Internet companies, law enforcement officials, educators and parents are among the representatives of Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell’s new Youth Internet Safety Task Force.
The task force, officially announced Monday, will work together to come up with proposals for the 2007 General Assembly session.
“As the Internet capital of America, we must lead the way in protecting children and teenagers using this great vehicle for information, communication and commerce,” McDonnell said.
“Virginia has been a pacesetter in dealing with new and emerging issues with online mediums. Protecting kids online is not a new issue, but many of the threats are,” said Andrew Weinstein, an AOL spokesman, also a task force member.
Weinstein said safety issues range from inappropriate content, to pedophiles, to spyware that targets children.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a task force member, has been working with social networking sites, such as myspace.com and facebook.com, to find a way to keep users safe, said Carolyn Atwell-Davis.
“Cyberspace is not some unknown place out there. That is where kids are living these days. That is where they are. That is the way they communicate. It is not going to go away. The better we understand it and why youth are so drawn to this technology, the better we are to protect them,” she said.
Atwell-Davis said she hopes the task force will be able to “anticipate the new technology and the ways it can be misused.”
Youth and the Internet
» More than 20,000 images of child pornography are posted on the Internet a week.
» One in 5 children, 10 to 17 years old, receive an unwanted sexual solicitation online.
» One in 33 children, 10 to 17 years old, receive an aggressive sexual solicitation online.
» One in 4 youths aged 10-17 had an unwanted exposure to pornography online.
— Source: Virginia Attorney General’s Office
