I think Gurl.com should be banned

[suiz]

My 13 yo DD made a contact on this teenage girl talk board and website who - I discovered a logged conversation on MSN - I'm sure is some aging perv. I'm shocked. It's a site that inspires trust for 13 y.o girls and up. Their advice to parents on the sexual nature is "deal with it". I would love to stop her accessing the site (not sure how), which otherwise is probably v. informative. I've already tried blocking the person but "they"ve come back. I've also emailed the site but I'm afraid the damage has been done to my DD. Be warned!
Any advice, similar experiences welcome.

bump

I think asking for an entire website which even you admit "is probably v. informative" (I'm not familiar with it) to be banned is somewhat of an over-reaction. Educating your daughter about the dangers of meeting in Real Life those she has "met" on MSN etc should be your first priority.

I already have warned her of the dangers. The point is, this site trades as a safe place because all members are supposed to be teenage girls 13 and up.

If you think your dd has been conversing with a paedophile on msn you should call in the police. At least they'll be able to advise you on how to keep her safe online.

i don't think it trades as a safe place - becuase of that reason.

you might think it should - but i dont think its implicit by the fact that its a website for teenage girls.

old lady is right, its about education.

the internet is all about social networking for teenagers - think bebo and facebook, and it really does depend on your child and what they know, how they use the internet, your parenting skills and how you use them.

i you want to ban this site buy a net nanny and add it as a site to be blocked.

otherwise than that, perhaps a conversation is in order which goes alon the lines of - you may not add anyone to msn that you don't already know in real life.

you can also make a record of msn converations.

if she uses sites such as facebook and bebo - they in themselves have problems - but at least when its a messageboard you can check what has been said.

Thanks for the bump YouLukaBeautiful, btw!
Fair comment oldlady, and Paperchase, how do I involve the police when the person lives in California? I await a response from the site, maybe this has happened before and they have procedures to follow and recommend to complainants. So far DD doesn't know I know.

I'll look into a net nanny, Custardo. I've been luck in that DD doesn't seem to realise her password is memorised on her MSN (she regularly deletes the asterisks thinking password disappears) otherwise I wouldn't get access. And if the "memorise conversations" box hadn't have been ticked I would be none the wiser.

I hope you can get some help with this suiz and also find a way of really communicating with your daughter about it all

Hi - I'm in a similar position. We've had talks about internet safety, so has the school - it goes in one ear and out the next. I know that friends of my daughter have msn names like hotchick and post revealing pictures on the net. Some have sent pictures of themselves in the bath to their boyfriend - who probably passes it around his friends. If more parents monitored their kids they'd be horrified at what they get up to.

The person may not live where they claim to live and there are sites where you can report suspected abuse. It can be difficult to distinguish what is normal teenage chat (which often involves sex, I'm afraid) and what is grooming. The time to worry is when they are giving away identifiable information, being asked for phone numbers, posting sexy pictures, talking of meeting up and being encouraged to look at sites that are frankly disgusting.

I sought advice from www.ceop.gov.uk/ They will ask for your name. address, your daughter's passwords and any details you have of the person you are concerned about. They will also want to tell your local police force.

If your child uses Windows XP you can get a key logging device that will ensure you can read what they have written. This was mentioned in another mumsnet thread. My kids computer currently runs Vista and I don't know of a safe package for that. Be very careful if you go down that route where you buy from as key logging programmes could be very dubious!

Thank you all for the advice. I'm trying to follow up netnanny, anyone recommend how to get this? And the CEOP site looks good too, I'll certainly follow that up. My daughter had a new friend round for lunch and low and behold she'd shown the friend this site and left pages open which are about masturbation if the truth be told, OMG but you feel responsible for the other kid too, but it was looking at this forum that she started making contact with this "girl". And I'm afraid that pictures will in fact be posted on the internet - video actually, hopefully blurry - and that she could be identified. I don't think she's put any real information out there but through conversations private stuff trickles out until a picture is built up...