Innocent people of all ages and from all backgrounds and walks of life are being scammed, defrauded, abused, slandered and eavesdropped on every day.
It's only natural, however, that the cases highlighted are those which affect the more vulnerable members of our society. Which includes our kids.
So here we are again, reading about another tragic case of a young teenager who has been driven to taking their own life as a result of relentless online bullying, or trolling. I'm referring, of course, to the Leicestershire 13 year-old Hannah Smith, who was found hanged on Friday after a series of anonymous posts on Latvian-based social networking site Ask.fm telling her to "drink bleach", "get cancer" and "go die". The site says users must be at least 13 to join and requires them to provide a valid name and email address when they register, but of course today's children are generally very tech-savvy and can easily bypass such requirements. Members can pose questions to others anonymously … with Ask.fm's Ts&Cs stipulating that the feature should never be used to ask things that are mean or hurtful.
As if.
It's certainly not the first case of a young person committing suicide as a result of activity on the site. And sadly, it won't be the last.
Parents' responsibility
As parents, there is much we can do to help keep our kids safe on the internet. As I said above, today's youngers are very tech-savvy … often more so than we are.
It's not simply a matter of imposing controls (rules or monitoring software), but working with our kids to promote a culture of awareness and safety. And getting to know enough about the kinds of stuff that's available online to stay abreast.
At Get Safe Online we call it being a Switched On Parent, and in September we're going to be launching brand new advice pages on the site with the assistance of our Partners Neighbourhood Watch, Norton and CEOP.
Watch this space, but in the meantime, there's bundles of advice available onine. Click here for starters.
