Stefan Mileschin

Moves by parents to protect their kids from cyber bullying and sexting are getting the thumbs down from teens.

Parents, who like to keep their precious snowflakes bound in bubble wrap, have been pressuring law makers to bring in rules to save the children from the perils of a mobile world. Ever happy to make new laws to shut up neurotic parents, politicians have been bringing in tough new penalties for cyber bullying and those who send salacious texts.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, down under the kids are waking up and finding that the laws are as harsh as those which resulted in their great-grandparents being transported to Oz in the first place.

A questionnaire of 1,000 New South Wales students aged between 12 and 17 found most believed people under the age of 18 should never be charged with child pornography or put on the sex offender register for peer-to-peer sexting.

While they thought that sexting and cyber bullying should be against the law, they believe other penalties would be more effective.

The survey was conducted by the Children's Legal Service and the National Children's and Youth Law Centre (NCYLC) at UNSW.

Kids were asked to share their opinions about criminal law relating to texting and online bullying and more than two thirds said knowing certain online behaviour was illegal made them less likely to do it - another two thirds said this made them confident about dealing with it.

However, the kids said that illegality was enough. You did not need to stuff up a teen's entire life by sticking them on Jimmy Savile's Christmas card list because they photographed their boobs and wired the snap to their boyfriend.

http://news.techeye.net/mobile/kids-...-policing-laws