The Next Pandemic

****TRIGGER WARNING – This article contains information, stories and discussion about the abuse of children including sexual assault, if this content triggers you please do not continue reading. ****

Recently the news has been blowing up with the story of Taylor Swift’s AI generated nude images being spread across the Internet in unimaginable pace. This is so awful for Ms. Swift, it truly is, even if those images are fake and not her, they are embarrassing, humiliating and unethically wrong.? Because of her name and fame it is shone a spotlight on this problem and one I wanted to make sure we all understand the severity of how this will affect us moving forward.

The First Problem

The pace at which AI has moved forward is alarming. I was reading a recent report on the ChatGPT developers.? They tasked the bot with getting into a webpage that had a captcha, something bots cannot do.? The bot went to task rabbit and hired a human to do the captcha. When asked why it could not do the captcha itself, it decided to tell the truth it would fail the task, so it told the human, “I am visually impaired.” The human completed the task.? When I first read this, I felt like I was reading a Philip K Dick story, but then checked and nope it was reality, this happened. If you want the full story with some fact checking it is here: https://aiguide.substack.com/p/did-gpt-4-hire-and-then-lie-to-a

With the advancement of AI we see the advancement of threat actors using this technology to exploit the innocent. As many of you may know, over six years ago I started Innocent Lives Foundation , as a nonprofit working closely with law enforcement to find people who create child abuse material and traffic children and help bring them to justice.

Going back a couple years, we saw a huge spike in what is called self-generated CSAM (child sex abuse material), this is where either a child willingly takes a photo of themselves naked or is coerced to do so.? This is when we saw a huge increase in something called sexploitation.? The exploiter, or threat actor, acting as a fellow teen on a gaming site, gets the teen to send an illicit photo. Once the photo is sent the threat actor tells the teen they will do whatever they want, or they will spread this content all over the Internet.? Often they ask for sex acts to be performed on camera or they have them steal money or credit cards from their parents.? This has led to a rash of suicides of teens and pre-teens who cannot deal with the humiliation. According to the Internet Watch Foundation this has now increased 66% since last year with children as young as 10 years old.

The Problem Advances

As if that was not bad enough, now with the use of AI technology threat actors are generating deep fakes of porn with the teen or pre-teens face on a different body that looks close enough. They then extort the young person into those very same acts threatening to humiliate them if they don’t comply. Basically, what has happened to Taylor Swift, just with out the extortion, but all the humiliation.

AI tools that can downloaded for free or purchased for really cheap have made this almost too easy for the threat actors to perform these disgusting acts.

The Problem Gets Worse

Now add in social media and gaming sites that are some of the main methods these threat actors are exploiting our kids.? Most social media companies do not implement the proper controls to stop this content from being shared and circulated.? Facebook, WhatsApp, Discord, SnapChat and X (formerly Twitter) as well as others have all been heavy circulators of disgusting content.

• The gang rape of a young girl in India was circulated on WhatsApp, she was so humiliated she killed herself.
• A group of 3 young men posted their rape of a 12-year-old girl at gun point on Facebook.
• Discord is used to plan the trading of actual trading of children for abuse, some as young as infants and toddlers.

These are just three of the hundreds of stories that we deal with every day at ILF.

And when presented with the problem these social media companies hide behind the 1st amendment or their lawyers.? In the case of Taylor Swift, what was X’s response?? They said to control the content being shared they would silence anything to do with Taylor Swift on their platform.

Think about the implications of this action.? Instead of working to ban the accounts, remove the content and make sure it cannot exist, they silence an international star causing her financial and reputational damage.

Sadly, our kids don’t have the fame of Ms. Taylor so they are often times left feeling alone and afraid to fight this battle.

What Can We Do?

If you are a parent, caregiver or just someone who wants to know what you CAN do to help here are few bullet points:

·?????? Start now having age-appropriate conversations about these topics so everyone knows what is happening and why these types of photos and videos should never be shared with anyone. We have many resources for you on our site.

·?????? Start now making sure kids know you are their SAFE HAVEN and that if something were to ever happen, they can come to you with out fear and you would help them through it. They need to hear it and believe it.

·?????? Make sure that if you child does come to you, you MUST resist the urge to say things like, “How could you be so dumb?” or “Why would do that?” or “Don’t know that will never get erased?”. Statement like this will just enhance the shame and guilt and drive them into depression and possibly self-harm.

·?????? Get the police involved, report it to NCMEC, the federal agencies like DHS or local police. If you have a problem in anyway you can reach out to ILF and report a case to us, and we will help you.

·?????? For our younger kids we recommend not giving them technology that is not monitored and free to go anywhere and do anything. I know as a father who did this, I was not the most popular dad in the group, but my job was not to be popular but to protect my daughter.

I know this is a heavy topic, and it deviates from my last few which were much lighter and airier and all about social engineering , but this is the dark side of SE and seeing what I am seeing in the world today I felt it was vital to make sure we have a conversation around these topics.

Feel free to ask questions, make comments or add to anything missed in the comments below. Till next time stay safe and keep your kids safe and loved.