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A brutal Venezuelan street gang that controls sex trafficking in South America by branding women and young girls with tattoos behind their ears is exporting its violence to the US, according to reports.

Tren de Aragua, which is named for the Venezuelan state of Aragua, is now operating in South Florida following the arrest this week of a suspect wanted in a brutal murder in Miami, according to reports.

Yurwin Salazar Maita was charged with the November murder of a retired Venezuelan cop outside a hotel near the Miami airport. Miami-Dade authorities say Salazar is linked to the brutal gang.

Tren de Aragua is led by Hector Guerrero Flores, a 40 year-old fugitive who controlled drug trafficking and human trafficking while he was incarcerated in one of the Venezuela’s maximum security prisons for more than a decade. He escaped in September, and his whereabouts are unknown. Arrest warrants in several Latin American countries have been issued for Guerrero, who is known by his moniker, “El Nino Guerrero.”

More than 90% of child sexual abuse imagery found on the internet is now self-generated, according to the charity responsible for finding and removing such material.

The Internet Watch Foundation said that it discovered self-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) featuring children under 10 on more than 100,000 webpages in the last year. That figure is an increase of 66% on the year before. In total, a record 275,655 webpages were confirmed to contain CSAM, the IWF said, an increase of 8%. The new data prompted a renewed attack on end-to-end encryption from the UK government, backed by the IWF.

The rise in imagery discovered and removed is not necessarily problematic, said the charity’s chief executive Susie Hargreaves, as some of the increase could be accounted for by better detection.

Read more here. 

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Description: Twitch is one of the most popular live-streaming services. Users can watch their favorite streamers play video games, talk about politics, commentate on sports, host unique events, and be exposed to a large portion of LIVE content.

What do Parents Need to Know about Twitch?

Twitch briefly allowed nudity. On December 13, 2023, Twitch announced an update for sexual content and content classification labels. Essentially, this update allowed streamers to show “fictional” nudity for the sake of creative freedom and the growing artist communities on Twitch. While there might have been creators with true artistic intentions, this policy change was massively abused, specifically by the use of AI. But even without AI, Twitch simply went too far, deciding that popular, sexual dances were allowed without a content warning label. After two days, Twitch reversed their decision in another Sexual Content Policy Update on December 15.

Read and learn more here. 

It could eventually be a federal crime to share digitally-altered nude images of real people.

Rep. Joseph Morelle (D., N.Y.) on Tuesday re-proposed the “Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act,” which would outlaw the nonconsensual sharing of digitally-altered intimate images. He had previously introduced the bill but has since added Rep. Tom Kean, a Republican from New Jersey, as a co-sponsor. Kean had introduced a bill in November called the AI Labeling Act of 2023, which would require AI-generated content to have clear labeling that identifies it as such.

AIKEN, S.C. – Following the release of South Carolina Human Trafficking Task Force’s annual report, victim advocates are renewing their pleas for a shelter to house minors. Per the state’s report, over 90% of South Carolina’s human trafficking victims are minors. However, there’s just one shelter in the entire state that is authorized to host underage human trafficking victims. That shelter is the Cumbee Center to Assist Abused Persons in Aiken.

Capt. Sherri Smith of the Horry County Sheriff’s Office is a member of the task force. She said it’s paramount to know the way in which our digital world is influencing how predators find their victims.

“A lot of times, it’s someone that they meet online. They’re being groomed, and they meet them online and then they decide to meet up for whatever reason. You know, ‘Your parents are too strict. If you come stay with me, I’ll let you do whatever you want,’” Smith said. “And these kids don’t know what they’re getting themselves into. They think, ‘Oh, I’m in love with this person and I want to go be with them.’”

READ THE ANNUAL REPORT HERE

For the past few years, parents, researchers, and the news media have paid closer attention to the relationship between teenagers’ phone use and their mental health. Researchers such as Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge have shown that various measures of student well-being began a sharp decline around 2012 throughout the West, just as smartphones and social media emerged as the attentional centerpiece of teenage life. Some have even suggested that smartphone use is so corrosive, it’s systematically reducing student achievement. I hadn’t quite believed that last argument—until now.

What is Twitch?

Description: Twitch is one of the most popular live-streaming services. Users can watch their favorite streamers play video games, talk about politics, commentate on sports, host unique events, and be exposed to a large portion of LIVE content.

Category: Photo & Video

App Store rating: (Our opinion is that this app should be rated 17+)

• Apple: 12+ (Infrequent/Mild Profanity, Crude Humor, Cartoon or Fantasy Violence, Realistic Violence,Horror/Fear Themes, Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References, Simulated Gambling, Contests, and  Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes)
• Google Play: Teen

To get a glimpse of what Twitch is like, check out the 2023 Streamer Awards (like the Oscars, but for streamers)

What do Parents Need to Know about Twitch?

Twitch briefly allowed nudity. On December 13, 2023, Twitch announced an update for sexual content and content classification labels. Essentially, this update allowed streamers to show “fictional” nudity for the sake of creative freedom and the growing artist communities on Twitch. While there might have been creators with true artistic intentions, this policy change was massively abused, specifically by the use of AI. But even without AI, Twitch simply went too far, deciding that popular, sexual dances were allowed without a content warning label. After two days, Twitch reversed their decision in another Sexual Content Policy Update on December 15:

“Upon reflection, we have decided that we went too far with this change. Digital depictions of nudity present a unique challenge–AI can be used to create realistic images, and it can be hard to distinguish between digital art and photography.

So, effective today, we are rolling back the artistic nudity changes. Moving forward, depictions of real or fictional nudity won’t be allowed on Twitch, regardless of the medium.”

Read more here. 

Unsolved #AMBERAlerts: These Children Still Need Your Help! NCMEC and Lynn’s Warriors are asking for the public’s help in finding these missing children. If you have any information, please call us immediately at 1-800-THE-LOST.

Learn more about Amber Alerts here. 

TAMPA, Fla. – More than 120 people have been arrested and 28 victims have been saved following a 90-day human trafficking operation in Hillsborough County, according to the sheriff’s office.

For the past 90 days, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office’s Human Trafficking Squad conducted a number of investigations under the name Operation Renewed Hope.

Sheriff Chronister said he chose to conduct the operation over the holidays when children are out of school and more likely to be online.

Read more here.