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Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

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Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#101

Post by orthoxerox »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #51

Some thoughts I've had for years: A. My understanding is an underage teen who takes a nude selfie and sends it can be charged with distributing "child porn." This is a serious problem and should not be true. If other people forward it, they should be charged, but a teenager should not get in legal trouble for making a nude selfie and sending it privately. B. We need to culturally get over a lot of our hangups about c…

> C. We somehow need to come up with reasonable accommodation for the reality that teens have phones and budding sexualities and these two things are colliding horrifically in a legal and cultural system strongly rooted in assuming "child porn" is made solely by abusive adults and not willingly by underage teens who don't think it's a big deal at the time the photo is snapped.

It's not just the CSAM aspect, it's the whole idea that sex ed is grooming. It's like the difference between saying "you shouldn't have sex until you are a responsible adult" vs "I honestly don't recommend that you have sex at this age, but if you do, here's how to do it safely and responsibly".

Teaching kids "don't send naked pictures of yourself to other people" is one thing, but if they look around and see their peers sext with each other with no real repercussions, this warning will fall on deaf ears. They will file it next to "don't drink until you're 21".

On the other hand, if you start tailoring this message into something like, "sexting is a bad idea, don't do it, especially if you don't know the other person or don't trust them 100%; if you do sext, here's how to minimize the impact of cyberbullying or blackmail: ...", then people will loudly complain that schools are teaching their children how to sext.

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#102

Post by boffinAudio »

This could all be solved if the OS vendors would add a 'share my childs screen' function to their operating systems. These incidents happen in isolation - make it possible for an adult to actually .. you know .. have oversight over their childrens online activities and it would be less dangerous.

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#103

Post by DoreenMichele »

orthoxerox wrote: post #101
DoreenMichele wrote: post #51

Some thoughts I've had for years: A. My understanding is an underage teen who takes a nude selfie and sends it can be charged with distributing "child porn." This is a serious problem and should not be true. If other people forward it, they should be charged, but a teenager should not get in legal trouble for making a nude selfie and sending it privately. B. We need to culturally get over a lot of our hangups about c…

> C. We somehow need to come up with reasonable accommodation for the reality that teens have phones and budding sexualities and these two things are colliding horrifically in a legal and cultural system strongly rooted in assuming "child porn" is made solely by abusive adults and not willingly by underage teens who don't think it's a big deal at the time the photo is snapped. It's not just the CSAM aspect, it's the…

I was thinking more about our legal system and general culture needing to keep up with the times.

I homeschooled my kids, so school-based sex education doesn't really make my radar.

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#104

Post by spacebanana7 »

hannofcart wrote: post #24

While my heart goes out to all the victims' families, what are platforms like Facebook supposed to do here? Are they supposed to monitor the content of the chats? Some would call that eavesdropping. The sad fact is that desperate people exist. And these desperate people are willing to do despicable things to make a buck.

Ironically Onlyfans have really good systems for this. All communication is monitored and any mention of blackmail (including indirect references) will get the sending account banned.

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#105

Post by spacebanana7 »

k8svet wrote: post #7
fromthegut wrote: post #3

Black Mirror. S3 E3

Bit different imo. If some scammer sends me my bro's penile pic, I'm gonna delete it and warn him. If the scammer sends me proof he was consuming illegal, immoral CSAM, I'm having a vastly different reaction. The shame is the key to this scam. The intersection of (especially teenaged) insecurity, and America cultures nonsensical relationship to sex and shame, is tragic.

The shame of cheating / adultery is a massive leverage point these scammers prey on.

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#106

Post by rsynnott »

k8svet wrote: post #7
fromthegut wrote: post #3

Black Mirror. S3 E3

Bit different imo. If some scammer sends me my bro's penile pic, I'm gonna delete it and warn him. If the scammer sends me proof he was consuming illegal, immoral CSAM, I'm having a vastly different reaction. The shame is the key to this scam. The intersection of (especially teenaged) insecurity, and America cultures nonsensical relationship to sex and shame, is tragic.

That's arguably kind of a weak twist ending to that episode; it would actually basically still work if the material had been inoffensive. Throughout the episode, the viewer is meant to _assume_ it's just shame.

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#107

Post by atq2119 »

jpsouth wrote: post #100
marci wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how the hell would a teacher have access to the image to forward to the parents? By accident? The teacher and the and the other teen have the same first or last name, or the next one in the contact list, or the autofill rearranged just before clicking, or just one missclick... there are so many ways it could have happened.

Then report it to the police, don’t forward a naked image of someone’s child to them? Not only is it likely distribution of CP, it’s also an insane thing to do. As Doreen said, she doesn’t want to see her lads nudes. I’m pretty sure my mother doesn’t want to see my knob either, who in their right mind would forward that to anywhere but law enforcement? Not to mention your absolute stretch of a scenario. Do kids typic…

I don't think it's insane for a teacher to forward evidence of problematic stuff happening with a kid to the kid's parents. After all, many parents think their kids are angels who can do no wrong.

Granted, in this case I agree that it's better judgment not to forward the picture for all the reasons you've mentioned - but calling it insane is a bit much.

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#108

Post by ta1243 »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #74
chr1 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI generating realistic nude images from normal images will further these things. Because then there will be nudes for everyone, it will be impossible to prove what is real and what is fake, and therefore pointlessness of chasing of 'illegal" numbers will become obvious to more people.

This is going to make this kind of racket more common, and also provide some kind of defence if it goes wrong: "they're fakes" will be more believable. But it takes some serious mental resilience to contemplate that as a teenager when someone is threatening to send your nudes to the people you love. Not many kids are going to have that kind of intestinal fortitude. The tendency of porn to give men severe anxiety abou…

> kids are more embarrassed/ashamed about their bodies because all the other penises they've seen are so huge.

And this is the problem. In years past kids would be naked with other kids, when changing after gym for example. Nowadays the only penis a boy sees is his own and that of porn people, because we've made normal nude situations extremely rare, especially outside of the context of sex.

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#109

Post by OJFord »

atq2119 wrote: post #107
jpsouth wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then report it to the police, don’t forward a naked image of someone’s child to them? Not only is it likely distribution of CP, it’s also an insane thing to do. As Doreen said, she doesn’t want to see her lads nudes. I’m pretty sure my mother doesn’t want to see my knob either, who in their right mind would forward that to anywhere but law enforcement? Not to mention your absolute stretch of a scenario. Do kids typic…

I don't think it's insane for a teacher to forward evidence of problematic stuff happening with a kid to the kid's parents. After all, many parents think their kids are angels who can do no wrong. Granted, in this case I agree that it's better judgment not to forward the picture for all the reasons you've mentioned - but calling it insane is a bit much.

If I was a teacher and inadvertently ended up with it somehow, I think I would be worried about the accusation so absolutely wouldn't go to the parents before taking some kind of advice or at least telling my superiors/union/law enforcement just to protect myself.

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#110

Post by [deleted] »

anal_reactor wrote: post #68
DoreenMichele wrote: post #51

Some thoughts I've had for years: A. My understanding is an underage teen who takes a nude selfie and sends it can be charged with distributing "child porn." This is a serious problem and should not be true. If other people forward it, they should be charged, but a teenager should not get in legal trouble for making a nude selfie and sending it privately. B. We need to culturally get over a lot of our hangups about c…

Unfortunately, I've noticed that the so-called "public opinion" is only getting more prude, and the denial about teenagers having sex drive is only getting worse. Basically nobody wants to be labelled a pedophile, so nobody wants to touch that problem with a three-meter stick.

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