Catching Online Predators and Tips to Keep Children Safe

Technology has opened up incredibly opportunities. A lot of those opportunities exist because technology can connect anyone in the world with internet access. But that also poses huge risks for kids who spend a lot of time online. Predators are always finding new ways to manipulate, groom, and exploit kids. Catching online predators, parental control systems, and educating your kids are all part of keeping kids safe online. See Child Predator Tactics with Seth Cockerham for a complete transcript of the Easy Prey podcast episode. Seth Cockerham has over a decade of experience in law enforcement, and is currently a detective in Texas investigating all kinds of crimes against children, including internet crimes. When he started his career, he worked as a patrol officer, and found himself especially compelled by crimes involving children. Patrol officers just take initial information and pass it on to a detective, and he wanted to pursue cases all the way through and do what he could to help children. Part of that is because he has two young daughters, and seeing someone else’s little kid not being taken care of or protected motivates him. So he learned as much as he could about these crimes, and was eventually promoted to detective and put in charge of crimes against children in his current agency. Seth hasn’t been working on these crimes for an extraordinarily long time. But even in the last few years, he’s seen more and more online crimes against children. Kids have more access to more platforms. And as technology grows, more and more parents are putting kids in front of devices to “babysit” them. There’s more kids online now than ever. And predators go where their targets are. [Predators] go to where the kids are. And there’s more kids online now than there’s ever been. Whether the kids are on YouTube or on a gaming platform that lets you chat with your friends, they’re at risk. It’s hard for them to identify if the person talking to them is really a middle-aged man trying to exploit them. And through his years catching online predators, Seth has yet to find a limit to what these people will do. They’ll reach out to kids on any site or app that has the functionality. He’s seen predators target children on apps that let them dress up characters and compete with other kids also dressing up characters. And there’s no lower limit to the age, either. The youngest child on a case Seth worked on personally was 8 years old. But he’s seen cases with kids younger than that. Any child that is able to be online can be a victim. And often, predators aren’t targeting specific children. They’re getting on the internet, going where kids are, and throwing some bait out there to see who bites. As long as the kid’s able to be online, they can be victimized. To Seth, chat options on any site or app are a big red flag for child safety. Predators will use any avenue, no matter how unlikely or surprising, to contact kids. And a lot of children aren’t aware of what can happen on these chats. Many predators pretend to be a child themselves. They build rapport by finding out what the child is interested in, pretending to also be interested, and feeding off that. As long as there’s a chatting ability and they’re able to communicate with kids in any form … [predators] are going to be on that app. The timeline for abuse varies. It can be as soon as a few hours from initial contact to inappropriate behavior. Or the predator could groom the child for a longer period of time, sometimes weeks or even months. It depends on a lot of factors. Some kids are happy to have made a friend and are very open, while others are less forthcoming. It varies based on how the child feels talking with the person and how comfortable the predator feels about the relationship. With scams targeting adults, a scammer who made contact on social media or a dating app usually move the conversation to an app like Telegram or Whatsapp. Online predators do the same thing. Once they get a conversation going, they try to move it to a different platform, both to make it harder to find the conversation and to prevent platforms from flagging it as dangerous. Snapchat is common because it’s popular with kids and the messages disappear. Another, less-well-known one called Session, has come up in Seth’s investigations. It’s not impossible for law enforcement to recover these deleted messages, but it can be challenging. A conversation with an online predator can go from something the child sees as innocent and fun to something dangerous very quickly. In sextortion cases especially, the time between initial contact and when a kid starts feeling scared and helpless can be as little as twenty minutes. Sometimes kids will reach out to their families when things start getting bad. Seth has even seen kids who call the police themselves because they recognize that this is bad and they need help. But kids don’t always share these things. Sometimes they’re ashamed of what’s happening, or they’re afraid their parents won’t listen to them or they’ll get in trouble, or the predator has threatened something terrible if they tell. But if your child is being targeted by an online predator, there will be signs. They’ll be feeling a lot of emotions – ashamed, afraid, anxious, angry, and any number of things. Every kid reacts a little differently. But they may seem more closed-off, more withdrawn, or more angry. Any of these are signs that something’s going on with your kid. The internet can make catching online predators more challenging. A crime in real life has a limited number of potential perpetrators. But the internet is global – an online crime could be done by anybody, anywhere. And when the suspect is overseas, especially in areas like Nigeria , American court orders don’t do much. Some of the crimes Seth has investigated were perpetrated by Americans, but the majority he’s worked came from overseas. Seth doesn’t like to set anybody up for false hope. He does everything he can for the family, and he tells them that. He also tells them how expects the investigation to go and what kind of outcomes they could potentially expect. There’s a chance that someone might get arrested for it, but there’s also a chance that the predator is beyond a Texas detective’s reach. In some cases, he can locate the predator pretty quickly. The fastest he’s ever gone from getting a case to an arrest was about two weeks. But it’s often much longer. Most online things require several court orders before he can get anything concrete. And if there’s physical evidence that needs analyzed, that also takes time. It doesn’t work like the crime shows where the DNA lab has results in an hour. He often wishes the process was faster. But many perpetrators have a background in tech and know how to be hard to detect. There’s almost always something Seth can find and use, but they’re good at covering their tracks, which makes it harder. Catching online predators isn’t the only thing that will protect your child. As a parent, talking to them about safety and online danger can go a long way. Many parents avoid these conversations because they can be awkward and parents feel unprepared. But you don’t have to teach your 5-year-old all about the people who want to hurt them. You can start simple and age-appropriate. Let them know what touches are safe and what touches aren’t okay. Starting early and simply opens up the door to future conversations. It breaks these talks down so they’re not just one big, awkward conversation. Decades ago, the big narrative was “stranger danger.” But the vast majority of crimes against children are committed by someone the child knows – over half by a family member. There’s a very low chance of your child being victimized by a stranger. So it’s also important to let your kids know that they should trust their guts and tell you if they feel uncomfortable, even if they’re not sure why. And if your child does say something like that to you, it’s important to listen. Ask follow-up questions, try to get a sense of the root cause. As a parent, the best thing you can do is listen to your kids. Unfortunately, in his work catching online predators, Seth has seen cases where parents ignored or dismissed their kids when they share something that made them uncomfortable. Always listen. Ask questions, ask for details, figure out what’s going on. Your child more than likely wants to tell you when these things happen. They may just be afraid of getting in trouble or being ignored or dismissed. Seth has seen just how fast small kids can be taken advantage of and forced to do things. Even something innocent like watching YouTube can spiral out of control. As a parent, it’s made him very cautious about what his children have access to. He wants them to learn how to use technology, because it’s not going away, but he wants them to be safe. Even before he started working on catching online predators, one of his fellow detectives knew he had kids and recommended Bark. At the time, his kids were too young to need devices, but he looked into it anyway. They’re one of the best parental control options. Now that they’re older, his oldest has a Bark phone . That way Seth knows where she’s at and can limit what she has access to. Seth recommends everyone use parental controls. But it can be harder to implement if you didn’t start when they were very young. In those cases, Seth recommends just talking to your kids. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has a series called NetSmartz that provides education for kids of all ages. Explain what you’re doing, what it means, and that you’re not trying to punish them or ruin their life but it’s your job as a parent to keep them safe. Seth’s oldest was initially resistant to the Bark phone, but she adapted. As much as you want to be your kid’s friend, the most important thing is to protect them. If you’re not protecting them and educating them, either someone else is going to do it or they’re going to be exploited. Sometimes parents rely on things like sites or particular systems to protect their kids online. Things like websites with an age verification system to make sure nobody over a certain age is on it seem helpful. But in his experience catching online predators, Seth has realized that none of these processes are foolproof. A motivated predator can get around anything. With age verification, for example, what happens when the predator has a kid themselves and uses their info and face to bypass it? Just because there’s a safety measure doesn’t really mean anything. Anybody can bypass that. Some parents also think that just taking their kid’s phone and looking through it once a week is enough. It can be helpful, but if your child has stuff on there that they don’t want you to see, they’ll probably just delete it. By the time you get it, you may not actually be able to see what’s there. Kids are also often smart enough to get around parental control systems, or even turn them off. That’s why Seth chose to get his daughter a Bark phone instead of an app. He’s heard great things about some programs and apps. But they are easier to bypass. With the Bark phone, the parental controls are built into the phone’s OS, so it can’t be deleted. Seth’s experience catching online predators has shown him that it’s not just parents who can help protect kids online. Kids can take steps to stay safer. Seth’s biggest tip is to never send a selfie to someone you don’t know. Even if it escalates and if they threaten you, remember that it’s just a threat, and it won’t happen. And if someone starts talking to you like that, tell someone – a parent, a teacher, a principal, or any other trusted adult. Let them know that someone’s talking to you in a way that makes you upset or uncomfortable. Sextortion is unfortunately common. If you’ve sent the photo and they’re asking for money, don’t pay. That’s the bottom line. You can send the money, but they’ll just ask for more. It will never stop until you run out of money. Ultimately, that photo is either going to come out or it won’t. Paying just drains your bank account and delays it. Seth has seen some situations where the photos weren’t posted, but most are. Unfortunately, this gets to a lot of kids, and some commit suicide. If you’re in that situation, remember that’s not the answer. There are ways to fix it. Don’t send money, and talk to a trusted adult. Seth works with local children’s advocacy centers to get kids help and counseling. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has a service called Take it Down that can help you get that photo deleted from the internet. There are resources out there. It’s scary, but it’s not hopeless. Seth Cockerham encourages everyone to look at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s website for more resources. If you need to talk or need advice on your situation, you can also email him directly at [email protected] .