By Kaitlyn Geiger
CCN Correspondent
BUCYRUS — On Wednesday night in the Wynford auditorium, parents of the school’s students gathered to hear Jesse Weinberger speak on internet safety.
Weinberger is a software developer from Cleveland, who travels the country talking to students and their parents on the some of the potential dangers of the internet.
In May, Weinberger was invited to speak on The Today Show to demonstrate how parents are unintentionally putting their children at risk for cyber-kidnapping. Show hosts gave her the name of a woman, and within two hours, Weinberger had a 17-page dossier on the woman’s life including, but not limited, to her children’s names, birthdays, schools and the route that they take to go to school.
Last week at Wynford, Weinberger went in on separate days and talked to each of the grades individually about the dangers of the internet, and Wednesday evening was her presentation on the matter to the parents.
Throughout her travels around the country, she has found that an astounding number of children have said that through apps like Omegle and Houseparty, they have had random video chats in which the person they are matched up with ended up being naked.
She warned that through apps like Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter, unless the user has privacy settings on, anyone can follow or message his or her child without consent and this is how many problems are created.
She said there have been instances where a 58-year-old man who lives halfway across the country, can pose as a young individual around a child’s age who lives “a few towns away,” and starts a relationship with the child. At some point, the individual who is posing as a younger person, could come clean and threaten the child into inappropriate and sexually explicit acts by threatening to kill his or her family if the child doesn’t comply with the predator’s demands.
She added there are many examples online of predators telling individuals they are going to come to their house and rape them on a specific date, and if the child tells, they will kill the family.
To avoid this, parents can go into the apps’ settings and make their account private, so they have to personally accept or decline any follow requests they receive.
Sexting is another issue Weinberger discussed, and said it isn’t just a type of conversation or sending revealing pictures either, but if it is deemed that there is even the slightest bit of suggestive intent, it’s sexting.
Weinberger said it is a bigger problem than parents may think, as there is a group of sixth-grade girls in the south who may face jail time and have to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives because of a sexting incident.
Another common thing that Weinberger sees in kids as young as fourth grade who are addicted to pornography because it may be found on apps like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, not just sites specifically designated that content.
Weinberger has combined survey results from her trips speaking across the country, and upon asking children to fill out an exit survey, she found that 12 percent of both fourth and fifth-grade students and eight percent of third graders mentioned “porn” and only seven percent of 12th-grade students and six percent of ninth and 10th graders mentioned it.
She said porn is becoming a problem at an age where children still should not even know what it is.
According to COPPA, children below the age of 13 aren’t even allowed to have social media whether the parent said yes or not. There are apps that have an age requirement in the first place.
For Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Kik and Snapchat, the child must be at least 13, YouTube is 18 and Vine, Tinder and Yik Yak is 17. If a child is below the mentioned ages and have any of the apps, he or she has committed a felony.
Weinberger said apps like YouTube aren’t as safe as parents may think either, even with parental controls on. There are videos that feature beloved children’s characters, like Elsa, where the video has sexual or violent content in it but makes it past the site’s filters because of using a child’s character’s name.
Weinberger has created a guide to helping parents keep their child safe on social media, and it includes three steps: monitor, supervise and consequence.
For monitoring, she that a child should not have a smartphone until they are at the very least, 13 or 14 years old. She said parents should also be aware of what they post on social media regarding their children and ask the children if they are okay with the parents posting whatever it is they want to post about the children.
She suggests not using a device one hour before bed because it disturbs circadian rhythms and interrupts sleep. She suggests that everyone plug their phones in at that time and either spend time together as a family or go to bed.
For supervising, parents should check their child’s social media bios, as they should not contain real names, location/city, or school name. To make sure children do not have a vault app (an app that looks innocent enough but could be a locked app where the child can store porn or other inappropriate material) parents need to open the app store on their phone and search every app that their child has and read the description to see what the app really is.
No coach, teacher, or adult that they do not know should follow them on social media. There should be no open chat or video conferences on gaming, as that can lead to trouble. Parents should also check games for explicit content, for example the popular game Grand Theft Auto allows players to have sex with the hookers in the game and then shoot them in the face.
She also says children should also have a lock screen with a code that only they know, not their friends. The last thing for supervision, is to cover the devices camera with a sticker or anything when not in use, as the camera can be hacked and used to watch a child.
Weinberger expressed the importance of consequence and stopping a child if they are doing something wrong, because it could save their life.
Parents should also have the conversation with their child about the dangers of sexual predators online, and to never give out information to someone they don’t know. Tell them to trust their gut, and if someone reaches out to them and they seem shady, do not respond and block them immediately.
Weinberger says to take the initiative to keep children safe, and don’t let something bad happen, because then it will be too late.