Here’s Where New York Ranks among Best States for Kids’ Online Safety

A new report looked into the states that do the most to keep the internet safe for children.

The internet has changed dramatically over the decades. In many ways, it's like a completely different product from the early 2000s.

Many of us suffered through the arduous dial-up process, got caught up in the world of chat rooms, spent hours downloading a single song on Limewire, fussed over our top 8 on MySpace, and had a Pavlovian response whenever we heard the dulcet tone of our contacts logging into AOL Instant Messenger.

Those days are long gone and the internet has become a lot less predictable. It also can be accessed on multiple devices, not just a computer.

There's new websites, memes, and dance trends popping up on the daily - but also threats.

Scammers and predators have perfected their craft, which is why kids need to be more vigilant than ever when interacting with others online.

Apparently, kids' safety can be more at risk depending on where they live and a new study proved just that.

Cloudwards compared all 50 states on their online safety based on their internet safety and cyberbullying laws, mental health support, online crimes and threats, and cyberbullying prevalence.

The safest state for kids' online safety was Utah, which had the toughest laws against cyberbullying and cyber crime. It also was the first state to mandate age verification on social media platforms.

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So where did New York rank?

The Empire State was considered among the safer states, but just barely. In all, New York came in 21st place despite having comprehensive laws on online safety.

However, New York is one of the more heavily targeted states by scammers and other online threats. In fact, it is the fourth most-targeted state behind California, Texas, and Florida.

This unfortunately increases the risk to children's online safety, which is why parents are strongly urged to talk to their kids about protecting themselves.

Parents are urged to teach their kids to never share their personal information online, like their name or birthdate, reject meeting people they met online, avoid clicking strange links, as well as create strong and unique passwords for all their online accounts.

Children should also feel encouraged to talk to their parents if they have questions or feel uncomfortable about something online.

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