[user104658]

I think that hopefully we will start to see less of this sort of thing happening in generations to come. It is a huge problem. I've been online since I was 13 and I've encountered all sorts of absolute freaks, and even had what I can only assume were "grooming attempts" of sorts myself. One was a young attractive female... RAGING NEO-NAZI... Who was constantly trying to turn me into a white supremacist. Another was a guy in his 20's who popped on and off a forum I was on, who seemed to genuinely believe that he was "a demon" and was always trying to get teenagers to essentially come and live with him in some sort of cult. I thought he was full of **** until a girl I talked to from that forum actually went to his house (the idiot) and apparently it genuinely was full of young, gothy teenagers (mostly girls) who basically worshipped this guy. She left, quickly. Terrifying.

Anyway, basically these attempts seem to be very common and Banning kids from the Internet or monitoring constantly is impossible. I think it'll hopefully be less of an issue in future as my generation and beyond as parents will have "grown up online" and will be able to better prepare our own children for what to expect and how to keep safe online. A huge part of the problem at the moment is that, for many parents of teenagers, the online world is completely alien to them and they have no real understanding of the bonds and friendships that can form (most completely genuine, a tragic few very sinister).