Thursday, April 3, 2008

1 in 5 endangered children is rescued online

That headline is something I just made up. It's a takeoff on those billboards that pretend to inform parents of the new dangers to their kids with the grave warning "1 in 5 children is sexually solicited online." I haven't found the writeup of the survey that made that claim. This page pretends to cite it, but doesn't link to anything. I strongly suspect that the methodology of that survey was similar to the one I just used in the making of this headline. I have yet to see is an actual story of any harm coming to a child via this kind of solicitation. So while the big scary Internets have billboards warning parents of the threat they pose to kids. Nobody but Dan Savage is warning parents of the threat posed by youth pastors. Unlike these tech alarmists, Savage cites reports of actual incidents. This is a regular feature on the Slog. They really should have a label for it.

Speaking of actual incidents, Here's a story of a woman resscuing her kidnapped child thanks to a tip submitted to her myspace page. But there's no billboards along the freeway announcing this story. It's always respectable to promote panic, especially when new technology is involved.

Imagine if a survey was conducted on youth pastor child molestation and the results posted on a billboard. How do you suppose religious groups would respond? I think that billboard would get a very different kind of reception than the 1 in 5 kids billboards have.

To be fair, Savage has not established that youth pastor molestations are actually more common than other kinds, but he has done more than the "1 in 5 kids.." alarmists.

Oh, and this youth pastor post really shines a light on the different standards that are applied. Oh, and check out This one.

Theme Music: Willie the Pimp part 1 by Frank Zappa from The Mothers Life Filmore East June 1971.

No comments: