“Research shows that there is virtually no risk of pedophiles coming to get kids because they found them online,” said Stephen Balkam, chief executive of the Family Online Safety Institute. While the debate makes this crime seem common, he said, all the talk is really just “techno-panic.”
Prof. David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, says TV shows like the “Dateline NBC” program, “To Catch a Predator,” have falsely inflated the danger of the Internet.
“There is this characterization of pedophiles using the Internet as an L. L. Bean catalog, but this is not the way it happens,” he said. Predators are much more likely to look in chat rooms or other sites, he said, where teenagers are suggesting that they may be open to a sexual relationship.
