06-07 Good News. Awareness Media Campaign to Protect Youth from Human Trafficking | News | San Diego County News Center
June 7, 2024
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06-06 Sound the Alarm! June is Internet Safety Month. Discover How Teens Get Trapped.
June 6, 2024
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06-05 June is Internet Safety Month. What About Kids, Social Media Addiction and PTSD? Learn More.
June 5, 2024
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Many kids and teens share what is going on in their lives through social media, now a common practice. Unfortunately, there are times when kids can get so wrapped up in social media that it takes over their lives. Social Media Addiction is an addiction that isn’t widely recognized yet because it is so new. People don’t realize that they are using their social media accounts so frequently because it is such a mindless interaction. Scrolling for hours on end can happen very easily.
Cyber addiction can come in many different forms. Because people are interacting with others through their social media, they often don’t view it as being addicted to social media. Is social networking addictive? Social media is still relatively new and studies linking addiction to social media are few and far between. This can make it difficult for someone to be diagnosed with a social media addiction. Many people do not know that there are treatment options available to help treat social media addiction. The few studies that have been done show that addiction to social media can serve as a mental health problem. It could lead to other mental health issues later on down the road.
06-04 June is Internet Safety Month. Tim Nester, Senior Director of Communications at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation in Washington, D.C. Exposes Dangerous Apps Roblox and Discord
June 4, 2024
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06-03 June is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Awareness Month. Human Trafficking Victims Will Experience PTSD Due to the Traumatic Experiences They Encounter, Such as Abuse, Isolation, Their Needs Not Being Met, Violence, as Well as Witnessing Other Atrocities.
June 3, 2024
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Human trafficking is a national crisis in the United States. According to the Department of Homeland Security, human trafficking “involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.” It is not limited to any single community, age, race, gender, or nationality, claiming an estimated 40.3 million victims across the globe.
Today, the United States is currently one of the largest consumers of commercial sex worldwide.
While it is impossible to nail down just how many victims suffer in the U.S. each year from forced labor and commercial sex trafficking, the impact on victims is felt for a lifetime. Individuals who live through these unique and painful experiences often go on to deal with mental health conditions like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression for the rest of their lives – often struggling to find quality care.
Mental health providers across the country need to do their part to better understand the unique impact of human trafficking and how to better serve clients managing PTSD and anxiety.
U.S. Human Trafficking Statistics:
- It is nearly impossible to know exactly how many victims of human trafficking exist in the United States. It is hidden and secretive in nature – meaning there are probably far more victims than we realize.
- According to the International Labour Organization, 4.8 million people are involved in forced sexual exploitation worldwide, and more than 1 million of those victims are children.
- Human trafficking is a $150 billion industry worldwide.
- 90.8% of trafficking survivors reported being arrested, according to the National Survivor Network. Only 10% of buyers are arrested.
- 92% of Victims are physically assaulted, according to Loyola University’s Annals of Health Law.
- It is projected that between 60% and 70% of trafficked children in the U.S. come from child social services or the foster care system.
- LGBTQ youth have higher runaway rates, a higher likelihood of discrimination/violence/economic problems, and are therefore more vulnerable to being trafficked.
06-02 AI (Artificial Intelligence) Fake Nudes Are Now a Frightening Reality for Teens
June 2, 2024
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Girls portrayed in AI-generated nude images can still face bullying and judgment, even when everyone knows the pics are fake, teens say.
Fake nude photos sparked an uproar in a New Jersey high school last year. Six months on, the images—created with artificial-intelligence apps that merge a classmate’s face with a naked body—are rippling through schools of all kinds.
06-01 Best Phones for Kids: The Ultimate Guide
June 1, 2024
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Our great friend and colleague, Chris McKenna, Founder of Protect Young Eyes is at the forefront of tech safety for you and your family.
Chris shares one of his most asked questions with us – “What’s the best phone for kids?”
He says – We receive this question all the time!
And now that there are multiple kid phone options, parents are hungry for guidance.
In the United States*, the most popular “first phones” for kids are:
- Gabb Wireless
- Pinwheel
- Troomi
- The Bark Phone
05-31 The Complete Guide to Deepfakes & AI for Parents & Caretakers from Our Colleagues at Protect Young Eyes.
May 31, 2024
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Artificial Intelligence – AI – is developing rapidly. It can create efficiency with certain tasks, including content creation and research. It’s also creating new, extremely difficult problems related to intellectual property and exploitation, including children.
The Pope, The White House, and a global committee of 18 countries have all pushed for guidelines and mandates for the future of AI. But it’s evolving much faster than policy and government.
One of these terrifying evolutions is deepfake technology. It uses “deep” AI to create fake voices, images, videos, and conversations. The fake content is so realistic, that we have a new word: deepfake, which was first coined on Reddit in 2017.
And deepfakes are quickly getting out of control. For example, Alibaba researchers created a new AI tool that turns static images into dancing videos – called “Animate Anyone.” One of the top comments on the program’s GitHub is, “…can’t wait to use this for porn.”
Or, consider the New Jersey teens who created deepfake nude images of female classmates. We’re afraid this is just the beginning. Revenge porn and child sexual abuse content (CSAM) will both be taken to another, sinister level.
The challenge with deepfakes is that there isn’t a strong technical solution like a filter to prevent them. There aremultiple steps parents can take to mitigate risk and we share those below. But we also desperately need a regulatory solution to reign in the technology. And governments seem woefully caught off-guard by these advances.
What is a Basic Explanation of AI?
05-30 Shocking Survey: Nearly Half of Gen Z Live a ‘Double Life’ Online.
May 30, 2024
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Do you have an online secret nobody knows about? Nearly half of Gen Zers feel like they’re living a “double life” when it comes to their online and offline personas.
A survey of 2,000 Americans, split evenly by generation, found that 46% of Gen Z respondents feel their personality online vastly differs from how they present themselves in the real world. However, they’re not the only ones hiding a different side of themselves behind a screen. In fact, 27% of respondents across all generations share this feeling, with 38% of millennials, 18% of Gen Xers, and 8% of baby boomers claiming to live “double life” online.
*Anyone born between 1981 and 1996 (ages 23 to 38 in 2019) is considered a Millennial, and anyone born from 1997 onward is part of a new group called GenZ.
05-29 Let’s Do It. How To Set Up Parental Controls. A Must, Especially Going InTo Summer Months When Kids Have More FREE Time.
May 29, 2024
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Putting a smart device in the hands of a child or teenager can be incredibly nerve-racking. As online dangers are becoming better understood, parental controls to protect children from dangerous features and content are becoming more intuitive and accessible by the day.
Let’s talk about what they can do and how to use them!
What Are Parental Controls?
Parental controls are simply settings that can be added to devices, apps, or games that limit activities and screen time. They prevent online chats, limit online content and access, and censor inappropriate content and language.
Parents should be careful not to assume that parental controls function like a cure-all for internet dangers. Some parental controls are intuitive and are incredibly difficult for kids to break through but others are ineffective and easy to bypass. Even with good protective measures in place, it’s important to have open, ongoing conversations with kids about online dangers.
Benefits of Parental Controls
The research on the effect of parental controls on families is limited. One review of multiple studies showed mixed results when it comes to benefits of parental controls and concluded, “the review found little support for advocating parental controls as a stand-alone strategy, [but] parents valued them when embedded in a broader approach to parental mediation and parent–child relations.”
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