YouTube has a major child labor problem. Just read Amy Kaufman and Jessica Gelt’s recent Times investigation into the lawsuit facing YouTube star Piper Rockelle and her mother, Tiffany Smith.

Instagram and TikTok have child labor problems too, as do any social media platforms from which children (and their parents) derive income.

As should be self-evident, when people make money on these platforms, “social” takes a backseat to “media.”

When kids make money by producing content for a media company in California, they are — or should be — protected by the state’s laws, which mandate, among other things, limited hours, on-site education and a state-licensed teacher or social worker present on set at all times.

Read more here. 

The FBI, in partnership with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), is issuing a national public safety alert regarding an explosion in incidents of children and teens being coerced into sending explicit images online and extorted for money—a crime known as financial sextortion.

Over the past year, law enforcement has received over 7,000 reports related to the online financial sextortion of minors, resulting in at least 3,000 victims, primarily boys, and more than a dozen suicides. A large percentage of these sextortion schemes originate outside of the United States and primarily in West African countries such as Nigeria and Ivory Coast. As many children enter winter break this holiday season, the FBI and our partners implore parents and caregivers to engage with their kids about financial sextortion schemes so we can prevent them in the first place.

“The FBI has seen a horrific increase in reports of financial sextortion schemes targeting minor boys—and the fact is that the many victims who are afraid to come forward are not even included in those numbers,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “The FBI is here for victims, but we also need parents and caregivers to work with us to prevent this crime before it happens and help children come forward if it does. Victims may feel like there is no way out—it is up to all of us to reassure them that they are not in trouble, there is hope, and they are not alone.”

Read more here.

Washington, DC (December 16, 2022) – The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) applauded YouTube for removing Pornhub’s verified account (with 900k subscribers). This decision comes on the heels of TikTok’s removal of Pornhub’s account earlier this week, and of Instagram’s removal of Pornhub’s account several months ago.

Earlier today, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation flagged content from Pornhub’s account it believed was in violation of several YouTube policies. After review, YouTube alerted NCOSE that they had terminated the channel for violations of their Community Guidelines.

“Pornhub has lost yet another means to market and profit from exploitation, and we are grateful to YouTube for removing the account of this predatory enterprise. Pornhub was driving people directly to their pornography site – a violation of YouTube’s policies –which mounting evidence shows is rife with child sexual abuse material, sex trafficking, rape, and image-based sexual abuse,” said Lina Nealon, director of corporate and strategic initiatives for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.

“Given that Pornhub’s YouTube account was still accessible even when SafeSearch was on, it risked leading children to view the videos of women being raped, children being abused, extreme acts of violence and racism that are so pervasive on Pornhub. It also served as de facto advertising for this criminal company. 

“No mainstream company should partner with Pornhub, which profits from and has built its entire business model on sexually exploiting people,” Nealon said.

Visa, Mastercard, Roku, Comcast, Unilever, Kraft-Heinz, PayPal, Instagram, and TikTok are among a growing list of corporations that have rightfully cut ties with Pornhub.

There are currently 14 class action lawsuits worldwide filed by survivors of child sexual exploitation and image-based sexual abuse against Pornhub’s parent company, MindGeek. NCOSE’s Law Center is co-counsel in one class action lawsuit against Pornhub on behalf of two survivors of childhood sex trafficking whose videos and images of their sexual abuse were posted on Pornhub and other MindGeek-owned sites., and co-counsel in a lawsuit against XHamster and MindGeek filed on behalf of 9 women who were secretly filmed while changing in a college locker room for a field hockey game, and the footage of which was then uploaded to XHamster and Pornhub.

More information can be found at https://endsexualexploitation.org/pornhub/.

Not long ago, making prank calls was the worst trouble a group of teens could get into with a telephone.

But today, predators use phones to stalk and blackmail teens on social media and dating apps. Sextortion — the act of threatening to share nude or explicit images — is more common than you may think, and cases affecting young children, teens and adults have increased exponentially in the past two years. In fact, Homeland Security Investigations received over 3,000 sextortion tips in fiscal year 2022.

One current sextortion trend targets boys between 14 and 17 years old. Adult predators pretending to be young girls feign romantic interest in the boys on gaming platforms, apps and social media sites.

It starts simply enough: A teen responds to an online request to expose parts of their body on a webcam or send a nude photo to a new online “friend.” The next thing the teen knows, their new friend threatens to expose them by publicizing the photos — unless they pose for more explicit photos or send money.

In some schemes, adult predators deceive and manipulate young males into engaging in explicit activity over video, which the predator secretly records. The predator then reveals that they’ve made the recording and threatens to post clips online if the victim doesn’t pay up.

Read more here. 

HELENA – Montana’s Attorney General Austin Knudsen and 14 other state attorneys general today called on Apple and Google to take immediate action and correct their application store age ratings of TikTok by the end of the year. The change will help parents protect their children from being force-fed harmful content online.

In a pair of letters to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Knudsen and the joining attorneys general outlined the deceptive nature of the current ratings for the social media application in their story. They said that without the rating corrections, the states reserve the right to take legal action against the companies for the misrepresenting TikTok, up to and including litigation and civil penalties.

“We’ve known for a long time how TikTok acts as a Chinese Trojan horse, feeding harmful and adult content to children. It exposes kids to harmful content that promotes drugs and alcohol use, glorifies eating disorders, and encourages illegal and dangerous ‘challenges,’ whether they are searching for it or not. Drug cartels have even used it to recruit teenagers to join them,” Attorney General Knudsen said. “Parents are the first line of defense, but their job is being made more difficult by ratings that misrepresent the true content found on the platform. It’s past time for Apple and Google to do their part in helping parents keep their kids safe online and increase their TikTok ratings.”

Read more here.

A former CNN producer pleaded guilty to a child sex charge Monday for sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl after luring her to his Vermont ski house.

John Griffin, 45, pleaded guilty in federal court to using interstate commerce for the enticement of a minor as part of a plea deal in which the two remaining counts of enticement of a minor he was initially charged with last year were dropped.

Griffin, of Stamford, Connecticut, met a woman online and persuaded her to bring her 9-year-old daughter to his $2.5 million Vermont cabin, where he engaged in sexual activity with the child, according to prosecutors.

Read more here.

Who’s Raising the Kids? A must-listen to help reclaim our children from the harms of Big Tech.

The holidays are here. Let’s discuss non-tech toys and help kids find creative play that will aid in their development.