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Comment by chrisper | Hacker News Reader

As someone who had unsupervised access to the internet as a child, I turned out to be just fine. But maybe beacause the internet was way different back then. (I am talking dial up era intrent).

To me after all these years the "new" internet got a dystopian image.

If I had a child, I'd provide them unsupervised access to the internet I remember, but certainly not to the one from today.

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No it was worse back then. From 1995 My Uncle saw my 12 year old male cousin was on AOL and he got messages from men. My cousin just kept deleting them. My Uncle pretended to be a 14 year old girl and it was bad and he reported it to the FBI after AOL did nothing about the situation.

Long story short the FBI worked with my Uncle within a week and they arrested 13 predators in one night. My Uncle was on Nightline and every major TV national network that year.

EVEN Longer story Steve Case (Founder of AOL) banned my Uncle for life from AOL. Steve Case is scum.

Here is a Senate Bill with the story in Congressional Records.

"On-line services are an easy way for pedophiles to meet children anonymously, noted Dyanne Greer, a senior lawyer with the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse. ``Many cases are not reported, so I'm not sure anybody is really aware how much this is going on,'' she said. A Post probe uncovered these on-line horror stories: Westchester computer expert George Telesha pretended to be a 14-year-old girl on America Online and was quickly besieged by perverts sending dirty pictures.

https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/1995/1/18/sena...

THE PREVENTION OF SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN ACT

I remember buying my first webcam and briefly visiting the forum the manufacturer had set up, in 1999 or 2000. Basically the "forum" was about a dozen guys live streaming (postage stamp sized) pictures of their dicks. I don't know exactly what changed, but you don't tend to see things that blatant as much anymore.

>but you don't tend to see things that blatant as much anymore.

I think you stilldo. Chatroulette and similar services were besieged by them a few years ago.

Another Reason to keep a close eye on your children's phones and need adult supervision.

"Users are swarming young girls and asking them to do inappropriate things. And the live-streaming app hasn't been able to stop them."

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2017/12/...

You know it bugs me, but why can't we find the people abusing chat services to do these things? Are there that many of them? I'd like to hope that the percentage of men who are scum is not that high, but recent events have shaken that theory.

A network is the sum of its users. Today's internet is, if not dystopian, at least a fairly adult place.

It may be the sum of the users but it is not an equal sum. Companies like Google and Facebook make up too much of that sum.

And don't get me started on all the scummy people and sites online.

ofc the internet was different back then.

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