The new ChatDanger: Beyond chat

A lot of kids will tell you they know the basic online-safety rules. What they really want to know is *why to follow them.* That's what young people in the UK and Denmark told Childnet International as it was getting ready to expand and relaunch its one-of-a-kind Web site, ChatDanger.com.

One of the greatest things about kids, Childnet found in ChatDanger's first four years, is that they "want to tell others about what happened to them in order that others might learn from their experiences," said Childnet's Will Gardner, who led ChatDanger's relaunch. And that's what they did, in some of the more than 5,000 emails the site's received since 2000. Young site visitors kindly, thoughtfully told their stories - about how strangers have approached them, and in some cases threatened and exploited them, in emails, instant-messaging, gaming chats, and phone texting - so their peers wouldn't make the same mistakes. That's what young communicators will find in the new ChatDanger.com, a resource with which - as Will put it - kids can help their parents reach a certain comfort level about the new communications technologies. For more on this, please see this week's issue of my newsletter.