Expert shares how to keep minors safe online
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Predators are using artificial intelligence as an easier way to exploit children.
Sexploitation refers to the use of nude or sexually explicit photographs or videos to threaten those pictured into sending more explicit images or money or even meeting the predator.
Before AI, the first, and perhaps most difficult, step for a predator was getting that first image.
Artificial intelligence allows predators to take the face of a real child and create a fake nude image, and with it, they threaten the child.
The dangers of having a child online seem to grow each day, and protecting them is a war with multiple fronts.
Michael Lemon, founder of Cyber Safe School, says, “To say parents can monitor what the kids do, in my mind, it’s a false reality. Every parent monitoring app, every device has a way to get around it. Monitoring is a piece of it. But education, in my mind, is the bigger piece because we don’t educate kids on what they’re supposed to do, the dangers they are going to face. Right? We do that with cars. You know, we don’t just don’t throw our kids keys to a car and say, you know, good luck to you. Let me know if you wreck. But we do it with the phone.”
Some of Lemon’s advice is simple, like putting the phones up at night. Other guidance might require the parents to do research, like what type of device a child needs – a smart phone, or just a device that makes calls and sends texts, or something in between?
Lemon will be addressing these subjects at a presentation at Caverna High School on March 31 after that community lost a student due to sexploitation. He also hosts the Facebook group Cyber Safe Families, where members have an ongoing conversation about these topics, because, like technology, they are constantly evolving.
