How much of a risk are cyber predators for teens and kids online?

550,000 registered sex offenders. think about it.

for comparison: Denver metro population=554,000.

if only they all lived in one city.... .

talk to some friends of mine @ http://perverted-justice.com/

It depends greatly on what kind of information the teen or kid is giving to the other person. For example, not much danger if they are just having a general converstaion, but when they start giving out addresses, phone numbers, pictures, names of schools, etc., it becomes more dangerous because that gives the predator something to go by if they are actually trying to locate and meet up with the child.

It all depends on your sources. Some media outlets overplay the danger (as is there nature) because they want to sell advertising space. BUT there are some real dangers that you cannot put lightly when it comes to underage girls (and let's face it majority of the cyber predetors are going after underage girls).

The danger is real, but it's not without blame. You can't simply blame the predator, when the "victim" places pics (and some very kinky-style pics -i've been to MySpace so I know how some girls pose) of themselves and allow the predator to contact them (usually with a private message, then emails and work their up up to a face-to-face meetings for *gasp* sex).

The BEST way to combat this educating the youngins on propert ettitquite. Such as, don't post pics in your bra/thong, don't post pics of your breasts, don't post emails/phone/addresses/school info/work info/etc. ANY private info postes and the predator can track you down (that's just common sense really).

I think that with the internet they can hide in there houses and hunt the weakest one's out and research there victims and begin some kind of dialog with there victims before anything has ever happened. Believe me just go browsing around myspace for awhile and you will notice how nieve some of these people are, you can find email addresses, ages, city, state, phone #'s, there real names. For example I was browsing one day and one girl says to another are you going to the mall today the other says yes around 1pm. okay you look by the girls picture and there was city and state and a picture of this girl, now how hard do you think it would be to find this girl if you really wanted to. Alot of people are way to generous when handing out there information for the whole world to see, so why wouldn't these predators go where everything is just handed to them, anyways I hope all those sickos go to heXX

Oh, they ask how to attract teens in online forums.. oops! The same way 'Players' gain the trust of their target. They chat with the target until they get the bait from the target. There is no one thing, such as a line, that these people stick to. Talking to teens that are obsessed with being identified as sexually mature is like shooting fish in a barrel. Don't you remember wanting to seen as mature and cool?

with a little bit of parental care, like content-locks, or adult supervision, the risk is greatly reduced.

even just TALKING to your kids about the dangers or predators is a huge preventative measure.

I also agree with the article. It is definitely unsafe in some sites for teens and worse kids.

I don't know but I sure wish they require age in the profile for answers so you knew if you were communicating with a kid or a grown up.

They are a big risk... I myself saw some interesting cases.

No risk at all if they never meet.