IM scandal: 'Teachable moment'

The scandal over former Rep. Mark Foley's instant messages to congressional pages can definitely be used as an online-safety "teachable moment," for grownups as well as kids. It can help clear up some misconceptions a lot of us have about instant messaging and "stranger danger." First, although IMs aren't captured and archived the way email is, obviously what people say in instant messaging can come back to haunt them (see the Washington Post on how programs like AIM and Yahoo Messenger come with archiving features). However, a lot of confidential conversation can happen between IM-ers if that archiving isn't turned on and monitoring software isn't installed, so it's good for parents to ask their kids questions about who they're IM-ing with (and definitely ask first – it's a whole lot better for continued parent-child trust and communication than surreptitious monitoring). Second, the case has something to say about "grooming," how adults - very often people kids know – work to win young people's confidence with the goal of exploiting them. "While former Congressman Foley’s hasn’t been accused of physical abuse, his alleged sexually suggestive emails and instant messages to underage boys have all the signs of classic grooming behavior," writes SafeKids.com's Larry Magid in a CBS News commentary. For educating teens' on grooming and other influencing techniques, see "How to recognize grooming" and "How social influencing works." For some relevant research, see "Non-stranger danger" and "Net crimes against children: Reality check" (and here's the Associated Press on how the current scandal goes back further than we thought).

This, of course, is a national-level teachable moment. Over time we'll probably find that it's the smaller and sometimes tougher ones – involving our kids' own social lives – that will be most effective in teaching them smart, safe use of the Internet so that the lessons will stick. Safety tips and online-safety courses are fine but more in keeping with mainstream, mass media (the kind you just download); problems on the participatory Web need participatory, or interactive, solutions, parents and educators are finding (see also "Monitoring MySpacers"). It just seems logical that teen social networkers need to know that they're part of the solution. [For the full editorial in the 10/13 issue of NetFamilyNews, please click here.]