WESTFIELD- The Westfield Police Department June 16 joined the FBI and Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni’s Office to present an online seminar on keeping children safe in different situations online.
The topics discussed in the “Keeping Kids Safe and Secure Online” seminar included social media usage, online gaming, cyberbullying, sexting, “sextortion,” victim support, and protecting against online predators.
Westfield Police Lt. Eric Hall represented the Westfield Police Department when he discussed cyberbullying and how it is different from normal bullying situations.
The seminar began with a short speech from Gulluni. He made it clear that the intention of the seminar was not to scare parents away from letting children do anything online at all, but to make parents aware of situations their children could be in online without a parent’s knowledge.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex J. Grant spoke after Gulluni. He primarily prosecutes cases of child exploitation that took place online. He said that in 2019, there were more than 16.9 million reports of child exploitation. He said he has given similar presentations in schools where he first anonymously asks students if they had seen anything online that they wish they had not seen. He said many students from elementary to high school reported that they were solicited for nude photos or had been sent inappropriate photos of other people.
Grant also addressed online gaming. He addressed the fact that many modern video games may be highly inappropriate for children and advised that parents pay close attention to a game’s age rating before buying it for their child.
For many games, according to Grant, the issue is not the content of the game itself, but the interactions children may be having with the people they are playing with. For many online games, in one hour of play time a person could interact with hundreds of different people from around the world.
Grant said the anonymity of games allows some people to act as bullies and demean the people in the game lobby with them without much in the way of repercussions. He also referenced a criminal case in which an adult male integrated himself with a group of teenagers who frequently play online games together. He said the man eventually learned where the teenagers lived and used that information to solicit explicit photos of them.
The man had only been caught because one of the boys told his parents. The man was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Grant advised parents to read and understand a game’s age rating, secure children’s accounts, make good passwords, and to not let one’s kid use their own photo as a profile picture. If one’s kid is being actively bullied in a game, one should block the offender and report their profile directly in the game.
“The [videogame] company is your ally, because they don’t want their platform to be known as somewhere where this stuff takes place,” said Grant.
Hall then spoke about cyberbullying. He said that the major difference between normal bullying and cyberbullying is that with cyberbullying, the torment does not end when the school day ends.
“When you got home you got a break from it,” said Hall, “Millennials were the first ones where when they got home from school it didn’t end.”
He said to look out for when one’s child is actually avoiding their phones or social media. He said other signs that a child is being bullied online, or in general, is difficulty sleeping, declining grades and a desire to not go to school, anxiety, and low self esteem. Hall advised parents to go through their child’s phone if they are concerned that they are being bullied or that they are themselves a bully. He said to make sure your child is not forwarding or sending embarrassing pictures or content of another classmate, and to report it to a school resource officer if that seems to be taking place.
“Remind them that [cyberbullying] creates a digital record,” said Hall, who then said that a digital record of cyberbullying can come back to haunt someone if the police get involved.
FBI Task Force Officer Danielle Rex spoke about social media and a child’s online footprint.
“Kids are building digital reputations that could follow them for their lives,” said Rex.
Many social media sites and apps have a function that allows a user to share their location and what they are doing in real time, information that could be used by online predators. Rex emphasized that a parent should look through a child’s phone to see what apps they use and how they use them.
She said that as older generations began using apps like Facebook and Instagram en masse, younger generations moved to other, less mainstream social media apps like Discord, Snapchat, Whatsapp, and TikTok.
Rex advised that parents should use some of these apps themselves to get an idea of who uses them in general and what kind of content can be shared there.
