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A picture taken in Lille, France shows the logos of the Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Google and Messenger mobile apps displayed on a tablet, October 1, 2019. Photo by DENNIS CHARLET/AFP via Getty Images/Files
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The case of an Edmonton teenager who disappeared only to turn up in Oregon with a man now facing kidnapping charges has reignited more discussion about how to protect children from online threats.
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The 13-year-old Edmonton girl was found in Oregon on July 2 after going missing on June 24. State law enforcement then filed kidnapping, rape and sexual assault charges against a 40-year-old Oregon man accused of luring the teen.
In Edmonton, police are preparing to lay charges for luring.
The case of the Edmonton teenager has renewed the discussion about how children and parents should safely navigate social media. The director of Canada’s Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Hotline says there has been a 120 percent increase in soliciting reports in the past six months.
Just this week, Fort Saskatchewan RCMP issued a social media extortion alert after receiving six reports of online extortion since May. In that case, RCMP said the suspects targeted men between the ages of 17 and 25 by initiating fake online relationships, convincing the young men to send intimate images and then threatening to distribute the images unless they coughed up money.
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Steven Sauer, director of Cybertip.ca, said the organization previously received between 60 and 70 reports of phishing from the public, but now averages 155 reports per month.
“What we’re seeing a lot of is a subset of luring that would be extortion or ‘sex blackmail.’ We have had a 150 percent increase in these types of reports in the last six months,” he said. “In the month of June alone, we had 100 reports related to extortion alone.”
Typically, cases involve someone contacting a person, getting them to engage in sexual activity via a live stream, or forcing them to send sexual photos or videos. As soon as the offenders have the intimate content, the victim is threatened with money.
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Seventy-seven percent of those cases over the past few months were on Instagram and Snapchat.
About 60 percent of extortion reports are victims of youth between the ages of 15 and 17, and about 75 percent of victims are male.
Perpetrators can create multiple accounts using a photo of a young woman who appears to be a similar age to those being targeted.
“We seem to have normalized online sexual image sharing in society, and that message has been normalized for young men as well,” Sauer said. “They’re pretty quick to get involved, not that we’re blaming the victims, because these people who are doing this to them are also very aggressive and persistent.”
He said that even if an intimate photo is not shared, sometimes the perpetrator will take a photo from the victim’s profile and edit it to create a sexual image of the young person. This is then used to try to force them to comply.
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“You can imagine how quickly kids adapt when they’re in that crisis situation,” Sauer said.
One of the things parents can do early on is talk to their kids about technology, ask them about the apps they use or how a game works, and make it a habit, like asking about their day at school or for friends.
“Learning a little bit as a parent about this technology is a really important part,” Sauer said. “It also helps in terms of your ability to help a kid set up their profile and set the privacy settings of that particular app and just understand exactly how it works.”
Parents can also talk to their kids about online sexual abuse, making sure kids know if someone is making them feel uncomfortable or offers money or gifts in exchange for something they shouldn’t engage in.
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“You’re there to help them if someone contacts them, and that they don’t have to put up with that type of solicitation or unwanted sexual attention,” Sauer said.
If children become more withdrawn, angry or secretive about what they do online, or there is a significant increase in online activity, this may be a sign to parents that something is up.
“Parents have to trust their gut, and if they feel like something’s not right, they have to get more involved and reach out to the youth to try to dig a little deeper into what’s going on,” Sauer said.
But Sauer added that tech companies need to step up to ensure that children are not exploited on their platforms.
“From our agency’s point of view, we believe there is a greater responsibility here for companies in this space to detect when child sexual exploitation is occurring on their platform and ensure that they are able to prevent it from happening in future,” he said.
ajunker@postmedia.com
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