Reply to Article in Post- online abuse and extortion

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As parents of teens, I think there are several things that you need to think about with respect to this article:

1.  The article mentioned how all the victims were suffering from some underlying psychological problems and these predators seek them out.  For the vast majority of everyday kids, if they are approached by a random on the Internet they tell them f**k off...and that's the end of it.

2.  The main person in the article was researching some pretty extreme content to start...gore fiction.  Clearly, these predators know where to find their victims, so make sure you understand what your kids are trying to search for.

3.  My one kid is a huge STEM kid and Discord is a useful platform for seeking out programming information, sharing code, etc.  I honestly don't know why Discord is so much better than other sites...but it has great utility for the 99% of people using it for good purposes.  I would imagine that the forums my kid is on are also not great forums for predators, because these kids know how to unmask identities so predators stay away

4.  You need to be probably more aware about straight financial extortion scams.  Some criminal organization poses as an attractive male / female on a mainstream platform, convinces your kid to send a naked pic and then extorts them for $$$s.  That is a much more common occurrence than what is profiled in this article.  Of course, I told my kids don't send any naked pics to anyone, even BF/GF.  Don't send any to a stranger.

If you as a teen have a lapse in judgment and still do the above, these scammers don't like dealing with people who are problematic.  Tell them you don't give a f**k if they send the picture to everyone at school (which is really an empty threat) and you are alerting the authorities.  That will normally be the end of that.

Yes, it is ugly out there...best thing you can do is raise healthy, adjusted kids.[/quote]

And related to that, don't let your kids be scared to tell you if they make a mistake online/break your rules. I read an article a few years ago about a kid who sent an abuser a picture of something innocuous, even though she knew she wasn't supposed to interact with strangers online/send photos. The abuser then said he would tell her parents about the innocuous picture unless she sent nudes -- which she did, because she didn't want to get in trouble for the original rules violation.

This has stuck with me and made me very reluctant to outright forbid something (as opposed to talking a lot about how some things are a bad idea and other things are a REALLY bad idea.)[/quote]

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