School speaker raises awareness tech dangers

by Chris Studor

One of the biggest mistakes parents can make is to think that their home is a safe haven from the dangers of today’s digital world, said Jesse Weinberger, nationally recognized speaker on internet and digital safety.

Weinberger is a TEDx presenter on YouTube, host of “Big Mama’s House” Podcast, and the author of The Boogeyman Exists – and He’s In Your Child’s Back Pocket. She recently spoke to students and parents in the Highland School District and, since 2003, has been speaking in schools across the country on how to navigate online and mobile risk.

Weinberger has personally gathered and compiled hundreds of thousands of lines of data via her live student presentations and the results are shocking.

“The digital risk and digital behavior statistics I’ve gathered from my own student audiences reflect exceedingly young participation in pornography consumption (8 years old), pornography addiction (11 years old), and sexting at 4th/5th grade, with cell phone ownership typically [starting] in third grade,” said Weinberger.

She warned parents to not allow their children to use certain applications at all, or if they allow it, to heavily monitor what their child has “broadcast.”

“If you children advertise or promote their Snapchat username of their other social profiles or anywhere public, they are inviting unwelcome contact by sexual predators,” warned Weinberger. “A predator only needs your child’s user name or cell phone number in order to initiate contact via Snapchat. Be sure to review your child’s friends list every week. Unless you know who each person is in real life, the friend must be deleted.”

Weinberger added that the new “here” feature by Snapchat enables two-way live video chatting similar to FaceTime or Skype. She said anyone on the friends list can use this feature to have a live video conversation with a child.

The examples are shocking, said Weinberger, but parents need to know just how dangerous a phone in a child’s innocent hands can be. She said since 2013, another platform, Ask.fm, has come under fire for the massive number of cyber bullying and teen suicides connected to the platform. Ask.fm is built on the simple premise of answering anonymous questions. Users create a profile and others users come visit their profile and ask you questions. Users will most likely not know the person who is posing the question.

Typically, users create a profile and most children use their real names and locations. Another user can ask the first user a question anonymously. Weinberger said it is not unusual for users to ask questions such as “Why are you such a whore?” or “Why don’t you kill yourself?” and “Do your parents hate you because you suck at soccer?”

“The child sees the question on his or her profile but doesn’t know the real identity of the person asking the question,” said Weinberger. “A user can choose to answer or not but once they do their response is posted on their profile.”

Weinberger said children can often get caught up in traps where a person asks the child “to give them a home tour with their phone.”

“Kids like to take videos and this can lead to a person having easy access to your home,” said Weinberger. “In other instances, on many platforms, someone will talk children or teens into sending explicit photos of themselves. Once they do, the pertetrator will tell them unless they continue to send photos, or agree to meet them, they will kill them and their parents. Sometimes children do agree to meet up with someone and then are kidnapped, trafficked or killed.”

She said audiences across the country have been shocked by her findings but she has advice for parents on how to help their children avoid dangerous contacts.

“Monitor your child’s phone,” she said. “Understand that this is your new part-time job and either you accept that or you kid shouldn’t have a device,” she said. “Children should not have a Smartphone under ninth grade (13-14 years old). Parents need to install device-level blocks according to the age, maturity and personality of each child.”

Weinberger said there is no real way to filter within the YouTube platform. There are a few browser extensions and parental control apps that help but they are not a complete solution.

For help, download OPENS.com, Weinberger advises.

She also advises parents to review their child’s browser weekly.

“Log into pplatforms as your child and go into private message modules with platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc., and read messages,” she said.

Weinberger advises parents to make sure their child never livestreams and to make sure their child sets a screen lock and doesn’t give the code to friends. Additionally, she recommends children s cover their phone cameras.

For more information about keeping your child safe in the digital world, read Weinberge’s book, The Boogeyman Exists and He’s In Your Child’s Back Pocket. Weinberger also has a podcast, “Big Mama’s House,” which also offers a free fans-only content and discussion. Through the site, articles are offered and alerts of new dangers are posted.

“Our children are immersed in an environment where adult content consumption now begins at 8 years old,” Weinberger said. “Due to a lack of media literacy skills combined with little impulse control, out children are accidentally and actively communicating with online predators. Remember to tell your children, just because you can access something doesn’t mean you should. Parents need to be fierce and unafraid when it comes to protecting their children.” ∞