Just about twenty years ago, in the wake of the passage of the Communications Decency Act, I began researching what would become my first mainstream book: Obscene Profits: The Entrepreneurs of Pornography in the Cyber Age. It was published by Routledge (now part of Taylor & Francis) in 2000 and remains one of the only…
A 38-year-old Texas middle school teacher is on administrative leave after being outed as an adult film performer in the early 2000s. Until November 29, Resa Woodward taught science at the Young Woman’s STEAM Academy at Balch Springs Middle School, which is part of the Dallas Independent School District. She reportedly has been a teacher…
Halloween 2016 is just two weeks away and people are starting to get excited about designing and showing off their costumes. I personally am not a big costume fan, but it is fun to watch the increasingly sugar-jagged kids come up to the door each year. We had some pretty enthusiastic trick-or-treaters in Burlington, Vermont…
[Author’s Note: This is an excerpt from my recently published book, Cybertraps for Expecting Moms & Dads. The Kindle version was published on September 21; the paperback version will be available in the next couple of weeks. If you would like to be notified of its publication and about other topics like this, please fill…
For someone researching digital misconduct by educators, summer vacation is the slow season, which made it good time to take a break to finish my most recent book (Cybertraps for Expecting Moms & Dads). But these types of cases never stop completely. In June, a child abuse complaint was lodged with the Berks County (PA)…
North Carolina, I’m looking at you. Ten months after the state made national headlines for charging a 16-year-old high school quarterback and his 15-year-old girlfriend with two felonies each for exchanging nude cell phone photos, state officials have leveled four felony counts against a 16-year-old boy for disseminating obscenity (i.e., photos of his penis). At…
It is difficult to overstate the full depth and breadth of the New York Post‘s loathing for the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio (and presumably for the Mayor himself). In the Post‘s view, there is no social ill afflicting the city–vagrancy, panhandling, public urination, the rat population, disrespect for law enforcement, political correctness, the…
[This blog post originally appeared on the Community Matters blog. I co-authored it with Dr. Glenn Lipson, a clinical and forensic psychologist based in San Diego, CA.] In a remarkably short time, social media has become the leading method by which teens connect, communicate, and share interests. It is crucially important for families and educators…
Sometime during the middle of the 2013-2014 school year, Kearney Day, a 20-year-old teacher’s aid in the Allen Independent School District, used the Kik messaging app to start chatting with an unnamed 16-year-old student. In April 2014, the student told members of the Allen High School administration that she and Day were in a relationship.…
Every so often, one or another of my Facebook friends will post an image or e-card with the cheerful and uplifting admonition to “dance like nobody’s watching.” Some have attributed the sweet sentiment to author William Purkey or even (amusingly) to famously acerbic wit Mark Twain, but the line was actually penned thirty years ago…
