These 25 men were arrested for arriving at a home to sexually abuse children in Arizona last month. They responded to ads on various apps and websites by attempting to make a deal for different sex acts with children. Luckily, undercover officers were the ones behind the ads, not traffickers selling real children.
Unfortunately, the type of sting operation used in Operation Summer Shield works well because of the shocking amount of real ads of real child victims who are being exploited sexually online.
In addition to traffickers selling children online, social media has become a wide open field for predators to find and extort vulnerable children. Today’s youth need to know the dangers online.
“Predators no longer lurk in chat rooms,” Senator Marsha Blackburn said (link tweet), “ Predators use the apps our children use.” These 25 men are the 25 reasons that you should know what your children are doing on their phones, because children are being targeted by online sexual predators.
“Traffickers look for the vulnerabilities and a child. They look for what they are talking about online,” said Dr. Roe-Sepowtiz. “And they find what it is that is missing, whether it’s attention, or love, or [physical] things.”
“I think it’s really important that if someone slides into their DM, that they know that that’s a predator, and to cut that person off,” she said.
These men all sought to have sex with children in other states around the U.S. in the last few months through Snapchat, Instagram, and other popular social media apps and websites.
Collin Kartchner’s Crusade to #SAVETHEKIDS
Collin Kartchner, a public figure advocating his #SaveTheKids campaign, is using his voice on Instagram to shine a light on the dangerous effects social media has on teen’s mental and emotional health. Recently he has been focusing on how youth have become a huge target for child sex predators.
A few weeks ago, Kartchner highlighted that there was a 5 day streak of Utah news involving a predator targeting children/teens on social media apps.
Another controversy found on social media is how easily sexual content is reaching adolescents who aren’t seeking it out. Teens’ private accounts receive DM requests from a profile with a sexually explicit profile picture and message, along with a link that looks like it may lead to pornography. These may be spam accounts that could lead to phishing or spamming with porn, or at times there may be predators behind the messages looking to engage with children.
Predators can begin a long grooming process by pretending to be a potential boyfriend or girlfriend. For example, once a child sends nude photos, the predator may threaten to tell their family what they did unless they send money or more explicit content of themselves. Whatever the scam, once a child is in contact with these predators, they are at risk for being “sextorted” and/or trafficked.
Related Article: Uncovering Secret That Led to Son’s Suicide
Kartchner polled thousands of the teens that follow him to see how many receive these kinds of links and pictures. The results were astonishing.
On the day that he polled his followers, he received over 1,000 messages from youth expressing their shame for receiving messages like this, which is not their fault to begin with. When he polled his adult men followers, less than half reported receiving a porn link in their DMs.
Predators are targeting these young kids because they know they can be vulnerable.
“In [my past work as a government agent], we call that creep guy “Uncle Skippy.” Look, every time you put that picture up… just know that Uncle Skippy is watching. Uncle Skippy is always watching whatever you put up there. [We need to] get kids thinking about those dangers.”
Tim Ballard, O.U.R. Founder
What YOU Can Do
Take A Stand Social media apps are currently self-rated and, with the exponential growth of users and content, can no longer be self-regulated. If you want to see a change to have apps held accountable and create easier parental control settings without loopholes, check out fixappratings.com, sign their statement, and join the movement.
Talk to Your Kids About Internet Safety Creating communication and trust is key to helping our children open up if they see something exploitative or meet someone potentially dangerous online. Check out these resources:
- O.U.R. Internet Safety Videos (Part 1, Part 2)
- O.U.R. Blog: If 1 in 5 children will be solicited sexually online, how can parents prepare their kids to be safe?
- Love 146 Internet Safety Guide {Apps, Sexting, Internet Use, Pornography, Red Flags, etc.}
- StopSextortion.com
If You See Something, Say Something. Don’t be afraid to report anything suspicious you see to the appropriate authorities:
United States
– Report online child exploitation: CyberTipline (National Center for Missing and Exploited Kids)
– Report general human trafficking: Human Trafficking Hotline (888-373-7888)
– Report human trafficking on Facebook
Global
– Report online child exploitation: Find your country’s internet reporting hotline (search tool)
– Report general human trafficking: Global Hotline List
– Report human trafficking on Facebook
