Business & Tech

Sextortion: Mom Talk

Online predators are using technology and peer pressure to blackmail our kids.

She was 13 years old. She admits she felt pressured into taking compromising photos of herself. A cyberpredator in a chat room started blackmailing her, threatening to expose her if she didn't send more.

So she did. She and her girlfriends took group photos and videos to save from supposedly having the first shots plastered across the internet.

Now 16, she is being charged with multiple counts of distributing child pornography. All of this happened when she was 13.

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It is called sextortion, and it is a very real, very common crime.

The girl, Aurora Eller, along with her parents and attorney Parry Aftab, appeared on The View this week. Aftab is a leading expert in cyberbullying.

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There are 19 kinds of wrong with this story. First of all, 13-year-old girls can make foolish decisions. Even the smart kids. It just plain comes with the hormones. I say this with great experience, having been a foolish teenage girl, myself.

Secondly, the people who are even more foolish are the prosecutors who are charging this young victim with a crime. There is no question that this was a dumb action these girls did. However, when you start adding in pressure and blackmail, all teenagers -- boys and girls -- can crack. That was not malicious, and it is not a crime.

Third, this predator is not being pursued. According to the girl, her family and their attorney, the police are not searching for him. That is a crime. 

With the rise of the Internet, social networking, chat rooms, instant messaging, and texting, our teens and preteens don't hardly stand a chance. We have to somehow find ways to teach them not to give out private information, and to limit their photos. 

In my mind, I can think of ways how we could go about teaching those things. For example, we could actually make lists of what information and photos would and would not be appropriate.

What I can't figure out is how we teach our kids not to go to any website or accept any Internet invitation from people or places they don't know. There are so many technical aspects of the Internet that even a savvy adult can't keep up, let alone an unknowing child.

Here are some examples how adults I know got jammed up online. Once, I surfed a major cosmetics company site. The next thing I know, every time I opened my Yahoo email account, not-so-coincidently the ads that always popped up were suddenly from that same cosmetic company.

Another example was my brother-in-law liked the classic rock band, Kiss. When he Googled them, they started getting raunchy popups and unsolicited emails from porn sites.

A girlfriend of mine had the same laptop and email account for years without incident. Then suddenly she got repeated spam for Viagra and invitations for sex. She figured something changed, so she started sleuthing around and discovered that her husband had dozens of online dating accounts that he recently starting accessing from her computer. 

The point of these examples is that even innocent surfing and accidental clicks can lead to serious problems. I didn't give that cosmetics company my email, and yet somehow they found me. 

On the Internet, trouble finds you. It is even easier to find children.

The ways that kids joke like "guess who this is" with instant messaging, they are easy prey. They can have multiple chats going at once, then accept a chat from someone they don't know. Simply by hitting "OK," we allow not only the chat, but also all the spyware, viruses and who knows what to download on our computers. 

Predators are sophisticated. They hack into computers. Such was the case for this 13-year-old girl.  

Here are some resources for parents and educators. First of all, do not let children have computers in their rooms. Keep it in a common area such as the kitchen or the living room. 

Check out www.stopcyberbullying.org. The site talks about how it works, prevention and taking action. It even goes into the law.

Also, be sure to click to www.wiredsafety.org. It claims to be the world's first Internet safety and help group. It has extensive information and resources, including classes. It also has an entire section devoted to technology and devices, such as cell phones.

Lastly, make this a subject you keep talking about. Talk with your children. Talk with their teachers and coaches. Let the kids see how serious it is by witnessing the serious discussions. 

If you decide to give your kids cell phones, get other families together to have group discussions about your expectations. Kids will feel less pressured if they know that their friends' parents have the same standards.

This 13-year-old girl wasn't a bad kid. Now she may very well be permanently labeled as a sex offender. That includes registering everywhere she goes. She will have to list it on every job application.

In a world of instant messages, streaming video and smart phones, everything is at our fingertips. It is life changing.

For children who are victims of sextortion, their lives can be ruined faster than you can type IM.


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