Canadian crime experts are suggesting that the country should be able to distinguish the fine line between child pornography and online socialising. This skill should also be developed among young people who are often involved in sexting that could evolve into cyber bullying.

Such was the case of two 18-year-old males who were accused of child pornography charges for the death of Nova Scotia resident Rehteah Parsons, which renewed the debate on how to properly deal with sexting when the victim and perpetrator are both minors and amid sexting reaching epidemic levels among Canadian youth.

Wayne Mackay of Dalhousie University and chair of the 2012 Nova Scotia Task Force on Bullying and Cyberbullying pointed out that in 2011 when the police became aware of how widespread is texting in high schools in the Canadian province, they did not lay charges against those involved even if over 50 students were found to send a lot of explicit photos to each other.

Instead the police and school board wrote to the parents of the involved kids and warned them of the potential danger of sexting, including being sentenced as an adult and being placed on the National Sex Offender Registry for a minimum of 10 years.

He said tapping the law should be reserved for very extreme cases since majority of the youth are unaware that sexting or the sending of graphic images or lewd messages is considered technically child porn.

However, rather than push for laying of child porn charges, he said prevention is the better option by education the youth on the dangers of such behaviour.

His proposal was echoed by David Butt, criminal lawyer and counsel to the Kids Internet Safety Alliance who wrote about the same subject in the Tuesday issue of Globe and Mail in a commentary.

He said nations "must temper criminal justice responses with broader measures aimed at the best outcome - prevention. Mr Butt stressed that often, offending and victimising online behaviour is an unwanted by-product of poor judgment common among teens. Since it is transitory, it could be effectively addressed through education, awareness and empathy building at home, school and media.

One effective tool for that is social media, the very same medium kids use to flirt online and to bully others. By teaching them the difference between child porn and online socializing, they could avert becoming a victim of Internet child porn or worse, being convicted as an Internet child pornographer.

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