Macomb Online Safety Team (MOST) and others discuss Internet Dangers. Students surveyed and web site created www.most.macomb.com.

Area Parents Learn about Internet Dangers
McDonough County This Week Augusta Eagle Scribe
February 5, 2007 February 8, 2007
By CHELSEA MCDOUGALL
“I had a 26-year-old friend on MySpace that started to get mad when I was not on or when he wanted me to be. He started talking about sexual things.” “Someone added me and he/she was calling me bad names and threatening to kill me.” “One girl who I thought was 11 turned out to be a 36-year-old man and tried to call me.” These are some of the exact comments said by Macomb Junior and Senior High School students in an anonymous survey given to students.
The results were presented at an Internet safety educational session. The event called “Don’t Get Caught in the Net ... Do You Know Where Your Children Are?” was held Wednesday, Jan. 31 and was sponsored by the Macomb Online Safety Team (MOST), the Regional Office of Education, Macomb CUSD #185 and Infobahn Outfitters.
Each organization presented a variety of information. Mayor Mick Wisslead declared Jan. 31 Internet Safety Day by giving a proverbial proclamation. According to Detective Matt Gass from the Macomb Police Department, Internet safety issues often seen in the news do not only happen in big cities. He presented three cases involving Internet crimes in Macomb’s backyard. Fortunately, he said, no one was seriously harmed.
Two cases involved sting operations with police officials acting as a child. The other case involved a 14-year year old girl from Macomb who traveled to Orlando via train with an older man she met online. The girl was returned unharmed. “I just showed this can happen in our community,” Gass said at the end of his presentation. “Luckily nothing happened to our juveniles.”
Jace Galloway- Shoemaker presented a series of videos about Internet safety on topics like cyber bullying, or intimidating, threatening, embarrassing someone by way of cyber communication, cyber stalking, chat room safety and child pornography. When a child is chat chatting online, the videos said, it is important not to put any personal information in a profile or give out any information to strangers. Even the smallest, seemingly unimportant information can lead a predator to find home and school locations with directions such as interests, age and gender. Interests, as one video presented, could help predators tell children exactly what they want to hear. “The littlest bit of information can snowball and (one) can easily find the identity of (a) person,” said Cathy Hamblin, Area III Learning Technology director.
Another video said anyone could be a predator or target. It said a likely predator is a “male, white, young or old, educated, clean cut, blends in social situations and holds a responsible job.” Predators can then target children who are “trusting, curious, rebellious, those who crave love or attention, 9-15 years old and who are loners or lonely.”
Popular trends or “hangouts” on the Internet are social networks like MySpace, Facebook and Friendster. These provide information for anyone to see at any given time. An age restriction on MySpace prohibits anyone under 14 from creating a profile and profiles of people under 16 are automatically private so only their friends can see them.
Presenting “Internet Safety is Key,” Hamblin suggested parents check their child’s profile and check it often. She also suggested parents get their own membership to further see what their child is up to.
With today’s children being technology savvy, the Internet and computers are a big part of their lives. “Even though they are technology savvy, they are not life savvy,” Hamblin said. She said the parents in the audience took the first step in preventing an Internet crime against their children. “You are here tonight,” she told the audience, “we don’t want it to end tonight.”
The survey of local students is on the MOST Web site, www.most.macomb.com along with other tools and resources.

Internet chat abbreviations popular acronyms

BF= Boyfriend
BRB= Be Right Back
CYL8R= See you later
GF= Girlfriend
LOL= Laugh Out Loud
LY= Love Ya
TTYL= Talk To You Later
POMS= Parents Over My Shoulder
BTW = By The Way
H&K= Hugs and Kisses
JMO= Just My Opinon
KIT= Keep In Touch
SYS= See You Soon
QT= Cutie
ROFL= Rolling on Floor Laughing
OTOH= On the Other Hand
QSL= Reply
QSO= Conversation
TTFN= Ta Ta For Now
WB= Welcome Back
EG= Evil Grin
YBS= Yo