Chinese kids more likely to face online dangers

New Delhi, March 3 : Chinese children have a higher likelihood of being exposed to online dangers than their foreign counterparts, according to a new study.

Writing about the results in the study report, US security software maker Symantec Corp revealed that about 50 per cent of the Chinese children between eight and 17 said that they had received inappropriate material via the Internet.

More than 4,600 online adults and 2,700 online children from eight countries-including the US, France, Japan and Brazil-participated in the survey.

According to the report, 44 per cent of the Chinese children said that they had been approached online by strangers, while 41 per cent said that they had talked to an online stranger about sex or something that made them feel uncomfortable.

The comparable figures in the US were 16 per cent and four per cent.

Liu Bin, Internet research director of China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), said that such results of the survey might be due to the fact that people in China mostly go online at Internet cafes rather than at home.

"I don't think China's Internet environment is worse than in other countries. But the lack of proper protection systems, especially in Internet cafes in rural areas, does increase the chances of children being exposed to danger on the Internet," the China Daily quoted him as saying.

The survey also revealed that most Chinese parents did not think that the Internet might be harmful to their children.

"Although China's Internet industry has been growing rapidly during the past several years, few parents know the appropriate means such as parental control software," said George Huang, sales director of Symantec's consumer products and solutions in China.

ANI