Here are a few things both concerned moms and we should consider when it comes to this topic.

1) Kids becoming "victims" of online predators is extremely rare, and there are probably not more than a handful of incidents over the past ten years when kids were actually kidnapped or physically harmed by adults they met online. Yes, it can happen, and nobody wants their kids to become even a highly unlikely statistic, but the fact remains that the problem is not an epidemic, and does not call for extreme liberty-destroying measures to prevent. Not only that, but a fellow teen is just as likely to be a mentally unbalanced "creep" as any adult you meet in cyberspace, and parents seem to presume otherwise solely because their kids are befriending someone whom our society considers "appropriate" to do so with.

2) If the kids themselves do not want to communicate with "old" people, then all they need to do in most cases is to tell the person they are communicating with the truth, i.e., that they don't want the conversations to continue. They don't even have to be polite about it at all. In most cases, the person they want to end communications with will simply move on to someone more amenable to talking to them.

3) This sitch is a strong example of the rampant age segregation that pervades our society. It's perfectly fine and even wise to teach kids to be wary of strangers, but should such strangers only constitute adults? Kids are taught to both respect and fear adults in equal measure, and these conflicting teachings must get very confusing at times. By the same token, is teaching kids to view all adults who attempt to befriend them--or vice versa--as "creeps" a good idea? Marginalizing the contact between the age groups is a ploy designed primarily to keep younger people themselves marginalized from anybody who has the capability of making important decisions in society at the present time. It's dirty pool masquerading as "protection."

4) If a younger person wants to experiment with their sexuality, the safest place to do so is via cyberspace. This includes sexual experimentation with adults, whom they may learn a lot about sexuality from. Where is the evidence that kids are traumatized by experimenting over cyberspace with adults? Yes, our society thinks it's "inappropriate," and that younger people should abstain from any type of sexual experimentation outside of the most innocuous imaginable (e.g., holding hands and "puppy love" sort of scenarios you see on the Disney shows), and that any older people who engage in "sex play" with young adolescents online can only be evil individuals, but does this really constitute the truth? And if it doesn't, shouldn't the truth count for something when it comes to administering social policy and restrictions to freedom of association?

5) The "if you had a daughter, you would think differently" spiel is a very loaded presumption that is indeed used all too often. Let's keep in mind that there are many youth libbers who are parents, including Robert Epstein himself (father of four kids, which includes girls), so not everyone who has kids will automatically embrace draconian and controlling solutions to understandable concerns.