So as I said in my last journal I've carried concerns about online predators and pedophiles and such around with me for awhile, you can't help but see it occasionally in the news as various social networking websites get crucified in the press for being "havens for child molesters" and such.

Earlier this year I sat down and started doing actual research into how these individuals operate.

I dug around and managed to find some good scientific research on the subject, not just the hyped up and alarmist news pieces you can find on a casual web search. If all you've ever read is news stories you'd probably be surprised at the actual truth of the matter.

I assume that most people have the same general impression that I had before I read into the subject; the press-induced idea of some fat old guy with a nasty beard pretending to be fourteen so they can weasel out personal info from your kids, track them down in real life and do unspeakable things to them. Scary stuff when you're a parent.

When you scratch off the news Story veneer you see something different.

Statistics compiled by the Crimes against Children Research Center and presented by their director during a Congressional Caucus on the subject paints a slightly different picture from the impression you'd get from the news.

As it turns out, the predominant online sex crime victim is not a young child but rather a teenager over the age of thirteen (13), or in other words kids who've already hit puberty. I would wager that most parents fear for their younger kids and actually get more comfortable as their children get into their teens; a situation which actually calls for a bit more concern, not less when you consider online predators.

Another big surprise is that violence only makes up as little as five percent of sex crimes involving the internet and actual abduction makes up even less at only three percent. So essentially the sample showed that very few online predators show up to kidnap or sexually attack their victims.

As far as the picture of some nasty badguy pretending to be much younger online? The sample shows that only about five percent used deception as a part of their crime; most didn't misstate their age by very much and most didn't pretend to be any other age but their actual one.

As it turns out about 80% of the offenders in the study were quite explicit about their intentions and age. Essentially they were up front and open about how old they were and the fact that they were looking for a sexual encounter with young teenagers.

It also turns out that seventy-three percent of the victims actually cooperated with the offender and often met with them on multiple occasions.

I found that to be the opposite of what news reports had led me to expect.

Going into this research I didn't have a clue about the best way to make deviantART an undesirable destination for these creepy individuals but after I reviewed the actual data and case studies it was a completely different situation from what I had thought we'd be addressing.

As it turns out what puts children at risk for receiving the more serious kinds of sexual solicitation online is not revealing personal information or having a blog or visiting a website or chat room but rather what puts them at the most risk is a willingness to talk about sex online with strangers or having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web such as visiting sex sites, sexually oriented chat rooms, or initiating sexual discussions with strangers.

In this respect it appears we've been making deviantART an undesirable location for these people for a very long time now.

I posted a News Article Today which outlines the very small changes that were necessary for us to optimize optimize our efforts in this area.