Speaker 1: A warning that today's episode contains content that listeners might
Speaker 1: find disturbing. You can find support links in our show
Speaker 1: notes Kyota. I'm Richard Martin in for Chelsea Daniels and
Speaker 1: this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by
Speaker 1: the New Zealand Herald. New Zealand police are becoming increasingly
Speaker 1: concerned about online groups targeting Kiwi children through social media.
Speaker 1: Apps like Snapchat have become a breeding ground for sex
Speaker 1: abuse material, while overseas groups are actively participating in sadistic
Speaker 1: online exploitation. And it's not just happening offshore. With two
Speaker 1: sisters this week sharing their story of being targeted by
Speaker 1: a Wellington man masquerading as an eleven year old girl
Speaker 1: in Zied. Herald investigative reporter Michael Mora has been looking
Speaker 1: into this case for months and joins us today on
Speaker 1: the front Page to explore what's happening online. So, Michael,
Speaker 1: how did you come to investigate this particular field.
Speaker 2: Well, I've got two daughters, and I guess I was
Speaker 2: particularly concerned by just how much technology phones. Access to
Speaker 2: the Internet was such a driver for my girls. They
Speaker 2: were so interested in it. When I grew up, we
Speaker 2: would watch some cartoons in the afternoon after school, but
Speaker 2: they only go for about an hour and then it
Speaker 2: would go into the news hour and more adult programming,
Speaker 2: and you had that small window where you might watch
Speaker 2: a cartoon. But at the moment, technology is just everywhere,
Speaker 2: and in a way, children and young people are growing
Speaker 2: up with this. They're growing up seeing their parents attached
Speaker 2: to these phones, swiping these phones, and it is consistently
Speaker 2: kind of in their face. And I guess why I
Speaker 2: started to look into this field was because of the
Speaker 2: rise and concerns around the world and also here in
Speaker 2: New Zealand about the damage that early access can cause,
Speaker 2: but also the way in which social media companies have expanded,
Speaker 2: and that's been massive in the past ten years. There
Speaker 2: are so many different platforms, all eager to get eyes
Speaker 2: and ears onto them, and this in turn presents a
Speaker 2: problem because a lot of these spaces are designed by
Speaker 2: their very nature to be sites that are encrypted or protected,
Speaker 2: and they anonymize use and they allow engagement with other
Speaker 2: people around the world, which on the face of it
Speaker 2: sounds fine. But the problem is is that predators and
Speaker 2: pedophiles know that this is a very easy way to
Speaker 2: target children. And I think that's horrific and there are
Speaker 2: many examples of police investigations into this sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you spoke with the police back in March
Speaker 1: and one of your first stories about this what sort
Speaker 1: of things are they seeing on a daily basis.
Speaker 2: Well, we know, for example that from the facts that
Speaker 2: the statistics show that that referrals from these big tech
Speaker 2: companies are going up hugely. So if you look at Snapchat,
Speaker 2: in the space of a year, referrals to New Zealand
Speaker 2: Police have more than doubled, So they're about one thousand,
Speaker 2: five hundred and forty nine referrals over a twelve month period.
Speaker 2: And when you look back on the year prior, it
Speaker 2: was about six hundred and seventeen complaints that were referred
Speaker 2: to New Zealand Police. Now, these referrals come from a
Speaker 2: place called neck MECH or the National Center for Exploited
Speaker 2: and Missing Children in the US, so they get information
Speaker 2: on problematic communications or images and then they go right,
Speaker 2: this is happening in New Zealand. And actually this user
Speaker 2: who is obtaining these images or video, objection and or
Speaker 2: material is based in New Zealand, so those referrals are
Speaker 2: going there. Now we're also seeing increases on other social
Speaker 2: media platforms like TikTok roadblocks. Of course, the social media
Speaker 2: companies would say, oh, well, this is happening because we
Speaker 2: have really good systems in place now where we are
Speaker 2: reporting more. We have better ways for people to make
Speaker 2: complaints or make referrals within the app. And that may
Speaker 2: well be true. But the other point I would make
Speaker 2: that would be true is that these referrals from the
Speaker 2: US to New Zealand police would only be a tiny
Speaker 2: fraction of the actual harm that is going on.
Speaker 3: We don't want to alarm parents out there. We just
Speaker 3: want them to be aware of some of the risks
Speaker 3: online which is similar to sextortion and other child sexual
Speaker 3: abuse material, and just making sure they put the right
Speaker 3: privacy settings and have those conversations in place to keep
Speaker 3: the young people safe.
Speaker 4: Some of the things that I'm aware of are looking
Speaker 4: for changes in behavior of their children. They might be
Speaker 4: visible things that you know that they are concerned about,
Speaker 4: the sort of reclusion, so starting to shut themselves away,
Speaker 4: being secretive about the online activity. If any parents have
Speaker 4: concerns about that happening with their children, again, not encourage
Speaker 4: them to report that as soon as possible.
Speaker 1: I think it might be worth discussing, like the term
Speaker 1: sort of online child exploitation. Obviously, you know you've spoken
Speaker 1: to a lot of people affected by this and that
Speaker 1: are really sort of close to it, but it does
Speaker 1: kind of sound like one of those things that you
Speaker 1: just hear and might be being over reported for fear
Speaker 1: mong green, Like, how much of an issue is this
Speaker 1: actually do you think?
Speaker 2: Look, I think it's a huge issue, and I think
Speaker 2: the scale of the issue is actually probably underreported. And
Speaker 2: the reason I say that is because I have interviewed
Speaker 2: police from the Online Child Exploitation of New Zealand team.
Speaker 2: I have interviewed the Department of Internal Affairs both from
Speaker 2: their child Exploitation team and also from their Extremist Online team.
Speaker 2: The concerns are real, and the referrals and the number
Speaker 2: of investigations that they are involved in is increasing massively
Speaker 2: year on year, and there's also various developments in terms
Speaker 2: of how some of these predators are operating. Our listeners
Speaker 2: may sort of think about sextortion, which is one of
Speaker 2: the classic ones. You extract an objectionable picture from a
Speaker 2: young per and then say, look, if you don't give
Speaker 2: me this amount of money, I will do xyz. There
Speaker 2: are now a new breed of sadistic, right wing young
Speaker 2: people online who are not actually interested in obtaining money,
Speaker 2: but they are trying to get some of the most frightening, cruel,
Speaker 2: degrading and violent material from young people for the sole
Speaker 2: purpose of building online clout and reputation amongst other like
Speaker 2: minded people. And the purpose of doing this is that
Speaker 2: they want to create ultimately social disorder, and so they
Speaker 2: do this by targeting the younger generation. One of the
Speaker 2: big problems I think is that as parents, you go
Speaker 2: about the day and think, gosh, well that's a horrific story,
Speaker 2: but it won't happen to my kid because we're keeping
Speaker 2: an eye on things. But that's naive. I think there
Speaker 2: are people out there waiting for opportunities to exploit young people,
Speaker 2: waiting for opportunities who strike up some form of fake relationship.
Speaker 2: And you've got to remember the age of some of
Speaker 2: the kids who end up with devices. I mean, they're
Speaker 2: not adults. They want to make friends, they want to
Speaker 2: join people on games, and that's just human nature.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's a nice segue into talking about the
Speaker 1: story that you published this week, because you mentioned there
Speaker 1: that like oh, I do everything right. This couldn't possibly
Speaker 1: happen in my household. But yeah, tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about you spoke to a woman calling Victoria and
Speaker 1: her two kids, Amy and Ivy, and yeah, this is
Speaker 1: someone who sort of seemingly did everything right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I just first want to acknowledge Victoria, the mother
Speaker 2: who I interviewed, and her daughter's Amy and Ivy, for
Speaker 2: their extraordinary bravery and stepping up and discussing this. The
Speaker 2: sole purpose of them wanting to talk to me was
Speaker 2: to raise awareness about this issue and to tell other
Speaker 2: parents and New Zealanders in general that this issue is
Speaker 2: very real. And of course we have heard from police,
Speaker 2: we have heard from the Department of Internal Affairs, and
Speaker 2: we've got great organizations like before sixteen in that movement
Speaker 2: starting up, which seems to have the support of the
Speaker 2: Prime Minister. But what's unique about this story is that
Speaker 2: we hear the true story from the mother and the victims.
Speaker 2: The mother, in my view, Victoria did take precautions, and
Speaker 2: this is what's really interesting. The first time that her
Speaker 2: two daughters had some form of interaction or learnings about
Speaker 2: a person who ended up being a pedophile was in
Speaker 2: the primary school. Library, the most innocent of childhood spaces.
Speaker 1: And I are they even had phones themselves, right.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, they did not have phones. And this is the
Speaker 2: this is the thing. They had a friend who had
Speaker 2: a phone and these fun videos on zoomrag showing you know,
Speaker 2: the dancing back and forth, and you know, there's a
Speaker 2: big trend and kids love it. And of course they
Speaker 2: never they didn't have phones at this point. But for
Speaker 2: months in the school library and around the school they
Speaker 2: were looking over the shoulder of their friend who had
Speaker 2: this phone and oh wow, look at this. These videos
Speaker 2: are so fun. It was at that time that the
Speaker 2: friend said to them, oh, well look at this. I've
Speaker 2: got a friend. She's an eleven year old from Australia
Speaker 2: and she's liking my videos and she's commenting on my videos.
Speaker 2: Of course, the two girls I interviewed thought, this is
Speaker 2: so cool. An eleven year old from Australia. That's fantastic.
Speaker 2: And look at this engagement and wow, that's amazing. The
Speaker 2: mother in this case eventually did get her girl's phones
Speaker 2: for safety reasons, like many parents are doing now if
Speaker 2: their kids are walking to and from school, for safety reasons,
Speaker 2: so they can be contacted. All the time, and this
Speaker 2: is what was happening with her girls. She did not
Speaker 2: allow social media on these phones. But the girls, who
Speaker 2: had witnessed their peers at school seeing Zoomerang in this account,
Speaker 2: really wanted this this app. So you face that sort
Speaker 2: of dilemma as a parent, and you know, Victoria in
Speaker 2: this case, she consulted other mothers at the school. She
Speaker 2: asked around what zoom rang like, Are there any concerns
Speaker 2: you know? Everyone said, look, we don't have any concerns
Speaker 2: about this, and so she allowed this app, which she
Speaker 2: thought was innocuous and harmless, to be downloaded. And this
Speaker 2: of course was the time where the girls thought, well,
Speaker 2: we must add the fun girl from Australia, this eleven
Speaker 2: year old, because she seems cool and she's been liking
Speaker 2: our other friends videos, so we want to make friends too.
Speaker 1: And then so how did this take a turn the story?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it took a real turn. And I think
Speaker 2: it's again important to emphasize before people jump on the
Speaker 2: bandwagon and go, oh, well, you shouldn't have given your
Speaker 2: kids phones and you shouldn't give them social media. This
Speaker 2: was in the view of the mother, it was a
Speaker 2: targeted sophisticated and tactical approach by someone who pretended to
Speaker 2: be an eleven year old girl who we work out
Speaker 2: was never an eleven year old girl, and what she
Speaker 2: asked the girls to do, and this took weeks and
Speaker 2: weeks of trust building right sending the right emojis, building
Speaker 2: up self esteem, talking with the girls about wow, look
Speaker 2: we've got so much in common. You like the same
Speaker 2: color as me. That's amazing. I mean, it's just really
Speaker 2: innocent things that plays on the vulnerability and naivety of
Speaker 2: these young girls. Once he knew that he had their
Speaker 2: trust and that the messaging was becoming more regular, and
Speaker 2: that he had learned a lot about them and their
Speaker 2: school and their friend group, he then shifted them, unbeknown
Speaker 2: to their mum, onto other platforms like Discord, like Snapchat,
Speaker 2: like Telegram, which we know the latter is an encrypted
Speaker 2: text messaging service. Now, why would you want to move
Speaker 2: a child onto Telegram? Two pre teen girls onto such
Speaker 2: a platform. This is when it all started beginning with
Speaker 2: asking questions like hey, do you guys own crop tops?
Speaker 2: And it became more and more serious in terms of
Speaker 2: what this person wanted while extracting child sex abuse images
Speaker 2: from the two girls. He reminded them, do not tell
Speaker 2: anyone about this. And by the way, if someone does
Speaker 2: find out about this, like your mum, I will have
Speaker 2: to get you blocked from these apps that I've helped
Speaker 2: get you onto, and you don't want to lose access
Speaker 2: to that. You know, my own daughters if they're on
Speaker 2: something and I say no, sorry, you've gone over your
Speaker 2: limit or you're not behaving and I'm banning you for
Speaker 2: a week from this, it is a huge deal. There
Speaker 2: was a big meltdown. Saying you can't do this on
Speaker 2: a device is a massive thing. So the girls were
Speaker 2: under pressure. At the same time, when I talk about
Speaker 2: the tactics of some of these predators, he was colluding
Speaker 2: with other pedophiles around the world on how to ensure
Speaker 2: that the girls would keep quiet and that he would
Speaker 2: still be and how best to extract the information in
Speaker 2: a confidential manner from them, and he largely succeeded at
Speaker 2: doing this, even to the extent that he told the girls,
Speaker 2: if mum comes along and asks about who you're chatting to,
Speaker 2: you show her these messages, ones that were from early
Speaker 2: on in the piece that were safe and appeared harmless.
Speaker 2: And appeared very friendly and genuine. And of course the
Speaker 2: mother did look at these and she thought, okay, well
Speaker 2: that all seems legit. I will permit the conversations to continue,
Speaker 2: not knowing how her daughters were being exploited at that point.
Speaker 2: And what did you think when your mum told you,
Speaker 2: guys that your friend was a man?
Speaker 5: I was pretty shocked and mostly pretty disgusted, but most
Speaker 5: of it was shot a little bit of anger, a
Speaker 5: bit of sadness. I was in cheers, I was angry,
Speaker 5: and I felt like was or surprising.
Speaker 3: We have ongoing counseling.
Speaker 5: They're still my daughters are having nightmares.
Speaker 2: They don't trust easily anymore.
Speaker 1: And so I guess how do we combat this? Like
Speaker 1: what are the police wanting to change?
Speaker 2: I think that a big part of this is having
Speaker 2: some publicity about it for the first sense, and also
Speaker 2: starting conversations. I mean, if we look at what the
Speaker 2: mother has said to me, you know, she said the
Speaker 2: best thing I think is to have these very open
Speaker 2: conversations early. Make sure your children understand what a healthy
Speaker 2: online relationship looks like. Make sure they understand that if
Speaker 2: anyone suggests to you, would you mind taking a picture
Speaker 2: of yourself without your clothes on, that you can feel
Speaker 2: safe to talk to another adult myself a teacher, and
Speaker 2: that that is not right. And the crazy thing about
Speaker 2: it is that these conversations here to be had with
Speaker 2: children at a very early age. But you know, you've
Speaker 2: got to be, as a mother articulated to me, be
Speaker 2: careful in how you're conveying this information. You might want
Speaker 2: to keep it as simple as saying, well, look, if
Speaker 2: someone is asking you for a picture without your clothes on,
Speaker 2: you have to tell someone about that because that's not
Speaker 2: right and that's your body and you have to protect
Speaker 2: yourself and make sure that you feel safe to talk
Speaker 2: to other people people. But then we also have you know,
Speaker 2: some of the other movements that are starting up. We
Speaker 2: know that the before sixteen group has launched wanting to
Speaker 2: essentially following the footsteps of Australia by banning social media
Speaker 2: for under sixteen year olds. And look, I support what
Speaker 2: they are trying to do here, and I support it
Speaker 2: as a parent for a few reasons. But one of
Speaker 2: the really hard things is that and just like with
Speaker 2: Amy and Ivy in their situation, as soon as your
Speaker 2: kid's friends have got these devices or an iPad or
Speaker 2: a phone. All of a sudden, there's this great need.
Speaker 2: I need one, you know, I really need one. And
Speaker 2: it's almost like if we just could remove that from
Speaker 2: the equation, or at least remove some of these access
Speaker 2: to platforms from the equation and said well, look sorry,
Speaker 2: but it's actually against the law or you can't have this,
Speaker 2: and it's all an even playing field. I think it
Speaker 2: would make it a lot easier for parents and I
Speaker 2: I don't really accept the argument offered at one stage
Speaker 2: by the Minister for Internal Affairs Brook van Velden that oh, well,
Speaker 2: it's appearance responsibility and so all the best appearance. Absolutely
Speaker 2: it is, and absolutely you have to have these conversations.
Speaker 2: But where is the responsibility on some of these big
Speaker 2: tech companies that are creating these environments where predators thrive.
Speaker 2: I mean, these offenders are no longer hanging out at
Speaker 2: the playground watching kids through a window. They're no longer
Speaker 2: in a van with a bag of lollies. If that
Speaker 2: sort of thing ever occurred, I don't know if that
Speaker 2: was more of a myth, But what I'm saying is
Speaker 2: that it has been made so easy for people who
Speaker 2: want to prey on our most vulnerable to get access
Speaker 2: to them, and they can do it all from the
Speaker 2: comfort of their own home anywhere in the world, and
Speaker 2: we are seeing the evidence of this in New Zealand
Speaker 2: on a daily weekly.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for joining us, really appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Cheers.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
Speaker 1: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 1: at inzidherld dot co dot z. The Front Page is
Speaker 1: produced by Ethan Sills. I'm Richard Martin. Subscribe to The
Speaker 1: Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.