I Just Saw Something That Scared Me To Death
This is by far the darkest part of our humanity.
Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, I discuss the importance of being fully aware of the consequences of letting your child access the internet.
I Just Saw Something That Scared Me To Death
I’m a big proponent of keeping phones, tablets, etc., away from kids as long as possible. Until recently, it was less about the dangers of the internet and more about trying to keep my children out of the class group chats and hopefully stave off an early addiction to screens.
My girls need a place they can retreat to after school where no one but family can reach them. Instant access is a little much after being around their friends all day. But I also believe it’s important for them to be included, so the compromise we’ve made is that my oldest daughter’s friends have my number and can text her (through me) on that. I get to pick and choose the time when she is alerted to their messages and phone calls, and when she can reply.
As I said, my primary focus has been mainly on the phone situation. However, this bleeds into other technologies. The girls don’t have their own computers. They use ours for all of their homework. They don’t play internet-connected video games. We have a switch, but they only play the retro games like Mario Kart.
All of these restrictions were put in place to help the girls have a normal childhood. I want them playing basketball outside, swimming in our pool, or climbing our big trees. I never thought about the reality that doing this was protecting them from something so inherently evil that it made my stomach turn when I learned the truth.
I was traveling for work Monday, and our plane had wifi issues, so before I got on the flight, I downloaded a podcast from the Shawn Ryan Show: “Ryan Montgomery – Hacker Exposes Roblox, Minecraft, Discord & the Darkest Online Cult.”
I mainly picked this episode because it was 5 ½ hours long, which would be plenty of content to get me through the flight, plus I’ve always been mildly obsessed with listening to hackers talk about their work.
Little did I know that this episode would validate the way I’ve raised my kids and activate me to tell everyone I know with kids who play these games to get their children off of them.
If you have children, are planning to have them, or even just have grandchildren, you must watch this episode starting around the 3:18:30 mark. Ryan explains how companies like Roblox are actively supporting and protecting sex predators who find and groom children in some of the worst, most depraved ways.
Additionally, during his investigative work, he uncovered an organization that deals in the sexual exploitation of minors, including forcing them to send nude photos that this organization uses as a way to pressure teens and young children into body mutilation and suicide.
This is by far the darkest part of our humanity. These people enjoy preying on the most vulnerable among us for their evil purposes. To make matters worse, when other users began exposing members of this organization, Roblox did the unthinkable. Instead of blocking these users from having access to children, they banned the accounts working to expose the evil and doubled down in their protection of the predators in the statement demonizing the so-called vigilantes.
“We are sharing more information about why it was necessary to remove vigilantes from Roblox, and the ways in which we review and act on reports of abuse on Roblox. While seemingly well-intentioned, the vigilantes we’ve banned have taken actions that are both unacceptable and create an unsafe environment for users,” the statement said.
“We have been monitoring vigilante activity on Roblox for some time. These groups began by reporting safety concerns, commenting on news about Roblox, and challenging us to do better. We appreciated this feedback and used these reports to improve our safety systems. More recently, vigilante activity evolved. Instead of just reporting on safety issues, vigilantes started impersonating children and actively sought to connect with adult users. Those conversations mimicked inappropriate behavior and actively encouraged other users to connect on other social media and messaging platforms—thus bypassing Roblox’s own safety systems,” Roblox added.
For reference, the Roblox site has about 111.8 million daily active users, sending about 6.1 billion chat messages and about 1.1 million hours of voice chat. Instead of using valuable resources to review these chats to ensure children aren’t being harmed, they are devoting time and manpower to going after so-called vigilantism.
These games make billions of dollars every year off the exploitation of minors, whether it is simply their time or, worse, their bodies. At the end of the day, it is ultimately the responsibility of parents to ensure this exploitation never happens. A large part of this should come from restricting these games and apps.
I know so many parents who think, “Oh, this will never happen to my child. They’d never be involved with something like this.” However, it’s this type of naivety that allows organizations like this to harm your child.
Your children will never hate you as an adult for taking away a device. And by doing so, you’ve protected them from evil.
WHAT I SAW THIS WEEK:
I recently wrote about how our nation has devolved into a low-trust society and the ramifications that result from this sad reality. You can read that here: Every Parent Sees It: Adults And Children Are Out Of Control And It’s Because Of Our Low-Trust Society
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