Digital Crosstalk

200 Children Targeted om ‘Bebo’ Swoop

Posted by Brian | Filed under blogging

Police have begun to search social networking site Bebo for pictures and videos including underage drinking and scenes of violence. One user’s profile included a video of a man in his early twenties stomping on another man’s head. Scottish police have rounded up a total of almost 200 underage suspects of gang violence, alcohol and drug use.

The amount of Scottish children ages 12-18 that are openly admitting this behaviour has shocked Scottish police. Derek Penman, Assistant Chief Constable of Central Scotland Police, said: “We found a wide range of content which raised child-safety issues. This included young people being involved in the abuse of alcohol, potentially exposing themselves to violence, possession of weapons, racism and sectarianism.”

Scottish police are now taking part in a massive sweep of all Social Networking Sites including Bebo, MySpace and Facebook. Mr Penman added: “This has been about being intelligence-led from the start, to tackle a long-standing problem of antisocial behaviour, youth disorder and under-age alcohol abuse – something our communities tell us is their biggest concern – which was being driven by young people’s use of the internet.” Should underage users be banned completely from these sites, some people think they promote this kind of violence and drug use.

The spokesman for Bebo has said that “In the same way that new friendships are forged on Facebook, we hope that this will have the same effect without compromising different faiths.” Many think that social networking sites need to be much more secure for underage users, filtering pictures and videos that can be uploaded onto them, while others believe if “you don’t check your children’s internet behaviour the police might do it for you.”

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Tags: digital