The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Bubblewrapped kids fall prey to net predators

TV guru says: Keep kids safe, lock 'em out

What you need to know about cloud backup

The former TV parenting guru leading a government review into violent video games and internet predators says parents need to get their kids out of the house if they want to keep them safe from net creeps.

Dr Tanya Byron, former overseer of The House of Tiny Tearaways, said over-protective parents were partly to blame for leaving kids vulnerable to abusers stalking the web. By shying away from any risk, parents ensured that kids would not know to protect themselves from web paedophiles, not to mention all the other demons of the modern popular imagination.

Vigilance is important, said Byron: “But we can’t wrap our children in bubblewrap because then we remove the opportunity for them to live life.”

Of course, some might suggest a layer of bubblewrap is the minimum needed to help kids safely negotiate the joy-rider plagued, bullet-sprayed, conker-free streetscape confronting the youth of today. Indeed, kevlar body armour and a small tank might be more appropriate in certain of our major cities.

Apparently Byron told a conference kicking off the review yesterday that she had kids as young as seven emailing her to tell her about their experiences of the web and video games.

We can only hope that those really are genuine children, not middle-aged men attempting to ingratiate themselves with one of the UK's most telegenic psychologists for their own sordid ends. Then again, these are internet and games industry lobbyists we’re talking about.

Byron has given the kids, and any other interested parties, till November 30 to submit their evidence. If you’ve got something to say on the subject, go here The final report, sponsored by the Department of Culture Media and Sport and the Department for Children, Schools and Families, is due out next March. ®

Agentless Backup is Not a Myth

Latest Comments

sticks

Kid's still bash each other with sticks only now they there called baseball bats . Instead of toy guns it's the real thing. But our beloved leaders say crime is lower so it cannot be a crime .

ps Hittler & stalin both had full prisons to.

0
0

@John A Blackley

> Meals were a small plate of dirt and, at Christmas, I got a glass of water to wash it all down.

Water, you say? Aye, you were lucky...

0
0

Superior race

Don't most predictions of the future include this: "As their intelligence developed, they found less use for a strong phsyique and so their bodies dwindled and became puny."? Par for the course for the human race, we appear to have put the cart before the horse and started dwindling our bodies before we developed our intelligence.

Me, I was born up a chimney and only allowed out for my beatings. Meals were a small plate of dirt and, at Christmas, I got a glass of water to wash it all down.

0
0

More from The Register

SCO vs. IBM battle resumes over ownership of Unix
Zombie lawsuit back and wants to suck the brains out of Linux
 breaking news
NSA whistleblower to tech firms, Obama: 'Grow a pair!'
Ed Snowden: Email tracking grabs 'IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything'
 breaking news
Number of cops abusing Police National Computer access on the rise
Only a telegram from the Queen can get you off it
 breaking news
Ecuador: All right, Julian, you CAN stay on our sofa - it's your human right
Minister and Wikileaker share cosy chat in tiny London flat
Google flings another £1m at online child sex abuse vid CRACKDOWN
See, see, we're trying, ad giant tells Daily Mail UK.gov
 breaking news
NSA PRISM-gate: Relax, GCHQ spooks 'keep us safe', says Cameron
Whatever they are up to, it's all above board, we're told
PRISM snitch claims NSA hacked Chinese targets since 2009
Snowden suddenly looks safer in Hong Kong after revelations
 breaking news
US chief spook: Look, we only want to spy on 6.66 BEELLLION of you
Americans assured they are not in the NSA's sights