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MOE alerts kids to online threats

A generation ago, strangers in the flesh were a big threat to children, and the message was simple: Stay away from strangers, kids!

Today, however, the message isn't as simple as "stranger danger."

In the information age, digital, nuanced threats to youth have mixed with conventional dangers, spawning an environment fraught with new and graver risks. So abstract are the dangers that they're harder to talk about and prepare kids for than "stranger danger."

But that isn't stopping the Ministry of Education (MOE) and End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism (ECPAT), a non-profit organization with a Taiwan-based chapter, from devising sophisticated ways to protect youth from sophisticated threats.

"Kids, I want to talk to you today about roads and highways," said Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) to a crowd of elementary students at the ministry on Wednesday.

"Whenever you go somewhere, you travel on a road, right? Roads take us everywhere. And now there's a highway that can take you farther than anybody could've dreamed of when I was your age. It takes us anywhere, anytime, at the click of a button; it's called the Information Superhighway: the Internet," Tu said.

"Beware, though," he added, "because the Internet can take you to good places ... and it can take you to bad places, just like a real highway."

With that, the minister commenced a press conference on such online dangers as communicating with sexual predators and fraudsters, viewing pornography and downloading illegal material.

Attended by mostly school-age children, the conference touted recent efforts by ECPAT to educate youth on how to avoid breaking intellectual property laws and falling victim to online predators.

ECPAT director Kuo Ching-en (郭敬恩) said that nearly 4,000 children nationwide had completed her NGO's online program to teach youth the basics of "online safety and etiquette."

Located online at www.smartkid.org.tw, the program was created in October with assistance from the ministry, Kuo added.

Thanks to public or private efforts, children nationwide are steadily gaining a proper understanding of how to conduct themselves in cyberspace, conference participants said.

Although Ho Chu-yu (何礎宇), 16, a high school student in Neihu District, Taipei, said he hadn't heard of ECPAT or its Web site to teach kids "Internet etiquette," he was aware of certain dangers in cyberspace.

"I saw TV commercials warning against volunteering any personal information on the Internet when I was in middle school," Ho said. "They made a pretty big impression."

Ho's mother, meanwhile, pays Chunghwa Telecom, their Internet service provider, NT$100 (US$3) per month to filter out any pornographic material from their home computer, he added.

"That part sucks," Ho said.
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