School seminar alerts parents to digital dangers

Oct. 20—Parents hoping to gain insight into their children's online activity attended Cullman City School's Digital Awareness seminar Tuesday, with a presentation from juvenile court attorney Patrick Caver and Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Senior Trooper Brandon Bailey.

Caver shared his insights into online trends based on his experiences within the juvenile court system of Morgan County, discussing with parents the dangers of using apps, games and websites ranging from Fortnite to sites for those older than 18. Caver travels across the state giving this presentation that he calls "The Birds, The Bees, and The Law" to schools, churches and community centers, educating parents on lesser known features of well-known applications such as Snapchat's private sections.

Caver also stated that even innocent applications such as a Bible app that provides users with access to several translations of scripture and daily verse readings/devotionals are being used by predators to target and harm children.

"Even the Bible app that you get, they use that to talk to kids. That you download on your phone," Caver said.

According to Caver, passcodes and child filters are of little use in sheltering children from questionable content, saying that children have learned to use a cell phone's features to find work arounds to access blocked content.

"They're like, 'Mom, can I watch Disney+,' and you put your password in. What you don't know is that they pressed screen record and when you hand it back to them they've got your password," he said.

Even without accessing your password, Caver claimed that children were still in danger of being exposed to adult content that had slipped through a website's filtering system. He stated that the streaming site Netflix had a surprising amount of content that he described as "pornographic" and pointed to several Youtube parody videos featuring children's characters, such as Mickey Mouse and Peppa Pig, that made headlines in 2019 after finding their way into the children's video section of the site. After being made aware of the issue, Youtube quickly removed the videos and implemented a more strict policy with age-restricted inappropriate videos using children's characters.

Caver also claimed that a "not so secret pedophile ring" existed on Youtube, discussing an issue that arose in 2017 in which users would seek out videos of children participating in arbitrary acts, but commenting with timestamps to particular frames of the video that appeared to sexualize the child. Youtube once again took aggressive action in deleting more than 400 channels and suspending comments on tens of millions of videos. While no newer reports of similar activity are well known, Caver is not convinced that they don't exist.

"It's not up-to-date now, but it still happens I'm sure," he said.

Caver warned of student participation in online "challenges" found on sites such as TikTok — which Caver stated was "the most dangerous app there is," calling it a "pedophile magnet." Trends such as challenges that dare students to film themselves stealing or vandalizing school property resulted in property damage, but statements by Caver claimed that others could be lethal.

Caver warned parents against the use of group messaging and the Airdrop feature found on Iphones and how they can result in having an unrequested nude photograph or image sent to your phone. Also, he explained how adults are using video games such as Fortnite to barter in-game items for nude photographs of children.

Caver said that he had experienced this behavior first hand while playing the game Roblox using his account in which he said he appears as a 7-year-old boy. While playing the game, Caver stated that he entered into a discussion with an adult man. Caver said the man requested he send him a nude photograph, to which Caver replied with an image of his badge.

Caver said that he chose not to pursue legal action.

Bailey discussed more tangible dangers that students and parents face each day by going over roadway safety.

Bailey discussed the fines and dangers associated with issues that law enforcement encounter most often, such as driving while distracted or impaired, speeding and failure to stop at stop signs.

"Unfortunately, this year we are already at 21 fatalities in Cullman," Bailey said. "So this is something that we want to correct. We want to put the information out there and give it to you and your children, because we all know that one fatality is way too many."