001Hi everybody. Welcome and thank you so much for being here tonight with us. I know it's not like hey, let's go to a movie or let's go to an entertaining show or out to dinner. It's a tough topic but it's such an important topic and we're just really grateful that you chose to come out tonight on a rainy evening and join us to learn something that literally will save lives and so thank you for being here with us. I want to just share kind of the layout of our evening together. We will have John De May who will speak to us share the story of his son and his journey. He's coming to us from Michigan and then we have Britney Byrd after John who will come up and share her story and she's here
002with her husband Luke tonight and after that we will have our panel and that is when Commander Jesse Crow from internet crimes against children will join us and we'll also have Luke come on up and join us for that. And we have our Slido QR code and what that means is our Q&A time will come from questions that you put in. So if you don't know how this works, you just open up your phone camera and you hover it over the QR. You can do it right now and a little yellow link will come up under. You click on that and that will take you to the Q&A where you can input questions and you can just have that up on your phone for the evening and when a question occurs to you, you can
003put it in at any time. And then when we have our panel up here, we will answer some of those questions. I cannot say that we will answer all of them but we will answer what we can and what is appropriate for the evening. I would love to thank our sponsors. We've been very fortunate Five Stones Dodge County has been together for 13 years now and we've always had such wonderful support from our community. People like you but also organizations and we're just very grateful for that. So we want to give a thank you to Beaver Dam Unified School District where we are tonight for giving us the room. John Casper is the high school principal who gave us permission and set things up for us and then we also big shout out to Greg
004on tech in the back there. We cannot do it without tech. We also received two community grants that helped us to put this evening together and and do the promotions and bring in speakers and things like that and that is the Beaver Dam Area Community Foundation grant as well as the Rotary Club of Beaver Dam grant. So we're very thankful to them. And then just a very heartfelt thank you to our partners and speakers tonight John De May, Britney and Luke, Commander Crow from internet crimes against children. They're doing incredible work. Please stop at their table out there if you haven't already. Incredible work fighting trafficking and sextortion. We've also received a lot of just kind of lower level support from the community from Hometown Today radio from Daily Dodge, PAVE, the sheriff's office, the
005Beaver Dam Police Department as well as schools and other organizations online. Just wonderful community support from businesses and organizations. We're always very grateful for that. Every everything helps. So to just kind of lead us into the evening I'm Five Stones Dodge County started out and for almost a decade or probably more than a decade, we've really educated solely on sex trafficking. And then in the last probably two to three years, sextortion started getting bigger and bigger and more and more known and so we created a presentation. We learned and educated ourselves so that we can educate you. And so I just want to give you those two definitions. You're going to learn everything you want to know about sextortion tonight and everything that you probably didn't want to know but I just want to kind
006of delineate those two things for you tonight. So sex trafficking is a form of modern day slavery involving recruitment, transportation and exploitation of individuals for commercial sex through force, fraud and or coercion. So it involves manipulation of victims which can be adults or children, minors into sexual exploitation. Sextortion you know, there is a there is a line where one can go back and forth into the other but sextortion, if you think of breaking up that word into sex and extortion, so we're talking about sexual images, what your teens and preteens would call nudes being shared or sexual videos being shared and then whoever you're sharing them with will then blackmail you with those images and that equals sextortion and again, you're you're going to know more than you ever wanted to know but it's such
007an important topic because it literally will save lives tonight. If you leave here tonight and tell other people what you learned and talk to your kids and talk to your grandkids and your nieces and nephews and anybody who's kind of in your circle of influence for youth, then you literally will be saving lives. And with that, I want to invite John De May to come on up and please give him a warm welcome. >> [applause] >> Good evening. What what's my hard stop? What time? >> [clears throat] >> Uh uh 7:20. 7:20. Excellent. >> [clears throat] >> Well, thanks for everybody for coming um and just to kind of start off kind of overlapping a little bit with the sex trafficking versus the sextortion. What we're actually finding there's a least common denominator in it.
008Yes, sir. I can't hear you. I can't see you. I can't hear you. Got you. Go uh just A little closer. There we go. How's that? My [clears throat] arms get tired after a while. I'll start doing this. Um the sex trafficking and the sextortion stuff starts to intersect a little bit because what you're going to see um if you're familiar with the sex trafficking is it's all starting online. It's starting with um the grooming phase and stuff on apps and social media. So it really is kind of starting in the same area and can end up in a lot of different avenues based on the criminals that are behind the behind the scheme but excuse [clears throat] me. A little bit about myself. I'm going to try to speed through a little of this.
009This is normally like an hour, hour and 15 presentation. We're going to try to knock this out in 45 minutes. So bear with me if we're skipping through some of this stuff but um my name is John De May. I lost my son to sextortion 4 years ago yesterday actually and uh I'm from Marquette, Michigan up north here 4 and 1/2 hours and >> [clears throat] >> where we measure our snow in feet not inches like you all folks down here. We got a lot of snow the other day. Um unfortunately uh I got kind of put in this place. Obviously, I'm just a dad. I'm not I'm not a public speaker. I don't do this for a living. I don't do this for work. I have a business that a couple businesses that I
010own. Uh I'm a former police officer in my earlier life. I have a bachelor's degree [clears throat] in criminal justice. I worked in the small town in Upper Peninsula for 3 years in 2004, 5, 6 and and I got into the real estate business and that's what I do now. So I have the flexibility and a little bit of time and the ability to kind of do this stuff. So it's my moment and my time to be with my son that I don't get that was taken from me. So um but with that, I get to do a lot of really cool things. I get to meet a lot of really neat people. >> [clears throat] >> Um Nancy Grace and Francis Hogan actually just did a a media interview with her yesterday actually again.
011Um Fox News and all the three letter alphabet media has has picked this story up. It's gone international. Our case led to multiple arrests in Nigeria including extradition and there's people in prison today. We'll talk about that a little bit as we get along. I'm going to kick things off with a little video. This might be hard to see for the folks in the back but this is a like a 7-minute video on sextortion. It's going to put you in the driver's seat of what it's actually like to be sextorted. It's a young boy that takes a message from a young lady and they start conversing and they're they're talking on this messaging app and the tone starts to go sexual a little bit and then she convinces him to take a a nude image
012of himself which he does and then she demands money from him or she's going to share the pictures with everybody that he knows. So we'll get that going. It's going to be a little hard to read but that's kind of the gist of what's happening here. >> Uh-oh. Sound guy? Stand by one. We had this working earlier, I swear. Here it goes. Uh >> [music] >> I think I got sniped. Uh res me real quick. Res me. Res me. Come on. Just hurry up and res me. >> [music] >> They're like 10 seconds away. Come on. Fall fall damage. Okay. Uh >> [music] >> 20 again. One pump. I got his teammate. 40. Broke his shield. Hit him once. Wait. What? One second. >> [music] [music] >> Hey Mark, we're waiting. >> [music] [music] >>
013Mark, let me show you a new handshake. Mhm. The s s the worst. >> [music] >> The worst. >> [laughter] >> You going to try out for the team this [music] year? Yeah, probably. You better. >> [music] [music] >> You're back early. Yeah, I got kind of tired. >> [music] >> Dinner be ready in an hour. >> [music] >> Okay. >> [music] [music] >> Play first and then start pushing. Okay. How did she do today? She did She did good. Yeah. Proud of you. >> [music] >> Can I get a dog? >> [music] [music] >> I'm going to go. Mark, you barely touched your food. How would you wash >> [music] [music] [panting] [music] >> Three. >> [music] >> Let's go. Come on. >> [music] [music] [sighs and panting] [music] >> And that's how it
014happens. That is a interactive video through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. You can go on to their website. It's called No Escape Room. And it's actually interactive, so you can click through certain events that happen. So, when you get the message, you can click to use or respond to the message. When it comes time to pay the money, you can choose to pay or not pay, and it takes you down a different path. Um there's actually a new user guide that's coming out to help parents with that as well to kind of explain each element of what's happening in that video as a as an educational tool. So, I think that's coming out pretty soon. Um but as one thing I want to note on that video if as much as you
015could see might might not be able to read much, but what you'll notice is he was sending pictures and communicating with that young lady like nothing happened. And even after the extortion starts, he was pretending it didn't happen. And that's part of the problem with with what we have here. Um this is Riley Basford. He's out of New York. He died in March, the beginning [clears throat] of this month. It'll be 5 years ago for his anniversary. Um from the time that he took the message from the young lady to the time that he shot himself in his bedroom was 5 hours. This is Shaylin Dixon. She was the same month in 2021. She took her life after she was sending images. Uh Braden Marcus was 15 out of Ohio. From the time that he
016took the first message from the young lady to the time that he took his life was 27 minutes. About as much time as it took for you all to filter in here and sit down and start this presentation. Who has kids in here that are not here right now? Do you know what your kids are doing the last 27 minutes? I don't. My kids are packing right now. >> [clears throat] >> Evan McDaniels, 14, Ohio, 30 minutes. Deoni Torres, good friend of mine, um, family have become very good friends. Michigan, he was sextorted for about 6 weeks before he took his life. He's 14. And Mr. Braden Bone, our wonderful son. 1 year ago, 4 hours. 4 hours. What is sextortion? As you could kind of see, that's what it looks like, but what what
017is it? Couple things I want to talk about. And I don't want to get in the weeds too much, but I want to make sure that the young ladies in the room and the mothers understand what's happening to the young ladies with this. So, sextortion itself is about gaining images. The perpetrators, their sole purpose is to gain images, nude images from their victims. On the financial sextortion scheme, the primary purpose is to gain money. It's a financial crime. >> [clears throat] >> And why those are different, and especially with young ladies in the room, is because you have to be careful about what you're putting on your Instagram accounts and what you're putting on your social media accounts. Because what they do is they want to when they start getting ready to target you, they're
018going to go and friend request you all your friends and family that are around you. And then, once, uh, they do that, they're going to go through your feed and they're going to start scrolling through your feed, they're going to pull your head shot from your feed and put it in the folder. They're going to keep scrolling. They're going to find a low-cut shirt, little cleavage hanging out. They're going to take that picture and save it, put it in a file. They're going to scroll down, they're going to get the Christmas dance with the low-cut mini dress we're all wearing nowadays. They're going to save that, put it in a folder. Keep scrolling to the family vacation in Cancun at the beach with your string bikini on. They're going to save that picture. And then
019what they're going to do is they're going to target you and they only need one more picture. Your nude. And once you send that, they save those photos and now they have a whole progressionary set of photos that they can use to sell to other sextortioners like the ones that are going to sextort the boys for money on a financial sextortion scheme. And that's the way that happens. This is my family, that's Jordan on the left, my wife and my [clears throat] two girls, I have 9 and 11 now. This was taken the summer before he died. Jordan was 6'2, 183 lbs. Dual sport athlete, all conference basketball player, amazing football player, amazing baseball player, beautiful girlfriend named Kyla at the time. Prom king, he had the whole world ahead of him. One of the
020most popular kids in school. Everybody liked him, had a very diverse friend group. He had friends all over the upper peninsula in northern Wisconsin from all the teams that he played from the time he was knee-high to a grasshopper. An amazing young man. Until he met her. 9:00, March 24th, 4 years ago, Thursday night. Just like tonight. 9:01 p.m., she sends this message, all it said was, "Hey." Jordan's mother and I divorced when he was 2. Jordan spent all of his life going from mom's house to dad's house week on, week off, his whole life. Thursday night, he was coming to my home early because we were getting ready to go to Florida, uh, for spring break in the morning on Friday. I saw Jordan for the last time at 10:15 that night on Thursday
021as he wheeled his Florida bag into the house. I passed him outside of the garage. Said, "Good night, I'm going to bed. We got a long day tomorrow, we're driving to Florida." >> [clears throat] >> He wheeled in and started getting ready to leave in the morning. I went to bed. Unbeknownst to me, when he was pulling in my driveway at 10:15, he had just received that message from her and started communicating with Danny Roberts. Conversation was normal. "Hey, how are you? What are you doing? What do you like to do?" Danny Roberts asked, "What do you want to do for fun?" Jordan says, "I lift, play sports, listen to music. Excuse me, what about you?" "Well, I like to have fun. Like to uh, hang out with friends and play sexy games." So, Jordan
022starts communicating with her at 10:00, 10:15, this is now 11:30. This is where the conversation starts to change really quick. She's already been talking to him, grooming him for an hour and hour and 15 minutes. And then she sort of throws out there the, "Like to play sexy games." And she's, "Oh, sorry, that came out wrong, my bad." "Sorry if you got upset, just bored. Thought you might want to do something fun. It's actually a sneak peek pic exchange, no screenshots, you down? Just for fun though, nothing else. It's actually a live mirror pic exchange showing your sexy body, no screenshots, you get what I mean?" Jordan's still not responding, these messages are just coming in. So, Jordan's probably thinking, "What's going on here?" >> [snorts] >> She continues and says, "Yeah, it's uh, set
023on view once and then after viewing it disappears." So, she's trying to convince him. "Of course, I can go first if you'd like." Jordan's still not responding. So, what does she do? She throws a totally off-topic question, tries to get him hooked back in the conversation, simple question, "Are you home?" {question mark} "Yeah, I'm home." It's got him right back in the conversation. "Cool. You can just take a mirror snap showing you're ready and then I'll go first with my sexy pic." 11:44 p.m., Jordan says, "Well, you follow a lot of people from my town that I know." And she tries playing it off, "Haha, what do you mean? I think someone followed me." And she said, "You followed them back, I just noticed that." Quarter to midnight, guilt trip, Jordan's not biting. "Well, I
024get it if you don't want to play. It's cool, I just thought you were cool and might be down for some fun." So, she's tossing out this guilt trip to him, trying to get him to do this. And Jordan says, "Well, I mean, I got a girlfriend though and I feel kind of sketched, I don't know. I don't think I'd send though." So, right now he's seen what's happening, he's recognizing, he's thinking, he's using good judgment. 10 to midnight, Danny says, "Well, I >> [clears throat] >> if you don't want it to look bad, it would not like I just said, just for fun though, is not like I will just come to your home and date you." I didn't type that, that's the way it was written. And Jordan says, "Well, I know that
025you, uh, wouldn't come and date me, but it's going against my girlfriend's back, that's the whole point. Cuz if I fall for this and and then it's some prank or some [ __ ] to get me caught, then that's not good." Well, no kidding, Jordan. Right? So, he's thinking, 10 to midnight. This conversation goes on, she's back and forth, back and forth. This transcript, uh, came from the investigative files, 150 pages long. So, now we're at 12:50 and we come to the pic exchange. She finally gets him to the point where he's comfortable sending pictures. Jordan goes on the internet, pulls up a a picture on the internet, I'll let you use your own judgment, it was funny, I saw it. Sends it to Miss Danny Roberts. She sends her first nude pic. Jordan comes back with
026an, um, unknown pic, not in his bathroom. So, she's trying to convince him to take a picture in his mirror. She wants the mirror pic because we believe that they want to be able to verify the information and what's being seen in the reflection of the mirror to to validate the picture if they need it later down the road. So, she's trying to convince him to get the picture in the mirror. Jordan finally sends a clothed picture in the mirror and then she sends a second nude picture to entice him more. At this point, his hormones are probably racing. Jordan was 10 weeks from his 18th birthday, just getting ready to graduate high school. Little little bit before 1:00, he sends the first nude mirror pic. At 1:15, Danny Roberts comes back with a third
027nude pic and then tells Jordan, "Wait, I'm going to make a video." I can only imagine what he's thinking at this time. At 1:23 in the morning, he doesn't get a video back, he gets this message. They send three photo collage pictures. Each picture had picture pictures in the collage of all his friends and family and his dick pic in the middle. Three different ones. And says, "I have all your screenshots and followers and tags, can send these nudes to everyone and also send your nudes to your family and friends until it goes viral. All you have to do is cooperate with me and I won't expose you." And this is when Jordan found out that he's been had. 1:23 in the morning, Jordan says, "What do I got to do?" She says, "Just pay
028me right now and I won't expose you." Jordan says, "How much?" She starts at $1,000. Jordan doesn't have $1,000. He's changing toilets in my property management company, working McDonald's part-time. He's got about $355 in his account. Danny Roberts says, "Deal or no deal?" Jordan says, "I don't have a thousand bucks." Then they start with countdowns. You have 15 seconds to figure it out. "I don't have that kind of money." 10 9 8 Convincing him that he's going to send these pictures if he doesn't pay right now. "Do it fast." Constant pressure. It's 1:30 in the morning. They come up with $300. Jordan agrees. He pays them $300 via Apple Pay on his on his iPhone. This is a picture of his phone. >> [clears throat] >> 2:09 in the morning, Miss Danny Roberts comes back
029and says, "I'm deleting the I'm deleting them." And Jordan's saying, "Shh, I made it." >> [snorts] >> 1 minute later she comes back with it um a picture of the collage photo being uploaded to Google at 55% and says, "Oh, wait. This is uploading at 55%. I need $800 to stop it." So, he just got done paying the money. He thought we had a deal. Now she wants $800 more. 2:14 They negotiate back. Jordan's was pleading, "I don't have any more money." He had to send screenshots of his bank accounts proving that he didn't have any more money. Jordan had two bank or had one bank account or one bank account with two accounts in a checking and a savings. The checking had 300 and the savings had 55. So, when they saw that he
030had 55 in the savings, they wanted that, too. So, he sent that to them as well. At 2:30 in the morning and the only reason I'm standing on this stage today is because the extortionist actually sent one of the photo collage pictures to his girlfriend that went unread because she was sleeping. That picture was then found the next day after it was too late, which ended up opening up this investigation, which led to the the sextortion scheme. But, Jordan deleted all of this before he died. He didn't want anybody to know. At 3:28 in the morning, after Jordan pled and pled and went back and forth, "Why are you doing this to me? I don't understand. We had a deal. I paid you. Leave me alone." They said, "Okay, then fine. I'll watch you die
031a miserable death." Jordan pled and said, "Please, bro." And then six audio calls were made via Instagram. I don't know what the content of those calls were. We don't have access to that. But, this is when Jordan really realized that Miss Danny Roberts was not a beautiful young lady from Atlanta, Georgia. She was a dude from Nigeria. Adult male from Nigeria. These are pictures of Jordan's cell phone from the case file. On the left, it's a message to his girlfriend at 3:41 in the morning that says, "Kyla, I love you so much. I made a big mistake and I must uh I can't or excuse me, made a big mistake and I wish I could continue, but I can't do this anymore. This was from a choice that I made and I must pay myself."
032When it was mother and texted her mother, "I love you." 3:43 in the morning, he goes back to the message board. Jordan tells Danny, "It's over. You win, bro." They said, "Okay, goodbye." Jordan says, "I'm killing myself right now because of you." The response was good. "Do that fast or we're going to make you do it." 1 minute later, Jordan shot himself in his bedroom. >> [clears throat] >> 4 years ago yesterday I woke up at 7:30 in the morning. Looked at my phone and had a text message from his mother. She said, "Hey, did Jordan make it to school today?" I thought that was kind of strange cuz he always make it makes it to school. My wife was in the living room brushing my daughter's hair on the couch. My other daughter was
033just getting up. I looked out the window and I saw Jordan's car in the driveway still. He should have been at school for 20 minutes already. >> [snorts] >> I went downstairs. I opened up his bedroom door. I flicked on the light. He was sitting upright in his bed. Pistol in his right hand. Cell phone was laying in his lap. His Florida bag was packed at the end of the bed, ready to go. Sun tan lotion that he just bought with his girlfriend 8 hours before was sitting on his dresser right there. We were supposed to go to Florida for 2 weeks on a family vacation that morning. >> [clears throat] >> Called law enforcement, called 911. Law enforcement came. The lieutenant detective was a friend of mine. I went to the police academy a
034year after he did. We were friends. We knew each other from high school. He's now the undersheriff today. >> [clears throat] >> He did the investigation. We had no idea what was going on. Went to his girlfriend Kyla's later that afternoon. "What happened? Did something happen? We don't understand." She didn't know what was going on. They had a great night. Everything was great. No signs of anything. Later that Later that evening after dinner, we got a call from his girlfriend saying, "I opened up my Instagram account and I have some disturbing pictures." She sent us the pictures. I said, "Oh my god. I don't know what this is, but something's not right." I sent them to our detective right away. And they opened investigation. >> [clears throat] >> The guy on the left is uh
035Mr. James Trasca. He's the head of the FBI in the Michigan um in Michigan. He has since retired. And the guy on the right is Abdulkarim Chukkol. He is the head of the EFCC, which is the Nigerian FBI equivalent. What happened was when we found out that this when law enforcement found out about this case uh being in Lagos, Nigeria Mr. James Trasca was actually stationed in Lagos, Nigeria 25 years ago with this guy. Some moon and stars aligned. Mr. James called Mr. Abdul and said, "Hey, we have a case that's in your backyard. Can you help?" They said, "Yeah, we'll put a team together." In May of 3rd of 2023, so over a year later they unsealed three federal indictments for these idiots. Two of them are brothers and one of them is a
036family friend. The Ogashi brothers their father was a retired military officer in Nigeria. They were still living on base housing in Nigeria doing this. They victimized over 130 people and got over 180,000 in cash once the money laundering train was over. These three guys were federally indicted. They made 13 total arrests. Seven Nigerians including these three and six Americans. Two of the guys, the Ogashi brothers were extradited back to the United States. They went through our court system in the Western District of Grand Rapids and are in prison right now for 18 years. The guy in the middle who's actually the key key board guy, the guy typing, he's still in Nigeria on an appeal. He's in prison in Nigeria waiting extradition. The six Americans have been adjudicated. Most of them did about a year
037or less in United States uh court. Um and they're going to be free here soon anyway. These guys went online and learned how to sextort kids for money from a group called the Yahoo Boys. That's where they learned how to do it. They Googled it. "As you can see, I have your screenshots of all your followers and tags. I can send these nudes to everyone and also send your nudes to your family and friends until it goes viral. All you have to do is cooperate with me and I won't expose you." It's the exact same script. This organization has scripts. They have how-tos. They have video after video after video on how to do this and how to do it fast, how to do it professional, how to do it effectively and make the most
038money. And then they boast about it on social media. Their self-proclai- self-proclaims. "My first client is Yahoo Boy. Them give you blackmailing format." Meaning you can go online and this this organization will give you a blackmail format on how to do this. Just went right online and Googled it. YouTube videos. TikTok videos. When there's an update, they update it. They update the thing. If there's something that's better or works better or a script change or anything, they just update it and send it out to the organization so they can do it better. Couple years ago when when this came out according to Google search trends in Nigeria, the phrase "how to uh blackmail someone with pictures" was trending up 850%. So, they're just going right online to learn how to do this stuff. Social media.
039Let's talk about that for a minute. Cuz that's what that's the bottleneck that I was talking about in the very beginning. That is the reason why all this stuff exists. It's the reason why sextortion exists. It's the reason It's the reason why the trafficking is at all-time highs. It's the reason that fentanyl sales and deaths are at an all-time high. Suicidal videos are at an all-time high. AI chatbots, all that stuff. >> [snorts] >> Social media isn't doing anything to help us. Right? >> [clears throat] >> What is social media? So, social media and Facebook, Instagram, right? That's Meta right now. We have YouTube and TikTok TikTok and Snapchat. So, who all Who has Snapchat in here? Couple? I have Snapchat. I don't use it, but who thinks they the messages actually disappear in Snapchat?
040They don't. They're not They're never gone. Jordan deleted everything off his phone. Meta sent us us the entire transcript what happened. Right? It's never gone. So, when you're typing in Snapchat, it's it's there forever for someone to access it. What is social media? Social media is an advertising agency. When Mark Zuckerberg was sitting in an apartment in college with his roommate when he stole the idea from his roommate, I should say. Right? It was about connecting people. And that was a wonderful thing. It's It is the wonderful thing about Facebook and Instagram and social media in general. But what happened is it changed. Now they've built algorithms, they built products and designs within the program to get you addicted to it, to get you hooked on it, because the more time that you're on the
041screen it's not to enjoy the people that you're talking to, it's for them to sell you Walmart and Target ads. You're a product of their company. They are an advertising agency. 90% of Meta's income, 90 plus percent of Meta's income, comes directly from sales uh from their ad agency. All the people that pay money to advertise on their platform, that's how they get paid. They need you younger and younger and younger to be on that platform longer and longer and longer because the more you're hooked on it, the more you're on it, the more ads they can sell to you. >> [clears throat] >> And that's the purpose. I don't know if all you have been paying attention to the lawsuit that happened in Los Angeles. I was out there a couple weeks ago. Uh
042three or four weeks ago now for opening statements. I was there for 2 weeks. I listened to Adam Mosseri testify from head of Instagram. I sat in the courtroom. I was one of 10 public seats. I actually slept on the courthouse steps to get in that courtroom because it was so high demand to get in there. In that courtroom, we were hearing things like this. This is an internal memo inside of Instagram that says, "Oh my gosh, y'all, Instagram is a drug. LOL, I mean, all social media. We're basically pushers." Seriously, it is. We're causing reward deficit disorder disorders because people are bingeing on Instagram so much they can't feel reward anymore. Like their reward tolerance is so high. This was a document out of there out of the court. I had to pull it
043off the news because I We don't even have access to these. It's so new. It's all coming out though here eventually. The case just ended yesterday. If we want to win big with tween with teens, we have to bring them in as tweens. Social media told us and still telling us today that you have to be how old to be on social media? 13, right? But that's not what they're doing internally. There is actually documents that showed that YouTube was targeting kids up to as low as four years old. Four. They know that when four-year-olds get on there, they're going to stay on there when they're 10, and when they're 14, and when they're 16, and when they're 20, and when they're 30, and when they're 40. And as they get in their 20s, 30s,
044and 40s, they sell them a bunch of stuff. They want them at four years old. YouTube. >> [snorts] [clears throat] >> 51% of Gen Z they or a friend are targeted for catfishing online. Sextortion is an epidemic right now. It's not a matter of if it's going to happen to you, it's a matter of when it's going to happen to you and if you buy it and how far down the rabbit hole you go. I get sextorted at least once a week. 10 days ago I had a beautiful woman from like Argentina reach out to me and wanted to be my friend. No, you don't. I'm just a fat old dude dad. Nobody wants to be my friend. Certainly not you. And my wife wouldn't like that anyway. So, no. That was sextortion, but I
045did what? Delete and I moved on with my day. If I would have started engaging, the conversation would have went just like it went with Jordan. And then I could have deleted then, or I could have engaged, or I could have sent pictures, or I could have went up and told my parents, or I could have sent money, or I could have took my life. You have to stop it as soon as the picture comes in, as soon as the request come in. I don't know that woman. I don't need to talk to her. Delete. Fun fact. How many uh teenagers are under 17? 17 and under in here. How many we have? A handful. Raise them high. I want to see. We got a couple dozen. So, moms and dads, >> [clears throat] >>
046one in five, 20%. One in five teenagers, 13 to 17, are sending nude images or have sent nude nude images already. You want me to say that again? One in five. Reported. Those are kids that that reported it in on a in a survey and said, "Yes, we do." or "Yes, I have." One in five teenagers, 13 to 17. If you have five teenagers at home, one of them is sending nude images. So, as parents, we sitting here and go, "How can we How can How can teenagers send images like that? I can't even put that in my mind." Because they've been doing it for a long time. Every relationship they have starts on social media. It starts online. How do you think the sexual relationship start? The same place. How does that work? Pictures,
047videos. That's how it starts. It's very easy. They're very comfortable doing this. So, when they meet somebody from Atlanta, Georgia, they're like, "Yeah, I'll send a picture." Right? There's too much comfort in that. Because as parents, myself included, aren't paying enough attention. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children uh reported in 2023 there's a like 200,000 roughly reports of enticement. So, all these reports go to NCMEC. They track all this stuff. So, anytime you hit a report button or call law enforcement, it goes to here and gets reported. 200,000 in 2023. Fast forward to 2024, half a million. Last year it was over a million. It's how much more it's happening. AI, I just want to touch on this quick. I know we're getting close to time. 5 minutes. Um playbook. The target. Simple first
048contact, right? She reaches out to Jordan. Builds a rapport with Jordan. Introduces the picture idea. Builds the trust with him, right? Conversation. Exchanges the clothing pics. Then the suspect Jordan or the suspect account sends the first nude pic to entice him. Then Jordan sends his picture. And then they continue to exchange. Photo collage. They reveal the extortion scheme and then they want money, right? Traditional sextortion, financial sextortion right there. AI is changing the game. Just in the four years that I've been doing this, AI has taken over and now we have this. Those are all gone. Now they go on your Instagram account. They take Jordan's picture from his Florida vacation in his swim shorts, nudify it, throw a penis on it, send it right in directly to his inbox and say, "I have your
049nude. I want money." And Jordan comes back with something like, "Well, it's not my knowing, you know, it's not me." And their response is, "It doesn't matter. Nobody's going to believe you because the only person that's seen it is you, your mom, and the Lord, right?" And then these kids are getting extorted even faster with AI. >> [snorts] >> I got to wrap. Two things. For the kids in the room, two things. One, for the kids that raised their hand in here, I want you to say out loud right now, "It's not my fault." It's not my fault. And it's not your fault. These are criminals that did this to Jordan. Absolute criminals. They're professionals. They're trained. They have scripts. They're adults. And they're infiltrating you and your young mind and convincing you to do
050this. It's a crime. It's a felony. There's people in prison right now for doing this to Jordan. They murdered him. You are a victim. If this happens to you, it is not your fault. Should you be sending nude images? No, probably not. Is mom and dad going to ground you? Probably should. Girlfriend, boyfriend going to break up with you? Maybe. It's not your fault, though. Just because you made a simple little mistake doesn't mean you deserve that. Doesn't mean you deserve to die. Doesn't mean you you deserve to lose money or anything else. It's a crime. Second thing is Jordan I found out was in a phone conversation with a friend during this whole time. That friend never reached out to me. There's another family that I talked to. Their son, before they died while
051they were doing all this, was on a phone with one of their friends. Those are two people that I know. There's actually a third. Our kids were reaching out with that olive branch. It wasn't to me. It wasn't to his mom or his coach. It was to that friend. And that friend blew it off like it was no big deal. Same with the other families. And now just think of the pain and agony that they have the rest of their life knowing what happened to their friend and they didn't say anything. So as young people in the room when you get those calls or you have friends that are in need, you need to pay attention to it. And unfortunately, you have to make a very adult decision at a very young age. But you
052have to recognize it and have to say something. And the last thing I'm going to say is as you're sitting in this room today as a young person what you think and feel today right now is not who you're going to be. That was not who Jordan was. Who Braden was. They made a stupid mistake. They didn't deserve to die, but even Jordan and Braden as young men that wasn't who they were. He's going to have kids. He's going to buy a house. He's going to maybe get married. He's going to get a career job. All these other things in life are [snorts] going to happen to you. And what you're thinking as your whole entire life right now is not your whole life. It's just a blip in the radar. And tomorrow is a
053new day. Is that my get off the stage alarm? I think it is. So with that, I'm going to pass it back to Is it Brittany coming up or are we doing Okay. I'll introduce Brittany Bird. Um she lost her wonderful son Braden just a year ago also and she'll say a few words and take the stage. Set all that stuff >> [applause] >> Okay. Okay. I'm going to situate my tissues because I'm definitely going to need those. All right. Okay. Hi everybody. My name is Brittany Bird. Um I mean, John shared a little bit about who me and my husband are, our family, our story. I'm going to share a little bit more in depth with you about that today. Um but first I wanted to thank you for taking time out of your
054schedules and undoubtedly busy lives to be here. I know especially if you have young children or teenagers, there's always something going on. Um so I'm really grateful that the people who are here tonight made it. It's really, really important. Um last year on March 12th we sat in those seats up in that corner and we listened to John speak about his son Jordan 7 days after we lost our son to sextortion. Since then we have been working tirelessly to do things like this, um speaking engagements, educational pieces. Um we worked with legislature and got a law put in place, Braden's Law, which makes sextortion in our state a stand-alone crime. It was [snorts] not a crime before. Um so in the last year, those are some of the things we've done, but also in the
055last year there have been three confirmed deaths due to sextortion since we lost Braden. One of them in this state just 2 months ago. In Mishicot, Wisconsin a 19-year-old boy [clears throat] was part of a sextortion scheme and took his own life just before Christmas. When we were here last year, we knew immediately that this was something bigger than anyone could have comprehended and we felt compelled to educate and advocate for communities in our state and beyond. Um so with that being said, I would love to share a little bit about Braden and kind of our story. Um so who was Braden? Braden was a gifted athlete. He was a fit fantastic academic. He had a great group of friends. He played baseball. He loved to fish. He was going to play football again his
056sophomore year. Um he was a teammate. He was a big brother. He was a really great friend. And Braden was the kind of son that I could have only dreamed of having in our lives. He was the kind of kid who lit up a room when he walked in there. And he was someone who we were proud of every day. On [snorts] March 4th 2025, normal day, um I got an email from one of Braden's teachers letting us know that he was throwing paper airplanes in class and he was going to get a detention a detention for it. And I promptly got a text message from Braden afterwards saying paper airplanes aren't really that big of a deal. He didn't hit anyone with it. Detention was a little bit much. So typical typical day in
057the life of having a 15-year-old. Um that evening we went to my salon. I have a hair salon. I was doing his friend's hair. It was the everyone bleaching their hair phase. So we were there for a couple hours, me and Braden's buddy. Um everything was absolutely normal. They were joking and being obnoxious and noisy in my work space, but I loved every minute of it. Um and then there was the potential to have be a snow day on the 5th. So the boys, who neither one of them had their license, they were both 15 years old made big plans to go to the ski hill. In the winter the ski hill was Braden's favorite place to be. He just started skiing a couple years ago and I remember when he landed his first front
058flip and he called me. And he pretended he was crying. And I said, "I can hear the smile in your voice. You landed it, didn't you?" And he said, "Yeah, Mom. I'm going to send you the video right away." >> [snorts] >> Braden and I had a relationship that I would have envied at his age. He talked to me about everything. Things I did not always need to know. Um two summers ago, I was out of town and I got a phone call at 5:00 a.m. and it was Braden crying because his girlfriend had broke up with him. He called me because he needed his mom in that moment. And that's how close we were. Um there was another time that a relationship went not the greatest and he was at his dad's house. And
059he called me and he said, "I I need you to pick me up because I want to be home with you." He talked to me about everything. When we were driving home from the salon on the 4th, Braden fell asleep in the car and he woke himself up. He had a dream. He woke himself up by laughing. And that was the last time I ever got to hear my son laugh. >> [snorts] >> Around 11:00 that evening, my husband Luke told Braden good night. And Braden had asked him if he knew where his debit card was, which wasn't unusual. 15-year-old boy, he had a part-time job. We had Amazon packages being dropped off daily. So nothing really out of the norm there. Nothing that put up any red flags that was concerning to us whatsoever.
060Um that next morning on the 5th, I got a text message from the school that school was canceled. So I ran downstairs. I was going to let Braden know you can sleep in. We'll figure out a ride to the ski hill. You get to do all your tricks. You get to hang out with your friends. And Braden's alarm was going off, but he wasn't in his room. Which is very unusual. He wasn't in the bathroom getting ready and I looked I went down our hallway downstairs and that is when I found that Braden, who had plans that day and who had things to do and so much to see >> [snorts] >> and so much to be he had taken his own life. His phone was on the ledge facing his body. And his debit
061card was on the floor. And I as my husband came down, the we just kept saying over and over and over, "Why?" Braden does not struggle with depression. He does not have issues with mental health. He talks to me about all of it. Everything that is going on in this kid's life, I was his person. So why? We had no idea until a couple of hours later when the police were looking through the scene and we had an officer come up with a note that [snorts] Braden had written and he put on my husband's computer and the note said make sure he gets caught. I'm so sorry everything is on my phone. Braden didn't delete any of the messages. Braden knew that what was happening to him was not okay and that there was someone
062who was guilty for something and even though he knew that he still was made to feel like he had no way out. We don't have the transcripts. Our case is still an ongoing investigation but we've learned enough along the way to know that these people use the same scripts as John said for each individual that they're reaching out to. They've got it down to a science on how to infiltrate our homes and get to our kids and get them to the point where they feel like there is no way out. In our case as well, they demanded $300 and Braden paid them. He gave them $300 and that wasn't enough. The demands didn't stop. The harassment didn't stop. The verbal abuse didn't stop. None of it stopped until his heart stopped. >> [snorts] >> So
063we've learned a lot in this year journey that we've been on so far and a lot of it a lot of this comes down to is kind of echoing what John had said is these social media companies, right? They they want us to believe you know, we've got a product and we are protecting your kids as much as we can. If you look up anything right now in today's news, especially the meta trial, there are pieces that are coming out that prove that these companies are aware that predators are using their platforms under the guise of fake profiles and instead of removing them, they keep them because their user count is more valuable than our children's lives. It is about more than having a conversation with your kids of don't do this. Of course we
064don't want our kids to do this. We don't want our kids sending sexual photos or having these conversations but the fact is in today's world that is so normalized for our kids that is just a way of life. So we need to switch the conversation from don't do this to if you're in this situation, what do we do next? You come to me. We discuss. We fix it because your life is worth more than $300. There is nothing that Braden could have done to make us love him any less and I promise you all of these kids sitting in here, look at the people that you're with, the adults, the caregivers in your life, look at them and know there is nothing you could do to make them love you any less. We all make
065mistakes. We are navigating a world right now that we are not prepared for. We are already behind when it comes when it comes down to technology, protecting ourselves and protecting others. The biggest way we can fight this and stop this from happening is by talking about it. It's hard to talk about because you can you feel ashamed. You got caught up in a scheme that you never thought you would have been. You wouldn't you wouldn't have fallen for it, right? Then you did and it's shameful. I can tell you right now I have never been ashamed of my son. >> [snorts] >> I will be proud of that boy until the day that I join him again. He is he did not do something >> [snorts] >> like John said, he did not do something
066that defined who he was. This is Braden. Braden was a big brother, >> [snorts] >> a grandson, a nephew, a friend, a teammate and Braden got tricked and coerced by career criminals who were looking to make a couple hundred dollars and they did not care what happened to him after the fact. That is so important for the young people in this room to know, just because it's easy to connect with someone who you don't know online, someone friend requests you and you think all right, I have however many more followers or however many more friends. If someone if you do not know someone, if you have not met them, they are not your friend. There is no way I can put that more plain and more simple and more clear. They do not care what
067happens to you. They will not be at your funeral. They don't know you. They are not your friend. There is no reason to be talking to people online who you have never met. Those are not relationships that will be substantial in your life. Those are not relationships that will be positive or helpful in your life. If you need you do need friendships and relationships and those are right in front of you at school, in your sports, with your family members. People online hide behind a screen because they have been allowed to do so for so long. Now it's time we hold them accountable and we take control back. Do not give them the room to infiltrate your life. Something really important for the parents here to this last year was the first year that we
068let Braden have his phone in his room overnight. Before that it was 10:00, plug in your phone, leave it on the counter, go to bed. We let him have his phone in his room. We let the whole world into his room without knowing how ugly and how dangerous it could be. So [snorts] John was speaking to of another family who their son was talking to a friend. That was our case as well and we've shared this with a few people and it is really unfair and it's really heavy for you guys as kids and young people. But Braden was on the phone with a friend during what what was going on. We don't know how long they were on the phone for but we do know that his friend was aware of what he was
069doing >> [snorts] >> and what he was going to do. His friend was 15. He didn't know what to do. I can tell you what not to do. Do not stay quiet. If your friend reaches out to you even if it is something where they're just sharing something that might be uncomfortable and you think this doesn't feel good, say something. If you're worried that your friend is going to be mad at you because you said something, let them be mad. You go to school the next day and they'll still be there. When Braden's friends went back to school, he never went back. And I think it's just so important to speak out and it's heavy and it's confusing and it's scary. It is scary to be the one to stand up and say something's not
070right. I have to say something. >> [snorts] >> You could be saving someone's life and you might not even know it. >> [snorts] >> Some kind of key thoughts to take away I think for the young people in this room too is if you if you do not have an adult person in your life who you feel like you can trust if you're in a situation like this or you feel comfortable around, that's something you really need to consider and think about. Maybe it's not mom or dad because maybe that is too scary and that's that's a little bit too much. Maybe it's a coach, maybe it's grandma, an aunt, an uncle, maybe it's someone from church or from school. So leave here tonight and put in your mind who are two or three people
071who I could reach out to if this were to happen to me. And don't ever think this won't happen to me because we we although we didn't know that this was a thing to start, after it did happen, >> [snorts] >> that was one of the first things we said. I never would have thought this would have happened to my kid. Not my kid, he's smart. My kid is strong. My kid is athletic. My kid has great relationships. It'll never happen to you until it does. >> [snorts] >> I want to end with a quote that I saw this week and it really resonated with me and I think it's extremely important for us all to be on the same page because I know, no matter where we go, no matter how often we speak,
072no matter how much media we do, there's always somebody who says, "It's the parents' fault. You weren't watching your kid. You weren't seeing what they were doing online. It's the parents' fault." 27 minutes it took for one of these kids to take their life. 27 minutes. Which parent is over their kid's shoulder every hour of every day? So, instead of placing the blame on families [clears throat] who are suffering, families who are shocked just as much as our community when this happened to our son, we need to be together. >> [clears throat] [snorts] >> And the quote is, "There's no gray area when it comes to children. Their safety is non-negotiable and their innocence should be protected. We either stand up for them or we fail them." We either stand up for our children or
073we fail them. >> [clears throat] >> We do that by speaking. We do that by making safe spaces in our homes to have these conversations. This is uncomfortable. This is heavy. This is really hard to talk about. If we don't do it, it keeps happening. We have to stand up for them or else we fail them. Thank you again, everyone, for coming out. This is so important and [clears throat] even It doesn't matter the size of group. My husband and I were talking about this earlier. It doesn't matter the size of group that we've presented in front of. It's been We've had full and we've had just a few. If even one of you goes and talks to a loved one about this, we win. That is a win for everyone in here who's heard
074this and everyone who you're going to talk to about it. >> [snorts] >> We have to protect our children. We have to stand up for them. >> [applause] [snorts] >> I think um we're probably all sharing in a lot of feelings. I feel furious on behalf of these families. I feel sorrow. Um and I think just even more so because of that we thank you for the work that you guys are doing because you are saving other kids and other parents from this horrible lifelong tragedy. And so, at this time I'd like to invite Luke Bird up and John DeMay back up and Commander Jesse Crow, come on down. Um I think that's our full panel. Yeah, that's our full panel. You guys have waters here if you need a drink. And then we have
075our Slido QR. Um Hey John, can you get that Slido QR back up there? And hopefully we've got some questions sent in and then we've got a a mic down there, Luke, if you want to get that one off the stand. So, we'll just kind of pass mics around. We've got one of our members in the front who's going to just kind of share out the questions and we can uh whoever wants to jump in can jump in. Okay, the first question, uh what is the hardest battle so far regarding trying to get legislators to add more safety measures to stop predators? I'll try to answer that. So, uh I think the biggest thing is just it it's what it boils down to is a lot of the verbage that goes into it. Um and
076as you know, like any piece of legislation has to go through a pretty lengthy process. Um you know, with Braden's Law specifically, we got that passed in about 9 months, which, you know, to us we were like, "This should be passed in 9 days, right?" Like it just seems like such no nonsense, but you know, you have to go through the various levels of government and um you know, I think I think that's just the biggest thing is just getting the the correct verbage in there that everybody's comfortable with. Um you know, we we started with I think it was like 60 years. Um there was I can't remember the the felony level, but they there was just some back and forth with that. So, that delayed it a little bit, but once we had
077that verbage all put into place, then it started to move a little quicker. Um you know, we're starting to get into things now that are a little you know, there's a little bit more back and forth on because it's, you know, things like age verification, you know, those sort of things. That's where you get a little bit um more back and forth from different sides and different perspectives. So, um you know, it makes these things a little difficult to get through. Uh what is the hardest battle so far regarding trying to get legislators to add more safety measures to stop predators? Yeah, the um part of the presentation that I skipped over tonight that I usually [clears throat] touch on is um I I I work on a lot of federal legislation in Washington and
078I work on some state stuff as well. We did uh Jordan's Law in Michigan. Um and helped with other states um doing legislation, but you know, honestly, the the it boils down to lobbyists. It's money. Uh there's lobbyist groups like NetChoice, for instance. They're a massive lobbyist organization. Um when we get bills to a certain level, whether it be uh federal bill like Kids Online Safety Act that we that we were trying to push um or a state legislative bill that has um some restrictive measures in it, these lobbyist groups, once they get to a certain level and they and they start fearing that they're going to pass, they come in and dump a bunch of money and start threatening um uh threatening politicians, basically. Um and these bills start to fizzle off and go
079away. Um I sat in the Senate Judiciary hearing um back 2 years ago when Mark Zuckerberg and and the other seven CEOs were testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and there was 25 families in there holding up 8 1/2 by 11 pictures of our dead children um as those uh um CEOs testified and and were asked why why you're building platforms that are killing all these kids that are behind you, right? And they had six legislative bills, federal bills, on the table at that time. All six of those bills went through the Senate Committee um unanimously. And that was my first taste of politics in Washington. And when I sat in that room with my wife, we left there and like, "Oh my god, like there's Senator I watch the news, right? And
080there's senators in there that would drown each other in a bathtub if they had a chance." And they're all agreeing on this stuff. I'm like, "Finally, we found something that we can all agree on, right? Who who would think that we couldn't uh have child safety and agree on that?" I left Washington and I told my wife I said, "Oh man, these are these are going to be written in law by in 2 months. There's no doubt in my mind. This is February." Well, that didn't happen. Those six bills sat there. KOSA, which was the main one, Kids Online Safety Act, um ended up getting uh in the Senate floor in September that year and it passed 93 to 2, which was almost unanimous. Went over to the House of Representatives side, uh got marked
081up right through their committee and passed on and then uh sat on Mike Johnson's desk, the Speaker of the House, in lame-duck session right before the presidential election. And then once the administration changed, it died. And those bills have to start all over uh again, scratch. So, this year, we took KOSA, as popular as it was last year, reintroduced it into the Senate and the House at the same time. The Senate pen uh passed ours through committee and it went to the Senate floor and they've all agreed that the Senate version was what they want. The House side decided to put a bunch of poison pills in it and add stuff like uh preemption, which would which would bar states from filing lawsuits against tech companies, and then also took out the duty of care.
082There's a duty of care uh paragraph written into that basically saying that if you're a tech company building products, you have a duty to care to build a proper product for it its users, right? Common sense. GM has it. Boeing has it. Uh the manufacturer of this microphone has it. But for some reason, tech companies um can't have it for some reason. So, there all these poison pills happen and those are because lobbyist groups like NetChoice come in and and masquerade as as free speech and other things and try to get uh pressure to the politicians to not do this stuff. So, tech companies are spending a lot of money to these lobbyists to make sure this stuff doesn't cross the finish line. What do you think is an acceptable age for kids to have
083social media? I think this is a really tough one, especially in light of all that has been brought to light in these recent trials. Um I mean, Meta lost twice this week, right? Um I don't I don't know that there is a There is no age where you can say, "Yep, this is it. Your brain is developed enough to have it. You can figure this out. You'll be able to navigate it." There's no perfect age. But I can tell you it is not 13. It is not 14. It's maybe closer to 16. Right now in a teenager's life, they're starting junior high, high school. And that's when a lot of these like internal things start, right? Um bullying, things of that nature. You hand over social media, that bully follows them to their room every
084day. They don't get a break. They don't get to step away. Not only that bully, but predators who are online and their brains cannot comprehend what is being thrown at them. Ours as adults, it is too much for us. We are so far behind where tech is. There is no magic age where it's right. If I were to say I would say none at all, right? But that's not the real life. Our kids should be able to use the internet safely. They should be able to use social media safely. Right now, those are not safe spaces and it's been proven. And now people are getting really loud about it. And I think that that is going to be something that's going to change age restrictions in general. So eventually there's not going to be a
085choice. It's not going to be do I let my 13-year-old on? No, cuz then it's going to be law that your 13-year-old cannot be on. There is no magic age for social media. It's advancing ahead of us and it will continue to be ahead of us. I think that it would have to be an individual family decision at some point. Um but in my thoughts, it is not younger than 16. I'm thinking of the screen that John put up and all the different ages and yeah, I mean none of there was 18, 19 I believe on on the screen. Do you have anything to add to that? Yeah, I one thing is that if you look at news outside of the United States and start watching news from the UK, it is a huge topic
086going on right now about age and what is appropriate for for kids. All the news over there leads with this type of topic right now. We don't see that news here in the United States. So if you're into looking into that, check out BBC, look at the news that's going on and all of the all the legislation that's trying to be passed, all the safety measures trying to be passed outside of the United States. And that's what we should be copying here. Um Britney really hit on the head. There what is the appropriate age? And it's very difficult to say because it's it's all on what the family feels the appropriate age is, but you have to have the safety measures in place. Taking the phone out at night, not having um you know, having
087those parental guide or parental permissions on there and and making sure there's those talks with with your children, with the children lives and make sure that plan is in place for when this happens to them, they know what they're know what they're doing. Also, the big thing that we see is that I may have the best safety measures at home, but my child goes and stays at another friend's house and there's no safety measures at all and there's unfettered technology in the bedroom and they're up all night on this technology. So it's not just what worrying about what's at my house, but it's at all the other friends that they're going to. So it's having those talks, having those conversations and having those safety plans in place. I I and I would just add to
088that that it it is showing that the number one prevention strategy is communication with these kids because then whether they're at your house or their friend's house, they're taking that knowledge that you've given them with them and that hopefully will be some sort of a stopgap. And that is why we always say please, please, please speak to the kids in your lives before something goes wrong. Give them the knowledge ahead of time. This is what the trickery looks like. You can always come to me. All of the things that you heard and saw on this stage tonight, do that before the problem exists because you will then be one step ahead of the game and statistically that is your kids' best chance. I'm going to put one one more thing in here. A couple couple
089things. One, he's absolutely right about UK. I just did an interview with ABC out of Australia last night um following the Meta trial. Uh Meta was found liable um and we're we're uh re- uh required to pay $6 million in damages to a young lady that was addicted to their platforms. And all that evidence, those were just a couple pages. There's thousands and thousands of pages of that evidence that came out showing that they're addicting our kids, right? So the the the reality of what we thought was happening is and we have to understand that when you hand your phone to your 14-year-old daughter, this is access to the world. The world has access to them. Are you comfortable with them sitting in their bedroom at night with this? At 16? At 17? At 4?
09010? I mean what's the age? I don't know. My girls will not have social media as they live in my house. If they want social media, I don't care if they're living at college, they're not going to have social media under my roof. That's going to be my rule. And they know that. We're in a different circumstance, but that's going to be our rule. Um they're not going to get phones. They got Apple watches this year to communicate. They can text message and make phone calls on this just fine. They will never have social media in my household because they don't need it, right? We have to look we have to put the basic common sense. We all watched Charlie Kirk get murdered on social media, right? Whether you like him or not, it doesn't
091matter. The fact is we watched a bullet rip rip through that man's neck almost live on social media over and over and over again. Six weeks before that, we watched that young lady get stabbed on a subway. Right? I saw that video, too. I'm a former police officer. Jesse sees this stuff every day. I was in the fire service for a long time. I saw saw some of the worst of the worst stuff. I'm a pretty hardened person when it comes to that. I didn't deserve to see that. Let alone your 13- and 14-year-old who think who Meta and everybody else thinks it's okay for you them to be on your platform. But we have to recognize as parents like, well, that's fine and dandy, but now we're showing murders on social media. So is
092that is that okay for us as parents that we're we're going to let our kids see that? So at what age are you comfortable doing that? If Facebook was a place that you could go visit and go hang out and walk in and see and visit and touch and feel and buy, would you go there? No. Nobody would ever go there. It'd be like the worst city on the planet. It'd be dangerous. You wouldn't let your kids go there. Why would you let them do that at night? Is there a technology curriculum or resources that you have come across or heard about that you would recommend to schools? Uh so we use the Net Smartz program that NCMEC has. Uh National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. It's on their website. Uh you can search
093Net Smartz. Um it is a online education that's tailored for all age groups. There's PowerPoints that are free, all the handouts are free, there's videos that are put together. NCMEC does a good job of keeping it updated. Um when we do school presentations, that's that's the stuff that we use out there. Um the other thing is going to presentations like this and going and talking to other people in your life that maybe aren't here. Um I'm not we're almost up time now, but I want to give us a really big success story on what John, Britney, and Luke are doing and all the other parents out there. Um the education that's going on with all the police departments, all the schools on this. Uh so we got a tip today um on sextortion. And uh
094in the tip, it was a uh juvenile that reported it to NCMEC to National Center directly saying that he was being sextorted. Um but he had learned something at a school and knew not to fall for the trick and wanted this person caught. So that is the success by going out and having these presentations and just having that outreach, having that conversation is is the so important because because that that child heard about this, they did not send a picture and they reported the person instead. So um keep up the great work and you know, if we have two people here and they bring the stuff out with them, that's great. If we have 500, um that's that's even better. So Maybe one more? I got all night, so >> [laughter] [snorts] >> Can I
095just I'd like to add to to that just really quickly? I I don't know them all off the off the top of my head, but I mean in this last year, just kind of going down the rabbit hole, meeting new people, legislators, there's so much information out there. And that was just one thing that I did want to say is I'd challenge all of you parents um to to get out there, do a little research on some of this stuff because there's more than there's way more than just sextortion these days that we have to worry about. Um you know, that's what we're here and that's what we're talking about and that's you know, important to us. But in this journey, we've learned that there's there's things like these 764 groups, you know, online gaming
096with these kids and how dangerous Roblox and Fortnite and some of these other games that our kids are playing every day. I I think we're just in this age where you really have to be aware of what's all out there and and be prepared. Um It's a wild west. It it is. I mean the these tech companies are not slowing down at all. John showed John showed some of the images of the messages. I mean those are the people that we're fighting against. I mean you see how they're joking about it, using our kids. It's just it's not okay and it needs to change and we do that by educating ourselves. And what apps are luring the kids in? I can just cover that. It it's It's any platform where you can communicate with someone
097outside of that that device. It doesn't matter if it's a blog where you can post pictures of your your your farm animals because you're at the fair. It doesn't matter if you're on the apps that everything disappears. It doesn't matter if you're on Facebook worlds. On the gaming, it's whatever you can communicate with those that those apps can reach out to the world. John said it best, I have a phone and I'm letting every person in the world into my house with that phone. If I can communicate, someone can communicate with my child. So, to say this is the worst app right now and then they get sex started on an app that no one's heard of, it that's not what we want to do. It's about the the responsibility and using that app responsible
098to communicate and know the dangers of it. Um I think uh you know, the law enforcement has a way better ear on the ground where those are coming in, but I will add that Snapchat and and kind of going with Luke was talking about. It's It's more than just sextortion too when we talk about fentanyl deaths. I I can't even tell you how many parent friends I have now that have lost their kids to fentanyl deaths. It is horrific. Uh these young beautiful people are just going online and and buying drugs from drug dealers. The Snapchat uh the Snapchat GPS map that they have, the Snap Map, it's a drug dealer's dream. They're hooking up kids with drug dealers all day long. And you know, it's it's really hard um to monitor all that stuff,
099especially when messages are disappearing. Um but a lot of times what's happening is on a basic level, they're they're reaching out. The predators are reaching out on normal platforms, Snapchat, Instagram, those sorts of things, but then they're moving them off platform to other secure networks where they're not um being monitored like Signal or Discord and other places. So, um it's not uncommon for that to happen, but um you know, like he said, any anything that has access to the internet and has phone cap- or picture capability is a recipe for disaster. And go And talking about gaming, gaming is a massive massive problem. There's a lot of parents that don't even realize that their kids are actually speaking with other people across the world while they're in the gaming systems. And what's happening is all
100the child predators, not necessarily sextortionists, but the traffickers and the child predators, you know where you know where they're going to find kids? On the video games. So, they're pretending to be kids. They're grooming kids on video games and then before you know it, they're they're enticing them to meet-in locations and they're enticing them to uh to to follow directions and do things that are really bad for you and all kinds of stuff, but the video games are an absolute problem. Ro- Roblox is a cesspool for it. Um you know, I think they're they're really trying to make some change internally, uh which seems to be uh progressive and and and uh productive, but we'll we'll have to wait and see, but right now it's it's a horrible horrible place for kids to be. Thank
101you. I think in the gaming rooms too, I've learned that that's a a kind of a one of the chosen platforms because while a kid is gaming, they kind of forget that we've said don't give out personal information online. They're gaming, they're talking, they're talking about the game. Somebody's like, "Where are you from? Where do you live?" And they just kind of blurt it out because that that part of their brain is is too busy doing the other thing. Um I think I speak for the entire room. If we didn't get to your question, I'm so sorry, but visit our tables out there. You can contact um ICAC has a table, Internet Crimes Against Children has table. We have a table. Grab one of our cards, go to our website. We have a lot of
102the apps and um sites that the the safety apps and the sites like NetSmartz uh lot of resources on our website and we can any one of us can get you in touch with the Birds or with John DeMay as well. But I think I speak for the room when I say um we are heartfully grateful to you guys and and just so sorry that you had to lose something so dear in order to save other families, but so grateful that you are using it for something and you are keeping your sons alive by doing that. And that's a beautiful thing. And I just want to thank you and encourage you on behalf of everybody here tonight. And Internet Crimes Against Children, the work that you guys are doing is amazing and I understand getting
103more and more complicated with each day. And so, we're very grateful to you as well. We're very grateful to our police who are in the room. We're very grateful to our sheriff's department in the room. Everybody's working. Everybody's trying. And I think what I'm noticing and hearing from the stage tonight is that these criminals are poking the bears. They're poking the parent bears and it's not going to go well for them. Um but it's it's a big task and it's a big job. So, can we give Please give everybody a hand. Thank you so much for being here. >> [applause] >> And please please feel free to visit with them after if they have time to stick around. Visit our tables. And again, we just thank you. Your time is very valuable to us and
104we just thank you for being here. Please tell at least three people what you've learned here tonight and that is how you spread the education and the education really leads to prevention. So, thank you. Have a good and safe night and take care of each other and our youth.