Online Predators Can Lead Kids Down a Dark Path
Recent reminders highlight the importance of increasing awareness and precautions for what young people face online.
Welcome to edition 167 of The Physical Movement. Our readership is growing, as is feedback and comments, so thank you. When The Physical Movement was launched in May 2020, the intent was to address topics and provide insight on youth sport, leadership and sport performance. Over the course of 166 editions, we have developed an archive of resources and education with contributions from multiple experts from different parts of the world.
This week we address the challenges of an online world faced by our youth. Read this, share this with your players and kids. Discuss this. Education will protect. Unfortunately this threat is real.
The recent Netflix documentary about college football athlete Manti Te’o highlights a number of vulnerabilities our young people face online in the modern age.
For those unfamiliar with the story (and I recommend parents, athletes and coaches watch), Manti Te’o was an elite student athlete for the University of Notre Dame and was Catfished into a 3 year relationship. Catfishing is defined by Oxford dictionary as "luring (someone) into a relationship by means of a fictional online persona.''
Because Te’o was a top performer on one of the best teams in college football, as well as Heisman Trophy finalist, his story became very public. He was ridiculed and subject to a very difficult time that ultimately pushed him to a dark place.
Fortunately, his strength of character has allowed him to come out the other end, even while the mental strain limited his ability to play pro football post college. His vulnerability in the documentary is life affirming and one can not help but feel for him after watching and understanding the story. Te’o’s story is a glimpse into the predatory environment of the online world.
A recent article that ran in multiple community papers across Canada by Graham Hookey, author of “Parenting is a Team Sport”, further dives into the subject.
Teen ‘sexploitation’ can lead down a dark path.
By Graham Hookey
A 17-year-old Manitoba boy, in February 2022, went from being an easy-going teenager to a suicide statistic in a matter of three hours. It is a story more common than we might imagine — the perfect storm of youthful impulsivity and immoral online thieves. It is a story every parent and teen should talk about.
It begins one day when a young man receives a random message on social media, say Instagram or Snapchat, from a girl who comes across as very sweet, even naive. She flirts with him and quickly gains both his attention and his trust. She's never done it before, but she really likes him so she sends him a risqué photo. It's all part of a deal that they'll swap photos. She goes first, of course, to reaffirm to him that he's special to her. A few moments later, he sends back a photo to her.
It's all a ruse, of course. The girl and her photo are fake, and the person on the other end of the line is likely a man working for a crime syndicate overseas, or perhaps on his own. Within minutes, the boy receives notice that he must send money, or numbers for gift cards, to an online address. Failure to do so will result in his picture being sent to his entire contact list, including family and friends. He is shocked, stunned and writhing with shame, both for being stupid enough to do something like this and for fear that his picture will surface in his community and his stupidity will become public knowledge.
Some teens empty their bank accounts. Some fall into despondent depressions. Some take their own lives. We were all first exposed to this kind of "sexploitation" with the story of Amanda Todd in 2012, but the practice has only increased over the last decade as more and more social-media sites have evolved and those who would take advantage of vulnerable teens have found even more ways to connect with them.
It's a big business and there are plenty of shady characters involved in it. They do not care what damage they do; it's a faceless crime as they never have to meet the young person, nor witness the pain of the family if it all blows up in a disastrous way. All they care about is that it's an easy way to make money.
Every parent of children aged 10 and up who is given access to online resources needs to have a very frank conversation about this kind of activity with their child. It is not simply a question of instructing them never to post a compromising picture of themselves, although that is part of it. More than that, it is a question of teaching them never to trust anyone they meet strictly through online activities.
The kind of exploitation described above is one kind of manipulative behaviour, but there are many, many more, some which end up in extortion, some which end up as permanent photos on child pornography sites and some which lure children into the grasp of pedophiles. It's a nasty business that takes place right under the noses of parents on devices in their children's bedrooms.
I must confess, the whole thing makes my skin crawl. I warned my sons, when they were teens, to never post anything online they didn't want their mother to see. In hindsight, I may well have made them more vulnerable to exploitation had someone contacted them and caught them in a vulnerable moment. Their fear of being found out would undoubtedly have been palpable. I should have talked to them about scams that could victimize them, and told them that if they ever made a mistake, and were threatened with extortion, that they could come to us and we'd help them. I was lucky it never came to that, but it certainly wasn't my wise counsel that brought such luck.
Predator behavior is unfortunately there every time we open our smartphone or laptop. Our kids have no idea what is out there when they dance in the world of social media. Not all are honorable obviously and by sharing articles like Mr. Hookey’s and the Manti T’eo story we can increase awareness for all concerned.
While we don’t want to go through our day to day in a paranoid state, awareness is critical to being able to recognize something that is not right.
We have a responsibility to share this information, and by it being from outside sources (not from parents), hopefully it will have more credibility and not perceived as an exaggerated worry.
We live in a different world in 2022.
Time for different precautions and education.
The Manti Te’o trailer from the Netflix documentary: