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Talk to your kids about online predators before it’s too late
This number makes me sick. The FBI says 90% of sexual advances against kids happen in chatrooms or on instant messaging platforms. Now more than ever, it’s important to talk to your kids about online predators.
The thing is these creeps have all kinds of tactics. Today, I’m sharing a few stories you can pass along to your family. If this keeps one person safe, I did my job.
✅ Bait and switch
This past week in Glendale, Arizona, a 37-year-old man asked a 14-year-old girl walking home from school for her phone number. She was clever: She gave him her mom’s number instead.
Later that day, he started texting. The girl’s mother answered, and then the police took over as he requested naked pics and asked her to keep their convo a secret. They set up a meeting, and the pervert was arrested.
Arm them with info. Discuss with your kids how to refuse when a stranger asks for their phone number, email address or social media handle. If they don’t feel safe saying no, tell them to give the requestor your info instead.
✅ To catch a catfish
A 26-year-old used Snapchat and Instagram to groom teen girls. Alexander McCartney pretended to be their age, then he spent a lot of time and energy becoming a close “friend.” Eventually, he’d request explicit images.
Tragically, a 12-year-old victim took her life after McCartney coerced her and her sister into sending him adult photos. Eighteen months later, the victim’s father took his life, as well. Heartbreaking.
McCartney was found guilty of a staggering 185 charges, including online child sexual abuse, blackmail and manslaughter.
Warn your kids about catfishing. Online, it’s easy for predators to pretend to be just about anyone to get what they want. When my son, Ian, was younger (and to this day), I made sure he knew he’d never, ever be in trouble if he told me someone asked him to do something that made him feel uncomfortable or unsafe.
✅ Game over
Is it cheating if you’re flirting with an AI bot?
I’ll probably never forget my interview with Rosanna Ramos. The 36-year-old mom from Brooklyn is totally in love with her husband, Eren. He’s handsome, never judges … and was created with the AI app Replika.
For Rosanna, Eren is her main squeeze. But what about when folks turn to AI for a little extra fun?
🚦 Cop-out behavior: Two Missouri police officers got busted using traffic stops as a way to see naked pics of women. One former officer reportedly searched 20 different phones last year. He told the victims he was looking at their phones for insurance info, then, if he found racy pics on their devices, he snapped photos of them with his own phone. He and another trooper pleaded not guilty.
Roku is cracking down on private channels (and banning porn streams)
Roku has been in a bitter tussle with Google over rights regarding YouTube TV being available to its users. If negotiations fail by December, it could see the disappearance of 85 channels from Roku.
But the platform is now bringing down the hammer on private channels. As part of the Independent Developer Kit (IDK) launch, Roku adds a beta channel to the list of available options.
Major lawsuit incoming: A student at a private school in Pennsylvania made AI-generated naked pics of 50 female classmates. It took nearly a year to arrest the creep. Jeez, almost a year … The head of the school and the board’s president resigned. They should’ve been fired.
Keep your intimacy wrapped up: The makers of a new app, Camdom, call it a “digital condom” against revenge porn. Camdom blocks all cameras and microphones when two phones are placed together and the app is activated. If one person tries to sneak a pic, an alarm buzzes. Better latex than never.
🙊 Not that kind of Barbie girl: Mattel says it’s deeply sorry for printing the wrong URL on boxes of its “Wicked” movie-themed Barbie dolls. The mix-up swapped the movie’s site for trailers and tickets for another wicked site that offers a very different kind of girl-on-girl action — porn.
Not now, Putin, I’m busy: North Korean soldiers deployed in Russia are taking full advantage of unrestricted internet access by … binge-watching p*rn. The internet isn’t available to most citizens in North Korea, so this is the first time the soldiers can see all the web has to offer.
Kids can report nudes in texts: It’s a new feature in iOS 18.2. If they report it, the images, messages and contact details of both the sender and the recipient will go straight to Apple for review. Apple might restrict the sender’s messaging and alert the authorities. About time!
P*rn and last week's eclipse
How did the eclipse affect searches for adult content? Surprisingly, we have the data.