More children and young adults have access to the internet than ever before, which is a scary thought for many parents.
Even on seemingly harmless forms of technology, the increased access to technology means that more young people are exploited and taken advantage of by predators.
But parents were outraged when the unthinkable happened to a child on this common app.
This Australian mother was just reminded how dangerous technology can be
Digital technology proliferates modern society, and like anything new and exciting, young people are drawn to it like moths to a flame.
Most young people have an alarmingly high access to technology and social media, which many experts and parents claim puts them at significant risk for exploitation.
In a report released on Monday, an Australian mother spoke out about a particularly concerning incident that recently happened to her 16-year-old daughter.
Beki Guinta claims that her 16-year-old daughter was sent food through the popular Uber Eats app that she did not order.
Apparently, this food was sent to her from an online predator.
Her daughter was able to share her home address by sharing an access code, which allowed the stalker to send her food without her having to pay.
Upon further investigation, Guinta found a number of disturbing messages from the stalker requesting that her daughter engage in sexually explicit banter and actions in exchange for free gifts.
Guinta spoke out about her experience and said that “teenagers are so impressionable, they’ll do anything for free s**t. It’s disgusting.”
She went to her local police station and reported this disturbing act.
“They were pretty concerned about it because now this guy has my address,” she said. “We did not sleep for weeks because we were worried this man was going to break in.”
Guinta later added that “on a TikTok live from her friend, her friend was sharing this guy’s profile and saying if you said nasty things to him, he’ll buy you things. So dumb teenagers are like ‘Cool, free s**t. Let’s do it’. And it works.”
A spokesman for TikTok reached out to news.com.au and said “keeping our community safe is a top priority for us and this type of behavior will not be tolerated on our platform. We encourage all users to report in app any behavior which contravenes our community guidelines.”
The spokesman added that “we actively review and remove content, and sometimes accounts, that violate our guidelines and under certain circumstances, we will report accounts to law enforcement. Our easy to use Guardians Guide was developed in collaboration with ySafe and helps put parents and guardians in control of their teens’ accounts.”
This disturbing incident out of Australia demonstrates the importance of internet safety
Beki Guinta’s story emphasizes how important it is for parents to keep a close eye on what their children do online.
More often than not, by the time law enforcement officials and digital media moderators get involved, it is already too late.
Instead of launching a full court press on so-called misinformation, many parents would agree that pursuing online predators would be a much better use of taxpayer dollars.
Patriot Political will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
