The past couple of weeks the Danish social network site for teenagers, Arto, has repeatedly appeared in the news media. This is due to the fact that a journalist from the Danish tabloid newspaper Ekstra Bladet created a false profile on Arto where she pretended to be a 13 year old girl and got into contact with a number of older men. During a year the undercover journalist communicated through MSN Messenger with four older men (from the age of 35 - 72) who all had a keen interest in meeting the girl IRL. The correspondence between the men and the apparent 13 year old girl had many sexual undertones and some of the men openly indicated that they wanted to have sex with, what they believed was, the 13 year old girl.

When the physical meetings were finally arranged the news paper revealed the truth and the following days they published a number of articles where they - one by one and with video documentation - exposed the men as predators and child molesters.

We have previously seen similar stories in the Danish news media, and the purpose of this blog post is not to comment on these specific news stories, which are part of the ongoing moral panic, which I commented on in an article I wrote in October 2006. However, the public debate that follows sensational cases like these is interesting. (more…)

This weekend the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende published an article about children and young people’s use of social network sites and how much knowledge parents have about their children’s online activities. The article is based on the survey I have conducted together with with The Danish Media Council for Children and Young People. It uses some empirical examples from our study and the overall message is that parents should go online with their kids.

You can read the article here (unfortunately only in Danish). I like the cartoon that goes along with the article

The Danish Media Council for Children and Young People has launched a new campaign about Internet safety aimed at children and young people. The campaign features a fictional character, the 32-year old Hjarness, who has profiles on many different social network sites and uploads pictures, videos and all kinds of personal information about himself (and his friends) on the Internet.

Hjarness has a YouTube profile, an Arto profile, a WordPress blog and his very own homepage. He has also written an article about Internet safety for the online magazine Artomania.

I think this is a really interesting way of communicating to youngsters about Internet safety. Among other things, Hjarnees advises children and young people to put their full name, address, phone number and e-mail address online and to upload embarrassing photos and videos of their friends. There is no finger-wagging here, and the young people seem to really get the point and find Hjarnees really funny.

The campaign is targeted 13-16-year olds and the message is “Life online is what YOU make of IT”. Read more about it here.

Tomorrow at Safer Internet Day the social network site Netstationen will be covering the event from their online TV channel.

See Netstationen’s online tv channel here - live tomorrow between 12.00 -15.00.

Next Tuesday, February 12, I am participating in “Safer Internet Day 2008“.

Safer Internet Day is a yearly event organised by Insafe, the European internet safety network. Last year 43 countries from all over the world participated in the event.

This year’s theme is “Life online is what YOU make of IT”. I am participating in the Danish part of the event which takes place at the science museum, the Experimentarium, in Copenhagen and is arranged by The Danish Media Council for Children and Young People. Here, many of the most popular social network sites for children and young people in Denmark, like Arto.dk, Habbo.dk, Netstationen.dk, MSN.dk and Cyberhus.dk, will participate both online and offline. See the Danish programme here.

During the event I will be presenting some of the primary results from the online questionnaire about young people’s use of social network sites that I launched last year at Safer Internet Day together with the Media Council. There are some really interesting data on the different experiences - both good and bad - that Danish youngsters have online. I will upload a small fact sheet presenting the data on the actual day. (However, as the data are part of my PhD project I haven’t deeply or theoretically analysed them yet. But some preliminary conclusions can be drawn.)

Watch the official Safer Internet Day 2008 video clip here.

In Denmark young people use the phrase “camme frækt” about having web cam sex.

Here is a video that shows why web cam sex is not always a good idea:

See other videos from the Danish Media Council for Children and Young People here.

How do children across Europe deal with online risks? The new Eurobarometer survey from the EU Commission has interviewed children of 9-10 and 12-14 from 29 European countries about their use of new media and online technologies. I find it assuring that the survey shows that children generally are aware of potential risks and the precautions they need to take online :

The results show that children are globally well aware of the potential online risks, such as security, viruses, access to unwanted content, identity theft and potential dangerous contact with strangers.

Unfortunately - but not surprisingly - the survey also shows that European children are reluctant to tell parents about the troubles they face online:

Even though young people know about of the risks and precautions, most would rather try to solve the problem themselves or with friends, and would talk to their parents only as a last resort in the most serious cases.

Read more here or download the overall report.

Recently, I wrote an article for the Danish magazine Månedsmagasinet Skolen about how to see through fake profiles on social networking sites like Arto . The article was part of a special theme issue on internet safety published on Safer Internet Day 2007. The whole magazine is available for download here.

This is a massage in a faker’s guest book on Arto. It says: “We piss on fakers”. As the picture and the statement show the fight aganist fakers is really strong on Arto.

As part of Safer Internet Day 2007 which was celebrated all over Europe today I participated in a ‘Blogathon‘. I wrote a blog post about being private online which I will post here as well:

Keep in mind your online identity

Have you ever thought about the fact that what you put online about yourself could stay there forever or the way in which you portray yourself today might affect the way people see you in ten years?

Social networking sites like MySpace and Friendster have become extremely popular – especially among young people. In Denmark there is one particular site that has won the heart of almost every Danish teenager. The website is called Arto and it has more than half a million users (out of a 5,4 million population). It is estimated that 80 % of all Danes between the age of 12 and 18 years old have a profile on the website. (more…)

In my PhD project I am working together with The Media Council for Children and Young People. Among other things we are right now putting the finishing touches to two online questionnaires about social networking and young people’s use of the internet - one questionnaire for parents and one for children and young people themselves. Both of the questionnaires will be launched at Safer Internet Day 2007 which takes place February 6th all over Europe.

Since the Media Council is appointed Awareness Node in Denmark under the EU Safer Internet Plus Programme they are coordinating all the national activities in relation to Safer Internet Day 2007. Read more about the activities in Denmark or take the quiz about internet safety and see how safe you really are online