Teen attacked after answering Craigslist personal
By adamg - Mon, 11/17/2008 - 12:00pm.
Brookline Police report on an incident on Heath Street last month:
Upon arrival police met with the juvenile victim who stated that she agreed to meet in person with a male suspect after meeting online through "Craigslist". After meeting with the male suspect, she was sexually assaulted. The male suspect was placed under arrest.
- Add new comment |
| 
| 
I feel like my generation is
I feel like my generation is between two other generations, both of whom I think get online communication wrong (dont yell at me, its just an observation.)
Many people over the age of 30 think meeting someone after meeting them online is crazy (many, not all.)
Many people under 20 are very comfortable exposing their lives to people they dont know online, and seem to be a little too comfortable meeting people they do not know.
Ive found people in my age bracket grew up without the internet so we still have our reservations about the people we meet online, but got access to the web before college so we tend to be open minded about the internet as a whole. Unlike the over 30 set we will consider meeting someone we met online, but unlike the under 20 set we will make sure its in a highly visible public place, and have our cell phones ready to go. Although I do wonder what a teenager was doing answering an ad online, I mean dont they have enough chances to meet people in real life? Ive met people from the online universe but thats mostly because I work in a small office, and dont come across new people too often otherwise...
Good point. And I think
Good point. And I think that *many* people (my thirtysomething self included, sadly) aren't careful enough about Boston CraigsList in particular.
When CraigsList (CL) first came to Boston, the only people on it were people with SF Bay Area connections, and it had a very warm-fuzzy-sunny feel to it.
Over the years since, I'm pretty sure that Boston CL has come to attract a hugely disproportionate share of local crazies, druggies, predators, and general flakes.
Besides the Web in general becoming mainstream, I think that CL's reputation for anonymous forums, sex (and drugs?) hookups, and free stuff all contributed to attracting too many of the wrong people.
The only reason not to nuke CraigsList from orbit is that there are still good people on it, and the occasional rare gem. They're just harder to find than they used to.
There is ongoing research in how to foster warm-fuzzy online communities, but CL is no substitute for traditional face-to-face communities like around universities, religious groups, ethnic groups, neighborhoods, etc. In those communities, you tend to know something more about a person's character, there is more of an investment in reputation, and the community is there to knowledgeably interpret and mediate disputes. (I was burned very badly by this, myself. In a face-to-face community, I would've known more about the person's reputation, and not foolishly assumed they were of strong and mature character.)
re: Nuking Craigslist
"he only reason not to nuke CraigsList from orbit is that there are still good people on it, and the occasional rare gem."
I fail to understand why you would nuke a forum due to the users, when the forum itself is not theirs and is in fact a free and "anonymous" place to do business both professionally and socially across a vast manner of uses.
I don't use craigslist because there are "good" or "bad" people - I use it to find an apartment, to sell things, to buy things, to socialize, and other various purposes.
And if craigslist was not where I did these things, because I thought folks were "bad" what would that have to do with craigslist? It would be more reasonable to conclude that the PEOPLE are the problem, not craigslist.
Keep the nukes at bay, eh?
If kids are getting assaulted because they meet someone on the street, I don't see how that has anything to do with Craigslist. There are plenty of ways to meet people, plenty of places to be assaulted. All actions were voluntary. Should craigslist tell kids to be careful? No, it shouldn't, but it already does.
I'd say that a forum *is*
I'd say that a forum *is* its participants. Fortunately, CL still does have a lot of redeeming value.
While it's true that anybody (kids or adults alike)
can be assaulted on the street, and are more often than not assaulted by acquaintences than by strangers (although the latter does occur), I think that it's up to the parents of kids to supervise them and teach them about common sense both on and offline, if one gets the drift.
Points well taken, neilvandyke.
For starters, from what I've read/heard, Craigslist is really not very secure.
Secondly, this:
says it all in a nutshell about contract online vs. real face-to-face human contact in a real community . It's true not only on Craigslist, but on any internet forum or chatroom.
Thirdly, it's not surprising that the young teen who finally met a guy in person that she'd "met" online was sexually assaulted, especially because the girl was a minor. As horrible as it is, it not only comes as no surprise, but I've also read stories about far worse things happening to minors who meet people in person that they've "met" online, because they weren't who the teen thought they were at all. In fact, I read a true story about a 15 y/o girl who thought she was meeting a teenager that she'd "met" online for a date. The girl's date turned out to be a man in his 30's, who abducted and brutally murdered the 15 y/o girl.
Three years ago, I read another true story about a 13-year-old boy from Vermont who'd been routinely subject to cyberbullying by classmates. One of the cyberbullies suggested that the 13-year-old boy kill himself, which, unfortunately, the aggrieved boy did....with his father's shotgun that had clearly been out in plain sight, loaded and unlocked, making it easy for the kid to get access to and use the weapon...on himself.
All of the above having been said, it's all too clear that in both of these instances, parental supervision while on the internet was lacking for both the cyberbullies and the victim(s), and I believe that these two grisly incidents ( which are only a drop in the bucket, btw) seriously underscore the importance of minors to have some parental or other adult supervision while posting on the internet, which, unfortunately, all too often, doesn't happen. Yet, it's agreed that making the internet taboo for adolescents isn't the answer, either.
Sadly for the kid who shot
Sadly for the kid who shot himself he had bigger problems then online issues if there was a shotgun easily accesible to him...
Very true, ShadyMilkMan. The father was negligent on two counts
This:
is not only true, but it's all the more reason why the kid should've had parental supervision while posting on the internet (as should the kids who were cyberbullying him), and is also part of the reason why it was so stupid of the father to keep his loaded shotgun unlocked and in plain sight where an already emotionally unstable kid could get access to the weapon.
Abstinence only Internet?
As a forty-something with an adolescent kid and a preteen, I look upon the internet just like I look upon the obvious fact that my kids will encounter sex and drugs in the coming years. I take the same view to that end: teach them how to be safe!
The problem is that most people my age haven't been e-mailing and listserv-ing and the like for over half their lives like myself and my husband have. Many people our age find it very difficult to talk to their kids about the internet because they have been scared witless by sensationalized accounts and are completely technically outclassed by their kids. We are much more savvy than many in our age group, and thus we don't think we have to give our kids all of these silly "just don't look at anything or talk to anyone" rules that come down from on high and come chock-full of bizarre moralistic flavoring. Besides, they both know that Uncle E met Aunt L in a chat room on line, so we would just look ridiculous if we painted this as all bad. They know better.
That doesn't mean "anything goes", either. We retain administrative privileges, and keep their computer in a public area of the house. We tell them to avoid extending on-line friendship into the real world without careful consideration and stress the importance of meeting in public places with parents initially present (not necessarily directly so, but around, say, reading the paper in the corner). We don't have myspace issues yet, but we will audit their public displays when that time comes. A couple of years ago, my husband did a search on the name of the school where he taught, then contacted students that popped up and told them that they should remove that information from their pages for their own safety. That really unnerved a few of them who acted like myspace was magically closed to adults and he couldn't be allowed in!
The big part of knowing how to work this comes from experience. If you don't have that experience, it is more difficult to teach it. I have met up with plenty of people IRL who I initially met on the internet and so has my husband. These are usually people who are traveling in our area, or people we have corresponded with and live in the area we are traveling in. It isn't terra incognita to us, and our kids know it. This doesn't mean that nothing bad will ever happen, but that we can speak from experience, just like we do with the sex and drugs stuff.
Im confident your kids will
Im confident your kids will know how to handle themselves in the real and "fake"(online) worlds. Making something taboo only dares a kid to give it a try, and then they go running in without any knowledge. Its just like those kids with helicopter parents who finally get away and go to school in a far far away land and end up crashing due to drinking and parties. I like your approach and hope you maintain it as they get older and new technology (who knows what the next decade will hold) comes around.
I definitly hear the outclassed thing, Im in my twenties and already feel my grip on that universe getting loosening. When you have to work, and keep track of a car/house/bills you dont have as much time for internet things (besides posting here of course lol) and you lose track of new technologies. I can only imagine what having kids does to that little bit of free time I keep for myself... It also doesnt help that teenagers are constantly finding new ways to escape their parents watch. Myspace is becoming passe as has Facebook, Im sure there must be a new one out there on the verge of coming out that I dont know about because Im not in that club. Texting is big now, simply because many parents arent aware of it, but thanks to the new cell phone commercials about textng Im sure that will become more parent friendly as well. Im sure its only a matter of time before one of the big three offers a serivice where every text from a phone also gets emailed to a parents email account lol.
A tricky dance
Thanks Shady. I definitely believe in giving them just enough rope to almost, but not quite hang themselves. Sometimes I have to err on the side of "minor rope burn" instead of "minor choking", but that fine line is the tricky part of parenting.
They have to be able to make non-horrendous mistakes, and believe they are calling the shots or they simply won't know how to when I'm no longer lurking, spying, or supervising.
Craigslist is not
Craigslist is not responsible for that :)
More details on the case
Wicked Local reports on the case, in which the girl allegedly placed an ad for somebody to get her out of her boring house and then the alleged raper, 40, contacted her.
Scary!
This underscores why young kids need parental supervision while posting on the internet, which is all too often lacking. No wonder there are so many problems on the internet!