Howdy! I have decided to have identity, privacy and safety as my topic of inquiry. With the rapid expansion and use of technology, especially the internet, by youth and young children I believe that privacy and safety are huge issues in today's society. Children and even teens are sometimes too naive to realize the dangers lurking on the internet. Recent laws and regulations have begun to bring attention to the problem but are they really helping? How can we truly protect children from the dangers that are out there in cyber space? Since this is still an evolving issue it's hard to find a solution. Cyber bullying and cyber stalking are serious, however they are seriously hard to prove and even harder to convict someone of their wrongdoing. The consequences of cyber bulling are terrible and extra precautions need to be taken in order to protect our society’s youngest members from being harmed over the internet.
Other topics that I would like to cover over the course of this semester are cyber crime, identity theft, as well as the consequences and effects of cyber bullying and cyber stalking. I am interested in how the development of MySpace and facebook aided in the ease of finding and exploiting youth and teens and also the safety features of those social networking sites. Internet and social networking sites can only do so much to protect their users. What are parents doing to protect their kids and what laws are out there for the protection or minors on the internet? And even though there are certain laws pertaining to these issues, how are they being enforced? Are they being enforced at all? I am excited to uncover some of these important and persistent issues throughout the semester and to see what is being done for the protection of everyone on the internet.
