How are sex offenders reaching out to kids? People often know where their kids are and what they’re doing. But did you know there’s one-way sex offenders are reaching out to your kids that’s right under your nose? In this day and age it is important to become a parent who is more aware of this modern-day threat.
Our children’s safety can be compromised all too easily these days due to their cell phone. Predators stalk apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Tik Tok as well as video games where you can play with other unknown parties remotely through a headset. Parents underestimate the prowess of predators. The predators prey on the parent’s lack of awareness about what’s really going on in their child’s social media accounts. These accounts seem like harmless fun. But they can quickly become a parent’s worst nightmare when their child unknowingly engages with a predator and forms a relationship or allows their location to be tracked.
Making sure that your kids’ accounts are set to private, that location services are turned off, and monitoring comments, followers, and direct messages on your kids’ social media accounts is key. Report any criminal behavior to law enforcement and learn what to look out for in possible offenders by reading this blog article here or by watching SMB’s video here.
Video Transcript
Shawn McDonald: “Gaming platforms a little bit, but that’s mostly male dominated so you don’t see a whole lot, but Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram. I mean that’s the main ways. Especially Snapchat because people under the perception of once you put it on there and the person reads it it disappears. In a way it does, but law enforcement can always get that information. It’s always, it’s still on your phone, number one, and number two if they push Snapchat hard enough, Snapchat will release the contents of those messages.”
Interviewer: “That’s good to know.”
Shawn McDonald: “Absolutely.”
Interviewer: “Yeah. That’s really good to know.”
Shawn McDonald: “You know, kids are online and on social media so much. I mean, it’s consuming their lives and ours too. I mean, we’re on our phones all the time. And it’s just an easy and convenient way to bypass their parents and have conversations with kids over and over again and groom them. I mean, it’s just so easy to do that and kids don’t think anything about it because they’re communicating online through social media all the time every day. And so when a teacher does that or their dad’s friend does that or some older high school student, and you’re in middle school, does that, it’s not that alarming. You don’t know. Kids are just naive to those things.”
Interviewer: “Right.”
Disclaimer
*This blog post is for general information purposes only. Nothing on this site should be taken as legal advice for any individual case or situation. This information is not intended to create, and receipt or viewing does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship.