Yahoo's Efforts to Curb Child Internet Exploitation

    Recently my memories of my experience five years ago revisited me when I learned of the case involving Yahoo and the recent shutdown of their user created chat rooms. This action was taken by Yahoo earlier this summer after a television station in Houston, Texas ran a report featuring the names of the user rooms created by adults. The purpose of these rooms was for the adults to find a way to swap child pornography and in some cases to engage in sex with minors. Because of this, major corporations have pulled their advertisements from Yahoo chat rooms. A lawsuit has also been filed on behalf of a 12 year old victim who was abused as a result of a face to face meeting set through a Yahoo user created room. Our experiences may be a bit shocking, but should not be surprising. In the article, “Highlights of Youth Internet Safety Survey” David Finkalhor, Kimberly Mitchell, Janis Wolak, cites the study, “Youth Internet Safety Survey”, conducted by the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. This study revealed that 1 in every 5 children ages 10 to 17 receives unwanted sexual solicitations online. Furthermore, for those children who were solicited online, 49% did not tell anyone about the incident. The statistics are startling, but Yahoo’s decision to close down all user created rooms will not make the incidents of child abuse vanish. We could only hope that it would be that simple. In fact their actions have only swept the issue of internet exploitation under the rug. What will stop determined pedophiles from propositioning a minors in the standard rooms that Yahoo created? No matter what actions internet providers take to try and stop child exploitation, pedophiles will be one step ahead in their attempts to seek out victims online. Offenders will only find other sites and venues on the net to try and engage minors, therefore the problem moves elsewhere. It is clear that parents must be proactive, but how to be proactive is the real question.