Donna Rice Hughes, president and CEO of Enough is Enough (EIE), continues to call on parents and lawmakers to protect kids from online predators, saying that predators and traffickers go where children are playing.
"And where are children playing? They're on social media networks. They're on gaming platforms." Hughes says.
Children and teenagers think they know everything, but Hughes says they do not realize that they're no match for a disguised predator.
"Conversations with kids on online gaming platforms can quickly escalate into high-risk grooming situations within 12 seconds," Hughes states.
Parents might think they're smart or that their child is a good kid and a smart kid, but Hughes says the risk is there still for kids who are online.
"If kids are online every day, we need to be talking about keeping them safe online every day," Hughes says.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier went after TikTok for violating Florida’s child protection laws, letting minors create and have an social media account and lying to parent about the content their child is viewing is safe and appropriate.
However, TikTok quickly responded by suspending the accounts of those 14 years old and under. EIE says this mean that “big tech can protect kids.”
Hughes says news outlets could also help by covering these issues more than they are now.
"We talk about wars — and we should be talking about the war in Iran and the war in Ukraine and the war everywhere else in the world — but this is a war on our children, and the media needs to be covering this," Hughes states. "Just because it's not making national news unless there's a tragedy... just recognize that kids are being harmed every single day."
Hughes invites people to the EIE website for more on these issues. According to the website, they are a “national, non-partisan, non-profit organization that has led the fight to make the Internet safer for children and families since 1994.”
