The threat behind the screen: Stranger Danger

We’ve talked before about stranger danger, but often times the real threat is online. It’s a fear for any parent: predators hiding behind computer screens to carefully choose their victims.

You may remember a story we first brought you last week, exposing a huge spike in online child sex crimes. According to the Colorado Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce, there was an 83 percent spike in child sex crimes online since 2016.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” said Kristina Greer, the mother of two young girls. “Kids are always playing on their phones these days.”

Like many parents, Greer lets her kids play on their phones.

“They love playing on apps,” she said.

A harmless hobby, the two just downloaded the YouTube app.

“I didn’t suspect anything to go wrong,” said Greer.

Until Greer spotted a post about an alarming incident on the app from one of her Facebook friends.

“She noticed the YouTube for kids got hacked,” she said. “He hacked into it and was live streaming with kids…he even had a mask on.”

Greer said the masked man was using the platform’s feature “super chat” to live stream with children, which prompted an FBI investigation.

The man reportedly using the tool to ask suspicious questions.

“He tried to figure out where they lived and when their parents were home,” Greer said.

Scary right? According to Colorado’s ICAC taskforce, this tactic is not uncommon, and it doesn’t just apply to popular apps like YouTube.

Our team sat down with ICAC’s sergeant, but had to conceal his identity due to his under cover work catching these predators. But, he explained to us the most common problem.

“Parents believe their child is safe on an app that’s specifically designed for children to play games … typically all those games will have a chat feature on them,” the sergeant said.

While the chat features may seem like an innocent way for kids to talk, the sergeant pointed out it’s rare if you ever know if that person is a child or an adult.

An important warning for parents to have an eye on even the most unsuspecting games. Especially because according to ICAC, one in seven children are contacted online by a sexual predator.

If you notice suspicious activity on your child’s device, report it directly to Colorado’s ICAC taskforce.