While most embrace new technologies, there’s always a dark side that is being used for evil and targeted at the most vulnerable—our children. The explosion of AI pornography, known as deepfakes, and sextortion scams are having a devastating effect on our youth. One example is of a 14-year-old boy in NSW took his own life after he fell prey to a person posing as a young woman in a chat room. Within minutes of contact she sends him a naked picture and invites him to send her one. As soon as he does the door of sextortion opens.
The attractive young woman turns out to be a much older man who is part of a global criminal syndicate based in West Africa, targeting children through multiple fake online profiles. The scammer demands money or gift cards, threatening to send the boy’s nude images to his friends and family. The shame over this trickery caused the boy to take his own life only four hours after being scammed.
Melinda Tankard Reist, is the Movement Director at Collective Shout, an author, speaker, media commentator, and advocate for young people. She joined Neil Johnson on 20Twenty to discuss the devastating impact these evil scammers are having on young people.
This global criminal enterprise owns and run thousands and thousands of social media accounts that look to be held by women. Due to the horror and shame of being tricked, many pay the money but then realise they need to pay more and more money because the demands by the scammers get bigger. Once the photograph is sent to the scammer, it’s impossible to get it back.
In the last 18 months, police say they’ve had a 400% increase in reports from boys being scammed and tricked by these criminals. This is not considering the many who are too embarrassed to tell anybody about being scammed in this way.
Parents Warn Your Children!
Melinda wants to stress to every parent the importance of having a conversation with their children to warn them that when they’re online, they will be preyed on and be at risk of these global sextortion scams.
‘We need to talk to our boys and tell them, do not pay money, do not continue the conversation. Cut off all communications. Screen capture the accounts you’ve been contacted through. Notify police. Notify the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation,’ said Melinda.
The National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children has excellent resources. One of those is a seven-minute interactive video called No Escape Room you can watch with your children that takes you through how easy it is to be tricked and scammed in this way. It follows the true experience of a 15-year-old boy.
The Devastation Caused by Deepfakes
Deepfakes are images or videos created using artificial intelligence (AI) that superimposes a person’s face or body taken from their social media account onto a naked body. Unfortunately, this is happening right under our noses, through people we may know, not necessarily from an overseas crime syndicate. A boy from Salesian College Catholic School in Melbourne’s south-east was expelled after he allegedly created fake sexual images of a female teacher which were circulated around the school. Another incident was reported at Bacchus Marsh Grammar School where 50 students fell victim to deepfake nudes.
‘Imagine the horror for those girls to discover that their innocent picture has been taken from their social media pages and superimposed onto a naked body, and then the boys share them on social media. So those girls can protest that it’s not really their bodies, but often they’re not believed,’ said Melinda.
In New South Wales, a boy had allegedly created 300 sexually explicit deepfake images using the faces of real girls and a real female teacher. These boys are becoming self-appointed pornography producers, possibly unaware that what they are doing is a criminal offence that could land them on the child sex offender register for producing and disseminating what is essentially pornography.
‘I’m now being told stories of boys downloading sexual slavery contracts and targeting girls to sign those contracts, including under-age girls,’ said Melinda.
Nudifying Apps Soaring in Popularity
The use of nudifying and undressing apps created to undress the image of any female within seconds has soared. This puts every woman and girl in the world at risk of having these deepfake images shared to global pornographic forums, global galleries and collections, circulated by men around the world.
‘Once that image is created and shared, that’s it. It is over. You cannot get that image back. Those images are going to haunt you for the rest of your life and end up in global collections. Many people will think that is really you. They won’t understand or believe that it’s actually a deepfake production and that your image was actually stolen for that evil purpose,’ said Melinda.
Imagine the absolute shock, horror, shame, and embarrassment these girls must face who fall victim to these evil acts. Even for girls who haven’t fallen victim, they would be worried about whether they could be next. With so many girls suffering from depression, anxiety, self-harm, low self-esteem, poor academic performance, eating disorders, and body image issues, this is now one more added burden on their already fragile mental health.
‘They won’t want to turn up to school. They won’t want to be seen in public. They won’t want to be recognised in the street,’ said Melinda. ‘You have been violated. You’ve been turned into pornography against your will, and you have lost control. You will not regain control of those images. Non-consensual image sharing is a crime, and it is very, very difficult to get those images back.’
Online Pimps Recruiting Girls to OnlyFans
Only Fans is a subscriber only platform where women sell nude images and videos of themselves. Online pimps scroll through social media accounts searching for young women to recruit telling them they can make a lot of money. The truth is girls don’t make lots of money. The average earnings are USD $140 a month.
Melinda met a 25-year-old woman by the name of Victoria at one of her speaking engagements in Melbourne. Victoria told her she was one of the recruiters working for the largest OnlyFans recruitment agency in Australia. After hearing Melinda speak about the devastating effects sextortion and deepfakes was having on victims, Victoria was really convicted about what she was involved in.
‘Within five days of hearing me speak about OnlyFans, and the sex industry in general, she quit that industry and is now working alongside myself and Collective Shout to warn girls this is where you might end up. You might be stalked. You’ll lose control of your images. You’ll have to do more and more degrading acts to make any money at all because it’s such a saturated market,’ said Melinda.
Since quitting the industry, Victoria is getting opportunities to speak globally, as a whistle blower, to tell the truth about the predatory nature of OnlyFans.
Churches Are Not Immune to Pornography
Melinda said that more church leaders are now acknowledging that pornography has invaded our sacred spaces.
‘Boys in youth groups are being exposed to porn. They’re being exposed to the same bots and the same predators. They’re not distinguishing between Christian kids and kids who are not part of a faith community,’ said Melinda. ‘The fact is that many church leaders and youth group leaders are consuming pornography. That’s a tragic reality.’
‘So how does the church tell the world how it should behave and act when pornography is a problem within the church? I commend those churches that are willing to face this and set up safe spaces, especially for boys to talk about this and about the pressures they are under. I commend the churches that are acknowledging the harm being done to women and girls through compulsive habitual porn-using men who do not want to change.’
‘Surely the church should be at the forefront of defending human dignity, speaking against the degradation of any person, any human person, and being at the forefront of leading the charge against these harmful and vile evil technologies which are really changing who we are as a civilisation,’ said Melinda. ‘What kind of world do we want to have for our children? I think every person of faith should be concerned about it.’
Melinda has written a book called He Chose P*rn Over Me. She also recommends visiting the Resist Porn website which has excellent free resources for churches, youth leaders, couples, and Christian schools.
To find out more about Melinda, visit: Melinda Tankard Reist.
To listen to Melinda’s full interview with Neil, click the link below:
Image supplied by Canva
