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I don't know how old you are, but the internet (and before that, BBSs) used to be a much more friendly place than it is today. When I was in high school circa 1
by bonniemuffin 8y ago
I don't know how old you are, but the internet (and before that, BBSs) used to be a much more friendly place than it is today. When I was in high school circa 1996-8, my parents would drop me off to meet random people I had met online, and it was totally no big deal. Nowadays I can't imagine anyone doing that -- the dark corners of the internet have gotten a lot darker over the years.
- lopmotr 8y agoI had similar experiences. Though I did find out later that one of the people I met on BBSs had some history of child porn or sex abuse and met lots of teenage boys that way. He later went to prison for molesting another one. It might be more that parents were more tolerant of risks than that things were safer. Cars didn't have airbags either.
- jakobegger 8y agoI think there just wasn't a lot of awareness about it. Some of the people hanging around in the early chats were also pretty creepy, but noone thought it was a big deal. I remember that we did talk about this in school, but we just found it funny that an old guy might pretend to be a little girl in chat, it wasn't something anyone was really worried about.