“It’s a case of digital rape in the 21st century.” That’s how SSP Blue founder, Hemanshu Nigam, referred to the sextortion incidents that teens are facing online recently. In a nutshell, sextortion is when an Internet predator gets his/her hands on risqué photos of a tween or teen, and then uses those photos to threaten their well-being.
The word “threaten” in this situation is much more serious than you’d initially think. What the predator does is force the teen into performing sex acts for them via a webcam or making them send more nude photos of themselves to the predator. If the victim decides not to obey the predator’s demands, they are threatened with mass distribution of the original photos/videos to the victim’s family members and friends.
Though sextortion is a much more serious threat to our children’s online security and privacy, this issue has been around for a long time. Take the 40-year-old man from Massachusetts last year. He was all over Stickam.com posing as a 17-year-old and soliciting girls for nude photos, videos, and web chats. Or the 18-year-old high school senior, Anthony Stancl, who posed as a girl on Facebook to get nude photos of his fellow male classmates—he’s serving 15 years in prison because of this. Thank goodness both of these people were caught, but needless to say, there’s plenty more out there.
With that said, we, as parents, need to step in and do what we can to make our kids Internet-safety smart. For example, if a child lives in a bad neighborhood, he/she has to adapt to that neighborhood and become street smart. That doesn’t mean they participate in the activities that make the neighborhood bad, it means they learn how to shield themselves from becoming a victim. And that’s exactly what the Internet is. It’s a city that’s full of a lot of really nice neighborhoods and a bunch of really bad neighborhoods, and we as parents have to make our kids “street smart”, or in this case, Internet-safety smart.
Because the current government in this Internet city isn’t doing its job to protect its citizens (some reform should come soon), parents have to take responsibility just like they would with anything that affects their children’s well-being, and educate their children and themselves about what’s happening online.
With that said, I want to leave you with a few tips on how you can prevent your child from becoming a victim of sextortion, or any Internet cybercrime for that matter. I was going to come up with my own list of advice, but instead I’ll share with you some tips from Internet-safety blog Digital Shepards.com.
1. Beginning when they’re young, start the dialogue (in an age appropriate manner) with your children about appropriate behaviors when they use the computer. The Internet is not some OTHER life; it is part of their life. What they do on the Internet has real consequences in real life. […] As your child enters the tweens and teens, be REAL. Be frank and honest about posting suggestive images on the Internet.
A child’s youth is a crucial time for you to educate them about the consequences of posting risky photos online. Recently, a mother asked me, “What should I do if my daughter is posting pictures of herself in a bikini online?” I told her, “Ask her: Would you come downstairs in a bikini if we were having a family reunion dinner party? Would you feel comfortable in front of the people you know dressed in bikini, let alone those that you don’t?” Sometimes we just need to put things in perspective for our kids.
2. Keep your anti-virus up to date! One of the recent sextortion cases was made possible through the exploitation of over 200 people’s computers via something called “Malware.” If you don’t know what that is, Wikipedia defines it as, “Malware, short for malicious software, is software designed to infiltrate a computer system without the owner’s informed consent.” In addition to an anti-virus program, you should have a malware application installed on your computer.
Here’s a link to some suggested anti-malware software programs.
Nothing new here parents. Keeping your computer’s anti-virus software up-to-date is crucial. It not only prevents accidental clicks to malicious sites, but it prevents third-party software from automatically installing on your browser or your hard drive.
3. Use parental control software. […] Just keep in mind that good parental control software is never 100% fool-proof and doesn’t replace good parenting. The best thing you can do is talk to your children and even more importantly, listen to them. Nothing replaces a good relationship with your little or not so little ones. […] Parental controls just provide you with another tool in your parenting arsenal to be able to have a corrective discussion with you children and address any issues which you may not have otherwise been privy to until they’ve become larger problems.
4. Choose an internet safety blog, or three, and make time to read them on a regular basis.
I personally recommend my blog YoursphereForParents.com, Linda Criddle’s iLookBothWays.com, and Dr. Michele Borba’s blog and books, MicheleBorba.com, Sue Scheff’s books and parenting site, and Cammie Moise’s CyberSafeFamily.com. These are all really useful Internet-safety and parenting tools. Use them for the benefit of your family.
5. If you allow computers in the bedroom, make sure there are no cameras on the computers, and doors should be open during use. Additionally, you can position the computer desk so that the monitor is facing the door. I call this “SAFETY FENG SHUI.” If the screen is toward the door, mom or dad can drop by the room anytime unannounced and see what’s on the screen.
