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Today’s copy of the Metro contains a story claiming that paedophiles are using Xbox LIVE to target children.
Aside from the fact that it uses a picture of a last-gen Xbox, the story – which can be read here – has a glaringly obvious flaw. Can you see what it is?
If you’d rather not give the Metro traffic, here are the article’s key quotes, as provided by Prof Julia Davidson at Kingston University:
“Conversation between an online offender and a child can now become sexualised within two minutes. On social networking sites, if the child does not respond, the offender will simply move on to the next child.”
Davidson also added: “During our interviews, offenders said they didn’t need to bother with a grooming process when they could immediately ask children for sex or to meet so they could abuse them.”
The story also states that paedophiles are spending up to six hours a day on “online ‘fishing expeditions'” where they work there way through hundreds of contacts. This takes advantage of the fact that children are happy to add strangers to boost their online popularity.
Davidson’s research is based upon studies of police logs of online conversations, alongside interviews with 33 convicted offenders from Britain, Belgium and Norway.
So, did you spot the huge problem with all this? That’s right – Professor Davidson’s quotes don’t actually mention Xbox LIVE at all.
The only direct reference to gaming occurs near the top of the article, where the story states that offenders are “increasingly likely to use gaming platforms such as Xbox LIVE to target children”.
“Increasingly likely to use” is not the same thing as “are using”. Davidson’s quotes focus on the abuse of social networking sites, which isn’t anything particularly new – hence the exaggerated link to gaming.
The fact that paedophiles are “increasingly likely” to use services like Xbox LIVE probably shouldn’t go ignored, but the Metro’s approach is still extremely misleading. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft’s lawyers have something to say about this.
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