” is becoming more popular, said Sgt. Dean Berres, investigator for the Wood County Sheriff’s Department.

“What we’ve seen so far is we’ve had it happen in pretty much every school district in Wood County,” Berres said, “and it’s happened in a multitude of ways.”

Read more about sexting and cyberbullying

by Lowri Turner
Wales Online

SO HOW do we keep kids safe on social networking sites?

After the terrible case of the murder of Ashleigh Hall, every mum and dad is now asking themselves that question.

The terrible irony is that while, in most areas of life, parents tend to know more than their kids, with Facebook, Bebo and the rest, we are on the back foot from the start.

Whatever parental controls we put in place, the dimmest of teens will take about a nanosecond to circumvent.

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By Gary Long
The Brownsville Herald

The attorney who prosecutes crimes against children for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brownsville has this advice for parents: Know where your children go on the Internet, what their passwords are, and do monitor their activity — especially on Facebook and MySpace.

“Monitoring your children’s activities on the computer is not spying on your children,” Megan Paulson, the assistant U.S. attorney in Brownsville assigned to crimes against children and who has prosecuted such cases exclusively for the past eight years, told an audience of Brownsville Independent School District parents Wednesday morning.

“It is spying on the Internet predators trying to access your kids.”

Read more about monitoring your child’s internet activities

By Bryan Chambers
The Herald-Dispatch

CHARLESTON — A bill that makes it illegal to send obscene, harassing or threatening communication with a cell phone or other mobile device won approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Several senators on the committee said the bill (HB 4207) is an attempt to catch up the state code with advancements in cell phone technology.

State law addresses harassment crimes using computers, but does not include language regarding cell phones and other mobile gadgets.

Under the bill, people would face charges if they send text messages, photos or videos on mobile devices with the intent of harassing or abusing another person.

Penalties would range from a misdemeanor and up to a $500 fine for the first offense to a felony and up to a $5,000 fine for three or more offenses.

Read more about sexting and what the government is doing to stop it

By Joie Tyrrell
Newsday.com

Wantagh Middle School partnered with local law enforcement agencies to address a growing epidemic within the adolescent population – the misuse of technology.

Nassau County Police Officer John Dockswell facilitated two assemblies and spoke with seventh and eighth-grade students on the perils of cyberbullying and sexting, and to sixth-grade students exclusively on cyberbullying.

Read more about teens and texting