A warning that today’s episode contains content that listeners might find disturbing. You can find support links below.
New Zealand police are becoming increasingly concerned about online groups targeting Kiwi children through social media.
Apps like Snapchat have become a breeding ground for sex abuse material, while overseas groups are actively participating in “sadistic online exploitation”.
And it’s not just happening offshore, with two sisters this week sharing their story of being targeted by a Wellington man masquerading as an 11-year-old girl.
NZ Herald investigative reporter Michael Morrah has been looking into this case for months, and joins us today on The Front Page to explore what’s happening online.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host/Sound Engineer: Richard Martin
Producer: Ethan Sills
Michael Morrah's full story from this week can be found here.
SEXUAL HARM - Where to get help
If you've ever experienced sexual assault or abuse and need to talk to someone, contact Safe to Talk confidentially, any time 24/7:
Call 0800 044 334
Text 4334
Email support@safetotalk.nz
For more info or to web chat visit www.safetotalk.nz
Alternatively contact your local police station.
If you have been sexually assaulted, remember it's not your fault.
Youth services:
- Youthline: Call 0800 376 633 or text 234
- What's Up: Call 0800 942 8787 (11am to 11pm) or webchat (11am to 10.30pm)
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- Aoake te Rā (Bereaved by Suicide Service): Call 0800 000 053
For more information and support, talk to your local doctor, hauora, community mental health team, or counselling service.
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A warning that today's episode contains content that listeners might
find disturbing. You can find support links in our show
notes Kyota. I'm Richard Martin in for Chelsea Daniels and
this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by
the New Zealand Herald. New Zealand police are becoming increasingly
(00:26):
concerned about online groups targeting Kiwi children through social media.
Apps like Snapchat have become a breeding ground for sex
abuse material, while overseas groups are actively participating in sadistic
online exploitation. And it's not just happening offshore. With two
sisters this week sharing their story of being targeted by
(00:46):
a Wellington man masquerading as an eleven year old girl
in Zied. Herald investigative reporter Michael Mora has been looking
into this case for months and joins us today on
the front Page to explore what's happening online. So, Michael,
(01:07):
how did you come to investigate this particular field.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, I've got two daughters, and I guess I was
particularly concerned by just how much technology phones. Access to
the Internet was such a driver for my girls. They
were so interested in it. When I grew up, we
would watch some cartoons in the afternoon after school, but
(01:32):
they only go for about an hour and then it
would go into the news hour and more adult programming,
and you had that small window where you might watch
a cartoon. But at the moment, technology is just everywhere,
and in a way, children and young people are growing
up with this. They're growing up seeing their parents attached
(01:54):
to these phones, swiping these phones, and it is consistently
kind of in their face. And I guess why I
started to look into this field was because of the
rise and concerns around the world and also here in
New Zealand about the damage that early access can cause,
(02:16):
but also the way in which social media companies have expanded,
and that's been massive in the past ten years. There
are so many different platforms, all eager to get eyes
and ears onto them, and this in turn presents a
(02:38):
problem because a lot of these spaces are designed by
their very nature to be sites that are encrypted or protected,
and they anonymize use and they allow engagement with other
people around the world, which on the face of it
sounds fine. But the problem is is that predators and
(03:01):
pedophiles know that this is a very easy way to
target children. And I think that's horrific and there are
many examples of police investigations into this sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yeah, so you spoke with the police back in March
and one of your first stories about this what sort
of things are they seeing on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, we know, for example that from the facts that
the statistics show that that referrals from these big tech
companies are going up hugely. So if you look at Snapchat,
in the space of a year, referrals to New Zealand
Police have more than doubled, So they're about one thousand,
(03:47):
five hundred and forty nine referrals over a twelve month period.
And when you look back on the year prior, it
was about six hundred and seventeen complaints that were referred
to New Zealand Police. Now, these referrals come from a
place called neck MECH or the National Center for Exploited
and Missing Children in the US, so they get information
(04:08):
on problematic communications or images and then they go right,
this is happening in New Zealand. And actually this user
who is obtaining these images or video, objection and or
material is based in New Zealand, so those referrals are
going there. Now we're also seeing increases on other social
media platforms like TikTok roadblocks. Of course, the social media
(04:32):
companies would say, oh, well, this is happening because we
have really good systems in place now where we are
reporting more. We have better ways for people to make
complaints or make referrals within the app. And that may
well be true. But the other point I would make
that would be true is that these referrals from the
US to New Zealand police would only be a tiny
(04:55):
fraction of the actual harm that is going on.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
We don't want to alarm parents out there. We just
want them to be aware of some of the risks
online which is similar to sextortion and other child sexual
abuse material, and just making sure they put the right
privacy settings and have those conversations in place to keep
the young people safe.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Some of the things that I'm aware of are looking
for changes in behavior of their children. They might be
visible things that you know that they are concerned about,
the sort of reclusion, so starting to shut themselves away,
being secretive about the online activity. If any parents have
(05:39):
concerns about that happening with their children, again, not encourage
them to report that as soon as possible.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I think it might be worth discussing, like the term
sort of online child exploitation. Obviously, you know you've spoken
to a lot of people affected by this and that
are really sort of close to it, but it does
kind of sound like one of those things that you
just hear and might be being over reported for fear
mong green, Like, how much of an issue is this
(06:07):
actually do you think?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Look, I think it's a huge issue, and I think
the scale of the issue is actually probably underreported. And
the reason I say that is because I have interviewed
police from the Online Child Exploitation of New Zealand team.
I have interviewed the Department of Internal Affairs both from
their child Exploitation team and also from their Extremist Online team.
(06:34):
The concerns are real, and the referrals and the number
of investigations that they are involved in is increasing massively
year on year, and there's also various developments in terms
of how some of these predators are operating. Our listeners
may sort of think about sextortion, which is one of
(06:55):
the classic ones. You extract an objectionable picture from a
young per and then say, look, if you don't give
me this amount of money, I will do xyz. There
are now a new breed of sadistic, right wing young
people online who are not actually interested in obtaining money,
(07:15):
but they are trying to get some of the most frightening, cruel,
degrading and violent material from young people for the sole
purpose of building online clout and reputation amongst other like
minded people. And the purpose of doing this is that
they want to create ultimately social disorder, and so they
(07:37):
do this by targeting the younger generation. One of the
big problems I think is that as parents, you go
about the day and think, gosh, well that's a horrific story,
but it won't happen to my kid because we're keeping
an eye on things. But that's naive. I think there
are people out there waiting for opportunities to exploit young people,
(07:58):
waiting for opportunities who strike up some form of fake relationship.
And you've got to remember the age of some of
the kids who end up with devices. I mean, they're
not adults. They want to make friends, they want to
join people on games, and that's just human nature.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
I think that's a nice segue into talking about the
story that you published this week, because you mentioned there
that like oh, I do everything right. This couldn't possibly
happen in my household. But yeah, tell us a little
bit about you spoke to a woman calling Victoria and
her two kids, Amy and Ivy, and yeah, this is
someone who sort of seemingly did everything right.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah. I just first want to acknowledge Victoria, the mother
who I interviewed, and her daughter's Amy and Ivy, for
their extraordinary bravery and stepping up and discussing this. The
sole purpose of them wanting to talk to me was
to raise awareness about this issue and to tell other
parents and New Zealanders in general that this issue is
(09:09):
very real. And of course we have heard from police,
we have heard from the Department of Internal Affairs, and
we've got great organizations like before sixteen in that movement
starting up, which seems to have the support of the
Prime Minister. But what's unique about this story is that
we hear the true story from the mother and the victims.
(09:30):
The mother, in my view, Victoria did take precautions, and
this is what's really interesting. The first time that her
two daughters had some form of interaction or learnings about
a person who ended up being a pedophile was in
the primary school. Library, the most innocent of childhood spaces.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
And I are they even had phones themselves, right.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Absolutely, they did not have phones. And this is the
this is the thing. They had a friend who had
a phone and these fun videos on zoomrag showing you know,
the dancing back and forth, and you know, there's a
big trend and kids love it. And of course they
never they didn't have phones at this point. But for
months in the school library and around the school they
(10:18):
were looking over the shoulder of their friend who had
this phone and oh wow, look at this. These videos
are so fun. It was at that time that the
friend said to them, oh, well look at this. I've
got a friend. She's an eleven year old from Australia
and she's liking my videos and she's commenting on my videos.
Of course, the two girls I interviewed thought, this is
(10:39):
so cool. An eleven year old from Australia. That's fantastic.
And look at this engagement and wow, that's amazing. The
mother in this case eventually did get her girl's phones
for safety reasons, like many parents are doing now if
their kids are walking to and from school, for safety reasons,
so they can be contacted. All the time, and this
(11:00):
is what was happening with her girls. She did not
allow social media on these phones. But the girls, who
had witnessed their peers at school seeing Zoomerang in this account,
really wanted this this app. So you face that sort
of dilemma as a parent, and you know, Victoria in
this case, she consulted other mothers at the school. She
asked around what zoom rang like, Are there any concerns
(11:22):
you know? Everyone said, look, we don't have any concerns
about this, and so she allowed this app, which she
thought was innocuous and harmless, to be downloaded. And this
of course was the time where the girls thought, well,
we must add the fun girl from Australia, this eleven
year old, because she seems cool and she's been liking
our other friends videos, so we want to make friends too.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
And then so how did this take a turn the story?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, well it took a real turn. And I think
it's again important to emphasize before people jump on the
bandwagon and go, oh, well, you shouldn't have given your
kids phones and you shouldn't give them social media. This
was in the view of the mother, it was a
targeted sophisticated and tactical approach by someone who pretended to
(12:10):
be an eleven year old girl who we work out
was never an eleven year old girl, and what she
asked the girls to do, and this took weeks and
weeks of trust building right sending the right emojis, building
up self esteem, talking with the girls about wow, look
we've got so much in common. You like the same
(12:30):
color as me. That's amazing. I mean, it's just really
innocent things that plays on the vulnerability and naivety of
these young girls. Once he knew that he had their
trust and that the messaging was becoming more regular, and
that he had learned a lot about them and their
school and their friend group, he then shifted them, unbeknown
(12:52):
to their mum, onto other platforms like Discord, like Snapchat,
like Telegram, which we know the latter is an encrypted
text messaging service. Now, why would you want to move
a child onto Telegram? Two pre teen girls onto such
a platform. This is when it all started beginning with
(13:16):
asking questions like hey, do you guys own crop tops?
And it became more and more serious in terms of
what this person wanted while extracting child sex abuse images
from the two girls. He reminded them, do not tell
anyone about this. And by the way, if someone does
(13:38):
find out about this, like your mum, I will have
to get you blocked from these apps that I've helped
get you onto, and you don't want to lose access
to that. You know, my own daughters if they're on
something and I say no, sorry, you've gone over your
limit or you're not behaving and I'm banning you for
a week from this, it is a huge deal. There
(14:00):
was a big meltdown. Saying you can't do this on
a device is a massive thing. So the girls were
under pressure. At the same time, when I talk about
the tactics of some of these predators, he was colluding
with other pedophiles around the world on how to ensure
that the girls would keep quiet and that he would
(14:22):
still be and how best to extract the information in
a confidential manner from them, and he largely succeeded at
doing this, even to the extent that he told the girls,
if mum comes along and asks about who you're chatting to,
you show her these messages, ones that were from early
on in the piece that were safe and appeared harmless.
(14:44):
And appeared very friendly and genuine. And of course the
mother did look at these and she thought, okay, well
that all seems legit. I will permit the conversations to continue,
not knowing how her daughters were being exploited at that point.
And what did you think when your mum told you,
(15:04):
guys that your friend was a man?
Speaker 5 (15:08):
I was pretty shocked and mostly pretty disgusted, but most
of it was shot a little bit of anger, a
bit of sadness. I was in cheers, I was angry,
and I felt like was or surprising.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
We have ongoing counseling.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
They're still my daughters are having nightmares.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
They don't trust easily anymore.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
And so I guess how do we combat this? Like
what are the police wanting to change?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I think that a big part of this is having
some publicity about it for the first sense, and also
starting conversations. I mean, if we look at what the
mother has said to me, you know, she said the
best thing I think is to have these very open
conversations early. Make sure your children understand what a healthy
(16:15):
online relationship looks like. Make sure they understand that if
anyone suggests to you, would you mind taking a picture
of yourself without your clothes on, that you can feel
safe to talk to another adult myself a teacher, and
that that is not right. And the crazy thing about
it is that these conversations here to be had with
(16:36):
children at a very early age. But you know, you've
got to be, as a mother articulated to me, be
careful in how you're conveying this information. You might want
to keep it as simple as saying, well, look, if
someone is asking you for a picture without your clothes on,
you have to tell someone about that because that's not
right and that's your body and you have to protect
(16:57):
yourself and make sure that you feel safe to talk
to other people people. But then we also have you know,
some of the other movements that are starting up. We
know that the before sixteen group has launched wanting to
essentially following the footsteps of Australia by banning social media
for under sixteen year olds. And look, I support what
they are trying to do here, and I support it
(17:19):
as a parent for a few reasons. But one of
the really hard things is that and just like with
Amy and Ivy in their situation, as soon as your
kid's friends have got these devices or an iPad or
a phone. All of a sudden, there's this great need.
I need one, you know, I really need one. And
it's almost like if we just could remove that from
(17:43):
the equation, or at least remove some of these access
to platforms from the equation and said well, look sorry,
but it's actually against the law or you can't have this,
and it's all an even playing field. I think it
would make it a lot easier for parents and I
I don't really accept the argument offered at one stage
(18:04):
by the Minister for Internal Affairs Brook van Velden that oh, well,
it's appearance responsibility and so all the best appearance. Absolutely
it is, and absolutely you have to have these conversations.
But where is the responsibility on some of these big
tech companies that are creating these environments where predators thrive.
I mean, these offenders are no longer hanging out at
(18:28):
the playground watching kids through a window. They're no longer
in a van with a bag of lollies. If that
sort of thing ever occurred, I don't know if that
was more of a myth, But what I'm saying is
that it has been made so easy for people who
want to prey on our most vulnerable to get access
(18:48):
to them, and they can do it all from the
comfort of their own home anywhere in the world, and
we are seeing the evidence of this in New Zealand
on a daily weekly.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Well, thank you for joining us, really appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
Cheers.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at inzidherld dot co dot z. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills. I'm Richard Martin. Subscribe to The
Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts,
and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
A warning that today's episode contains content that listeners might
find disturbing. You can find support links in our show
notes Kyota. I'm Richard Martin in for Chelsea Daniels and
this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by
the New Zealand Herald. New Zealand police are becoming increasingly
(00:26):
concerned about online groups targeting Kiwi children through social media.
Apps like Snapchat have become a breeding ground for sex
abuse material, while overseas groups are actively participating in sadistic
online exploitation. And it's not just happening offshore. With two
sisters this week sharing their story of being targeted by
(00:46):
a Wellington man masquerading as an eleven year old girl
in Zied. Herald investigative reporter Michael Mora has been looking
into this case for months and joins us today on
the front Page to explore what's happening online. So, Michael,
(01:07):
how did you come to investigate this particular field.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, I've got two daughters, and I guess I was
particularly concerned by just how much technology phones. Access to
the Internet was such a driver for my girls. They
were so interested in it. When I grew up, we
would watch some cartoons in the afternoon after school, but
(01:32):
they only go for about an hour and then it
would go into the news hour and more adult programming,
and you had that small window where you might watch
a cartoon. But at the moment, technology is just everywhere,
and in a way, children and young people are growing
up with this. They're growing up seeing their parents attached
(01:54):
to these phones, swiping these phones, and it is consistently
kind of in their face. And I guess why I
started to look into this field was because of the
rise and concerns around the world and also here in
New Zealand about the damage that early access can cause,
(02:16):
but also the way in which social media companies have expanded,
and that's been massive in the past ten years. There
are so many different platforms, all eager to get eyes
and ears onto them, and this in turn presents a
(02:38):
problem because a lot of these spaces are designed by
their very nature to be sites that are encrypted or protected,
and they anonymize use and they allow engagement with other
people around the world, which on the face of it
sounds fine. But the problem is is that predators and
(03:01):
pedophiles know that this is a very easy way to
target children. And I think that's horrific and there are
many examples of police investigations into this sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yeah, so you spoke with the police back in March
and one of your first stories about this what sort
of things are they seeing on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, we know, for example that from the facts that
the statistics show that that referrals from these big tech
companies are going up hugely. So if you look at Snapchat,
in the space of a year, referrals to New Zealand
Police have more than doubled, So they're about one thousand,
(03:47):
five hundred and forty nine referrals over a twelve month period.
And when you look back on the year prior, it
was about six hundred and seventeen complaints that were referred
to New Zealand Police. Now, these referrals come from a
place called neck MECH or the National Center for Exploited
and Missing Children in the US, so they get information
(04:08):
on problematic communications or images and then they go right,
this is happening in New Zealand. And actually this user
who is obtaining these images or video, objection and or
material is based in New Zealand, so those referrals are
going there. Now we're also seeing increases on other social
media platforms like TikTok roadblocks. Of course, the social media
(04:32):
companies would say, oh, well, this is happening because we
have really good systems in place now where we are
reporting more. We have better ways for people to make
complaints or make referrals within the app. And that may
well be true. But the other point I would make
that would be true is that these referrals from the
US to New Zealand police would only be a tiny
(04:55):
fraction of the actual harm that is going on.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
We don't want to alarm parents out there. We just
want them to be aware of some of the risks
online which is similar to sextortion and other child sexual
abuse material, and just making sure they put the right
privacy settings and have those conversations in place to keep
the young people safe.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Some of the things that I'm aware of are looking
for changes in behavior of their children. They might be
visible things that you know that they are concerned about,
the sort of reclusion, so starting to shut themselves away,
being secretive about the online activity. If any parents have
(05:39):
concerns about that happening with their children, again, not encourage
them to report that as soon as possible.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I think it might be worth discussing, like the term
sort of online child exploitation. Obviously, you know you've spoken
to a lot of people affected by this and that
are really sort of close to it, but it does
kind of sound like one of those things that you
just hear and might be being over reported for fear
mong green, Like, how much of an issue is this
(06:07):
actually do you think?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Look, I think it's a huge issue, and I think
the scale of the issue is actually probably underreported. And
the reason I say that is because I have interviewed
police from the Online Child Exploitation of New Zealand team.
I have interviewed the Department of Internal Affairs both from
their child Exploitation team and also from their Extremist Online team.
(06:34):
The concerns are real, and the referrals and the number
of investigations that they are involved in is increasing massively
year on year, and there's also various developments in terms
of how some of these predators are operating. Our listeners
may sort of think about sextortion, which is one of
(06:55):
the classic ones. You extract an objectionable picture from a
young per and then say, look, if you don't give
me this amount of money, I will do xyz. There
are now a new breed of sadistic, right wing young
people online who are not actually interested in obtaining money,
(07:15):
but they are trying to get some of the most frightening, cruel,
degrading and violent material from young people for the sole
purpose of building online clout and reputation amongst other like
minded people. And the purpose of doing this is that
they want to create ultimately social disorder, and so they
(07:37):
do this by targeting the younger generation. One of the
big problems I think is that as parents, you go
about the day and think, gosh, well that's a horrific story,
but it won't happen to my kid because we're keeping
an eye on things. But that's naive. I think there
are people out there waiting for opportunities to exploit young people,
(07:58):
waiting for opportunities who strike up some form of fake relationship.
And you've got to remember the age of some of
the kids who end up with devices. I mean, they're
not adults. They want to make friends, they want to
join people on games, and that's just human nature.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
I think that's a nice segue into talking about the
story that you published this week, because you mentioned there
that like oh, I do everything right. This couldn't possibly
happen in my household. But yeah, tell us a little
bit about you spoke to a woman calling Victoria and
her two kids, Amy and Ivy, and yeah, this is
someone who sort of seemingly did everything right.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah. I just first want to acknowledge Victoria, the mother
who I interviewed, and her daughter's Amy and Ivy, for
their extraordinary bravery and stepping up and discussing this. The
sole purpose of them wanting to talk to me was
to raise awareness about this issue and to tell other
parents and New Zealanders in general that this issue is
(09:09):
very real. And of course we have heard from police,
we have heard from the Department of Internal Affairs, and
we've got great organizations like before sixteen in that movement
starting up, which seems to have the support of the
Prime Minister. But what's unique about this story is that
we hear the true story from the mother and the victims.
(09:30):
The mother, in my view, Victoria did take precautions, and
this is what's really interesting. The first time that her
two daughters had some form of interaction or learnings about
a person who ended up being a pedophile was in
the primary school. Library, the most innocent of childhood spaces.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
And I are they even had phones themselves, right.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Absolutely, they did not have phones. And this is the
this is the thing. They had a friend who had
a phone and these fun videos on zoomrag showing you know,
the dancing back and forth, and you know, there's a
big trend and kids love it. And of course they
never they didn't have phones at this point. But for
months in the school library and around the school they
(10:18):
were looking over the shoulder of their friend who had
this phone and oh wow, look at this. These videos
are so fun. It was at that time that the
friend said to them, oh, well look at this. I've
got a friend. She's an eleven year old from Australia
and she's liking my videos and she's commenting on my videos.
Of course, the two girls I interviewed thought, this is
(10:39):
so cool. An eleven year old from Australia. That's fantastic.
And look at this engagement and wow, that's amazing. The
mother in this case eventually did get her girl's phones
for safety reasons, like many parents are doing now if
their kids are walking to and from school, for safety reasons,
so they can be contacted. All the time, and this
(11:00):
is what was happening with her girls. She did not
allow social media on these phones. But the girls, who
had witnessed their peers at school seeing Zoomerang in this account,
really wanted this this app. So you face that sort
of dilemma as a parent, and you know, Victoria in
this case, she consulted other mothers at the school. She
asked around what zoom rang like, Are there any concerns
(11:22):
you know? Everyone said, look, we don't have any concerns
about this, and so she allowed this app, which she
thought was innocuous and harmless, to be downloaded. And this
of course was the time where the girls thought, well,
we must add the fun girl from Australia, this eleven
year old, because she seems cool and she's been liking
our other friends videos, so we want to make friends too.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
And then so how did this take a turn the story?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, well it took a real turn. And I think
it's again important to emphasize before people jump on the
bandwagon and go, oh, well, you shouldn't have given your
kids phones and you shouldn't give them social media. This
was in the view of the mother, it was a
targeted sophisticated and tactical approach by someone who pretended to
(12:10):
be an eleven year old girl who we work out
was never an eleven year old girl, and what she
asked the girls to do, and this took weeks and
weeks of trust building right sending the right emojis, building
up self esteem, talking with the girls about wow, look
we've got so much in common. You like the same
(12:30):
color as me. That's amazing. I mean, it's just really
innocent things that plays on the vulnerability and naivety of
these young girls. Once he knew that he had their
trust and that the messaging was becoming more regular, and
that he had learned a lot about them and their
school and their friend group, he then shifted them, unbeknown
(12:52):
to their mum, onto other platforms like Discord, like Snapchat,
like Telegram, which we know the latter is an encrypted
text messaging service. Now, why would you want to move
a child onto Telegram? Two pre teen girls onto such
a platform. This is when it all started beginning with
(13:16):
asking questions like hey, do you guys own crop tops?
And it became more and more serious in terms of
what this person wanted while extracting child sex abuse images
from the two girls. He reminded them, do not tell
anyone about this. And by the way, if someone does
(13:38):
find out about this, like your mum, I will have
to get you blocked from these apps that I've helped
get you onto, and you don't want to lose access
to that. You know, my own daughters if they're on
something and I say no, sorry, you've gone over your
limit or you're not behaving and I'm banning you for
a week from this, it is a huge deal. There
(14:00):
was a big meltdown. Saying you can't do this on
a device is a massive thing. So the girls were
under pressure. At the same time, when I talk about
the tactics of some of these predators, he was colluding
with other pedophiles around the world on how to ensure
that the girls would keep quiet and that he would
(14:22):
still be and how best to extract the information in
a confidential manner from them, and he largely succeeded at
doing this, even to the extent that he told the girls,
if mum comes along and asks about who you're chatting to,
you show her these messages, ones that were from early
on in the piece that were safe and appeared harmless.
(14:44):
And appeared very friendly and genuine. And of course the
mother did look at these and she thought, okay, well
that all seems legit. I will permit the conversations to continue,
not knowing how her daughters were being exploited at that point.
And what did you think when your mum told you,
(15:04):
guys that your friend was a man?
Speaker 5 (15:08):
I was pretty shocked and mostly pretty disgusted, but most
of it was shot a little bit of anger, a
bit of sadness. I was in cheers, I was angry,
and I felt like was or surprising.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
We have ongoing counseling.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
They're still my daughters are having nightmares.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
They don't trust easily anymore.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
And so I guess how do we combat this? Like
what are the police wanting to change?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I think that a big part of this is having
some publicity about it for the first sense, and also
starting conversations. I mean, if we look at what the
mother has said to me, you know, she said the
best thing I think is to have these very open
conversations early. Make sure your children understand what a healthy
(16:15):
online relationship looks like. Make sure they understand that if
anyone suggests to you, would you mind taking a picture
of yourself without your clothes on, that you can feel
safe to talk to another adult myself a teacher, and
that that is not right. And the crazy thing about
it is that these conversations here to be had with
(16:36):
children at a very early age. But you know, you've
got to be, as a mother articulated to me, be
careful in how you're conveying this information. You might want
to keep it as simple as saying, well, look, if
someone is asking you for a picture without your clothes on,
you have to tell someone about that because that's not
right and that's your body and you have to protect
(16:57):
yourself and make sure that you feel safe to talk
to other people people. But then we also have you know,
some of the other movements that are starting up. We
know that the before sixteen group has launched wanting to
essentially following the footsteps of Australia by banning social media
for under sixteen year olds. And look, I support what
they are trying to do here, and I support it
(17:19):
as a parent for a few reasons. But one of
the really hard things is that and just like with
Amy and Ivy in their situation, as soon as your
kid's friends have got these devices or an iPad or
a phone. All of a sudden, there's this great need.
I need one, you know, I really need one. And
it's almost like if we just could remove that from
(17:43):
the equation, or at least remove some of these access
to platforms from the equation and said well, look sorry,
but it's actually against the law or you can't have this,
and it's all an even playing field. I think it
would make it a lot easier for parents and I
I don't really accept the argument offered at one stage
(18:04):
by the Minister for Internal Affairs Brook van Velden that oh, well,
it's appearance responsibility and so all the best appearance. Absolutely
it is, and absolutely you have to have these conversations.
But where is the responsibility on some of these big
tech companies that are creating these environments where predators thrive.
I mean, these offenders are no longer hanging out at
(18:28):
the playground watching kids through a window. They're no longer
in a van with a bag of lollies. If that
sort of thing ever occurred, I don't know if that
was more of a myth, But what I'm saying is
that it has been made so easy for people who
want to prey on our most vulnerable to get access
(18:48):
to them, and they can do it all from the
comfort of their own home anywhere in the world, and
we are seeing the evidence of this in New Zealand
on a daily weekly.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Well, thank you for joining us, really appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
Cheers.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at inzidherld dot co dot z. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills. I'm Richard Martin. Subscribe to The
Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts,
and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
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