Jimmy Higgins
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- Jan 31, 2001
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It is amazing how mankind can take something useful... and abuse it thoroughly. This article isn't an easy read, but goes into the online groups that exist to prey (in the most vile meaning of the word) on minors online. You know, as if grooming wasn't bad enough!
This continues to show that our social media set ups aren't remotely safe or secure and people are able to get away with unspeakably horrible coercion. Honestly, they need a class in sixth grade about this stuff and then high school.article said:Abbigail Beccaccio, chief of the FBI’s Child Exploitation Operational Unit, estimated that thousands of children have been targeted by the online groups using these tactics, although she declined to discuss any groups by name.
“People are not understanding the severity, the speed at which their children can become victimized,” she said. “These are offenders that have the ability to change your child’s life in a matter of minutes.”
A nonprofit that directs reports of abuse against children from social media companies to law enforcement said it saw a sharp increase in this type of exploitation last year. Fallon McNulty, director of the CyberTipline at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said the center received hundreds of reports of minors extorted into hurting themselves last year and continues to receive dozens each month.
These online groups, she said, are responsible for “some of the most egregious online enticement reports that we’re seeing in terms of what these children are being coerced to do.”