The holidays are a joyous time for children. But they’re an increasingly dangerous season too — due to the dark side of our digital world.
Many kids got their first phone, tablet or video game console this holiday season. Overall, social media usage increases more than 70% during the holidays. And that means kids are more exposed than usual to online threats, which continue to grow in both complexity and scale. Even tech-savvy and safety-conscious parents need to work hard to keep up with evolving risks.
One increasingly prevalent method of online abuse is “sextortion.” Individuals, primarily targeting teenagers, present themselves as attractive peers, feigning romantic interest to gain trust and lure their victims into providing sexually explicit images — which the perpetrator then uses to extort their victims financially.
Sextortion preys on its victims’ emotional duress. In the case of one Michigan 17-year-old in spring 2022, three men masqueraded online as a young woman to procure explicit images from the teen. When they attempted to extort $1,000 from him, using the photographs as leverage, he informed them he planned to take his own life.
“Good,” they replied. He died by suicide shortly thereafter. He was just one of hundreds of victims these perpetrators targeted. His grieving parents went public with his story to warn others.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received more than 10,000 tips on sextortion schemes targeting minors in 2022 — a figure already eclipsed this year by October. Given that many victims try to struggle in silence due to feeling shame or guilt, the scope of the problem is certainly much greater.
With the advent of AI-powered image generators, people who want to exploit children can now create “deep fakes” of sexually explicit images without teenagers ever taking such photos or sending them. All a person needs is a photo of the child’s face, whether it’s a selfie the adolescent sends or has posted on Instagram. The more photos of someone’s face available, the more realistic the deep fake.
Some people also collect and proliferate sexual abuse and self-harm images without financial incentives. The FBI recently warned that a number of groups are enticing minors online to send such material. These groups especially target youth with mental health issues, racial minorities and LGBTQ+ youth.
To address these proliferating problems, parents need to open strong lines of communication with their children about the threats they face online. This means staying informed and educating children about the myriad ways people may try to target them and assuring them it’s always OK to bring threats real or perceived to parents’ attention.
Remember, those intent on harming children wager that their victims’ shame will dissuade them from seeking help.
Teach children that even though a stranger online might text like someone their own age, generative language programs like ChatGPT can help them sound younger.
Be aware and take advantage of the parental controls featured in children’s social media accounts. Instagram, for example, lets parents monitor who their kids follow, who requests to follow them, who their kids have blocked, and if their child changes their privacy settings.
Parents should be especially vigilant when giving their child an internet-capable device for the first time. The FBI warns that a child creating a new account on social media can receive an influx of unsolicited requests within a matter of minutes if the account isn’t properly secured.
Even for children who feel they have nothing to hide, it’s important to create strong protections of digital information. Parents can ensure their kids enable two-factor authentication and set strong passwords to protect their photos and personal information.
And of course, parents need to remain vigilant about their own online privacy — and be deliberative about what sorts of photos and videos they share online — especially around the holidays.
The holidays are a time for giving gifts and building meaningful relationships. But not everything sent online is a present and not every connection is a friendship. Even the most vigilant parents should keep up with a changing digital world to keep their kids safe.
Teresa Huizar is CEO of National Children’s Alliance in Washington D.C., America’s largest network of care centers for child abuse victims. For more resources, find your local Children’s Advocacy Center at nationalchildrensalliance.org.
