You can get into serious trouble pretending to be a teenage girl on this interweb thingie, warned my Guardian colleagues (how do they know?) - but it's just too tempting, writes Donald McLeod.
Just log on to the new Thinkuknow website, run by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) - which today launched its first national education programme on staying safe on the web - and off you go.
Your friend is in a chatroom talking about her favourite band, I'm told. Someone starts chatting to her and seems to agree with everything she says. This person asks whether she wants to chat privately by instant messager (IM). What advice would you give her? Obviously, "sounds good, accept and add the person to her contact list".
Ignore the caution from the CEOPC and carry on. Us girls just want to have fun. The private chats blossom and he sends a nice photo of himself, so he must be OK then. He asks for a sexy photo of her. These boys. Well, why not?
Then he wants to meet. Dangerous, mutters the CEOPC, take a trusted adult. Oh, like she's sooo going to take her dad on a date?
For once, my new friend does the right thing and refuses to meet. Naturally, he is peeved and threatens to send her sexy photo to all the people in the chat area. Perhaps she should meet up to ask for the photo back?
Wrong again - now I really have got her into trouble. "Sometimes people online are not who they say they are." Some of them want underage sex. Ah, but we can report the beast on Thinkyouknow.
For parents, the CEOPC has the very sensible advice to get your children to show you what to do.
