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Speaker 1: It's their Happy Family's podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers. Now, you can

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Speaker 1: tell how important somebody is by the length of their bio.

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Speaker 1: The bio of the person I'm about to speak to

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Speaker 1: is clear, concise and short. Julie inman grant is Australia's

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Speaker 1: e Safety Commissioner, full stop, end of story. That's all

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Speaker 1: we need to know. And the reason that I'm sharing

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Speaker 1: that with you is because of all the people in

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Speaker 1: this country who have their finger on what's going on

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Speaker 1: with tech and our kids, it is Julie in mcgrant.

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Speaker 1: We've known each other for years. We've had wonderful conversations

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Speaker 1: on the podcast previously and after yesterday's discussion, talking with

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Speaker 1: a young man who was caught up in a honeytrap online,

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Speaker 1: who was approached by somebody he thought was a gorgeous

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Speaker 1: girl who sent him a bunch of images that made

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Speaker 1: him feel quite excited, and then coerced him into sending

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Speaker 1: an image of himself to her. So, of course, that

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Speaker 1: young girl then revealed herself to not be a young

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Speaker 1: girl at all, but somebody with impure motives, some unhelpful intent,

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Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, we've got a scenario where

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Speaker 1: there's a young man who has been completely caught online

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Speaker 1: in a sextortion situation. Well, Julian mcgrant knows all about

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Speaker 1: that and a whole lot more. She joins me today

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Speaker 1: on the Happy Families podcast to talk about what is

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Speaker 1: going on with our technology companies and how kids are

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Speaker 1: getting caught up in this. Julie, thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for being here, really grateful to have you.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for not reading my flaw bio.

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Speaker 2: That would have made me feel old.

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Speaker 1: You know what, I just love what you've done. But

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Speaker 1: for today's purposes, all that matters is that you know

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Speaker 1: what you're talking about in this particular area, perhaps more

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Speaker 1: than anyone else in the country. Julie, can you provide

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Speaker 1: an other view of the prevalence and the scope of

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Speaker 1: online sextortion targeting teenagers in Australia and how this has

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Speaker 1: been evolving over the last few years.

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Speaker 2: Well, Unfortunately, sexual extortion is not a new online harm.

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Speaker 2: In fact, we started putting in outs around sex stortion

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Speaker 2: or sexual extortion back in twenty eighteen. But it's certainly

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Speaker 2: something that regulators, law enforcement and governments globally are struggling

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Speaker 2: to address and it seems to be gathering pace. And

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Speaker 2: the primary reason is this is being backed by organized

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Speaker 2: criminals in the Philippines, in India, in Africa. Remember when

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Speaker 2: we used to get all of those social engineering scams

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Speaker 2: about they kidnapped princess or winning the lottery that you

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Speaker 2: haven't won. They have figured out that this is an

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Speaker 2: incredibly lucrative scheme that works relatively quickly. They've got a

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Speaker 2: well worn playbook that I'll walk you through, but they're

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Speaker 2: able to blackmail and extored young people who are cornered

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Speaker 2: and very distressed in very aggressive ways. We've had some

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Speaker 2: people come to us after paying thousands of dollars, so

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Speaker 2: we'll talk through what this looks like about. In the

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Speaker 2: past financial year, we've had more than six thousand and

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Speaker 2: reports of sexual extortion to our image based abuse scheme,

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Speaker 2: and most of these reports are from young men between

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Speaker 2: the ages of eighteen and twenty four. And that's significant

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Speaker 2: because we tend to think about the eighteen to twenty

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Speaker 2: four age range as they're adults now, but these are

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Speaker 2: still young men without fully developed frontal core texes. They

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Speaker 2: maybe going in transition, say leaving high school, either going

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Speaker 2: into uni or into trades or whatever they're doing, but

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Speaker 2: they don't have that same kind of pastoral support. And

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Speaker 2: often young men of this age will go to their

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Speaker 2: local police and they can't get help because they are adults. Obviously,

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Speaker 2: police will react more quickly when they're under eighteen, and

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Speaker 2: it's considered a form of child sexual exploitation, So it's

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Speaker 2: a really vulnerable age. And this is where I think

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Speaker 2: parents and cares and even brothers and sisters and other

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Speaker 2: forms of peers we need to be there to be

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Speaker 2: backing our young men in and supporting them.

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Speaker 1: Two things about yesterday's conversation at time with what you've

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Speaker 1: just said, we were talking about somebody who was under eighteen,

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Speaker 1: a young man. He was fifteen when his incident occurred. Wonderfully,

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Speaker 1: he was confident enough to go to his mum and

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Speaker 1: say I'm in trouble, which I think is just the

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Speaker 1: ultimate outcome, right, if something bad is going to happen

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Speaker 1: like this, the fact that mum has a relationship with

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Speaker 1: her son where he's willing to go and have that

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Speaker 1: conversation matters so much. And I want to tread really

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Speaker 1: carefully here. My sense is that when it comes to

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Speaker 1: reporting to police. This is a bit of a lottery.

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Speaker 1: They went to the police and the police almost thought

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Speaker 1: that it was funny that this kid got duped by

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Speaker 1: some gorgeous girl online that actually wasn't who she said

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Speaker 1: that she was. They didn't get anywhere at all with

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Speaker 1: the police. They had a terrible experience there. Now, obviously

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Speaker 1: this is one of those things where sometimes it works

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Speaker 1: out and sometimes it doesn't. But the Safety Commissioner exists

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Speaker 1: precisely because people need help in this area, right And

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Speaker 1: when you say six thousand in a year, I'm terrible

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Speaker 1: at meths, but my guess is that's more than one

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Speaker 1: hundred a week at getting sprung, getting caught getting duped

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Speaker 1: in this way.

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Speaker 2: Well, and listen, we have a really a minimal role here.

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Speaker 2: This is largely a law enforcement issue because we're talking

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Speaker 2: about organized crime. You know. Our primary role, you know,

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Speaker 2: in terms of our regulatory schemes is to be able

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Speaker 2: to take down intimate imagery after it's been posted. But

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Speaker 2: we can also tackle threats to post imagery. But often

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Speaker 2: there isn't an Australian connection, or it's happening overseas, and

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Speaker 2: this is why those very little police can ultimately do.

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Speaker 2: So really, what we've been doing is providing almost a

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Speaker 2: form of guidance and support, and we've got a contractual

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Speaker 2: relationship with Kids Helpline and some of the other you know,

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Speaker 2: mental health support services which often often people need. But

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Speaker 2: this is where you know, an ounce of prevention is

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Speaker 2: worth a pound of cure. And so I do want

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Speaker 2: to go back to the important conversations. And you know,

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Speaker 2: people used to laugh at me when I would say

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Speaker 2: things like, you know, model good behavior for your kids

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Speaker 2: when you're taking their picture, ask for consent, ask if

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Speaker 2: it's okay, if they put it, if you put this

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Speaker 2: on Facebook. Because if you ask those questions, then maybe

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Speaker 2: they will have the same courtesy for others. But the

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Speaker 2: other important thing is certainly COVID has reinforced this technology

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Speaker 2: is inexplicably tied to every aspect of their lives. And

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Speaker 2: when we're at the dinner table and we're asking them

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Speaker 2: about how is their day at school, how is their sport,

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Speaker 2: what's happening with their friends, we have to start asking

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Speaker 2: them about what's happening online to them too, because this

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Speaker 2: is how they're communicating, they're engaging, and they're playing games

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Speaker 2: they may not have access to their phones at school,

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Speaker 2: but they're certainly using them as a primary communications mechanism.

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Speaker 1: Julian mcgrant joins me today on the Happy Families podcast

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Speaker 1: to talk about the prevalence and the scope of online

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Speaker 1: sextortion targeting teenagers in Australia and how this has been

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Speaker 1: evolving over the last few years.

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Speaker 2: We can go through the key messages that we want

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Speaker 2: to get across to parents and carers and young people themselves,

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Speaker 2: but I'm happy to talk through first how this tends

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Speaker 2: to play out online that well want warrant offender playbook

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Speaker 2: if you.

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Speaker 1: Will, let's go there. You mentioned that there's a playbook

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Speaker 1: that organized I mean organized crime literally call centers that

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Speaker 1: are set up internationally with people showing up to work

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Speaker 1: so that they can exploit our kids. This is so heinous.

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Speaker 1: The mendacity of this is just extraordinary. What are the

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Speaker 1: common tactics, what's in the playbook? What are the perpetrators

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Speaker 1: doing so they can exploit our teenagers and couerse them

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Speaker 1: to shit airing these explicit images and videos. And do

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Speaker 1: the tactics change depending on whether they're targeting a girl

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Speaker 1: or a boy.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think what they figured out it's it's almost

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Speaker 2: ninety percent of what we're seeing our targeting young men.

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Speaker 2: And I think what they figured out is if and

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Speaker 2: they're they're very good at profiling, they're targets. You know.

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Speaker 2: John Rowse, who was formerly with Task Force Argos, you know,

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Speaker 2: ran a test a couple of years ago the followers

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Speaker 2: of Paige Spiriwak, who's the beautiful blonde American golfer. If

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Speaker 2: you're following her, there's a good chance you like a sporty, perky,

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Speaker 2: attractive blonde girl. So just create up a set of

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Speaker 2: fake imposter accounts with a cute blonde and target the

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Speaker 2: same people, and you know you've got the hook pretty

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Speaker 2: pretty quickly. So it often starts with of course, uh,

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Speaker 2: flattery and and ask using faked and accounts, often of

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Speaker 2: an attractive woman. Sometimes these are actually images of pornography stars.

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Speaker 2: And the reason I mentioned that is that one of

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Speaker 2: the ways once they ensnare someone and ask for a

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Speaker 2: sexy chat and the chat continues, one of the ways

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Speaker 2: that they will groom them and try and wear them

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Speaker 2: down to encourage them to sorry but masturbate for the

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Speaker 2: webcam or for a FaceTime or Skype call, is that

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Speaker 2: they will send a pornographic video to kind of say,

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Speaker 2: well here is me. Well it's actually an adult actress.

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Speaker 2: I've seen a timeline where a young person connects with

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Speaker 2: a fake account at eight o'clock. By nine, he's already

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Speaker 2: performed sexual acts for the camera. By ten, not only

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Speaker 2: is he being aggressively targeted and threatened with blackmail and

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Speaker 2: using his followers list to send the intimate imagery to

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Speaker 2: his parents and all his friends and family, but by

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Speaker 2: the time it reaches midnight, he's taken his own life.

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Speaker 2: So this is over a four hour period from being

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Speaker 2: contacted by a fake account to taking your own life.

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Speaker 2: This shows how terribly this can go wrong. So once

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Speaker 2: they the perp has hooked the victim you know, someone

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Speaker 2: who's open to chatting with them, then they, you know,

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Speaker 2: keep the pressure up to share explicit sexual videos or photos.

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Speaker 2: This is another reason we encourage parents, even when you're

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Speaker 2: talking about teenagers, to have kids using technology and open

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Speaker 2: areas of the home. We come across a lot of

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Speaker 2: videos of self produced coerce child sexual abuse material. It's

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Speaker 2: almost always in the sanctity of the home, in bathrooms

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Speaker 2: and bedrooms. So that's just another thing to keep in

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Speaker 2: mind most of the platforms that are being targeted, or

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Speaker 2: snapchat in Instagram, and often they'll move them off platform,

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Speaker 2: either to a Skype or WhatsApp, video or FaceTime, and

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Speaker 2: they'll use a combination of charm and flirtatiousness and sexually

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Speaker 2: explicit language to manipulate that once they get the imagery,

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Speaker 2: that chat immediately turns menacing and threats to share the

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Speaker 2: victim's photos with family or friends that the victim doesn't pay.

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Speaker 2: As I mentioned, they can also often look at say

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Speaker 2: Instagram has you can see out in the open the followers,

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Speaker 2: so they can be very friendsic and say, I know

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Speaker 2: your father is this person, and this person looks like

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Speaker 2: your girlfriend, and we will be sending this. So it's

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Speaker 2: just really using all of these tactics to corner the

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Speaker 2: person to make them feel desperate. I mean, we've seen

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Speaker 2: some scripts where they would ask start by asking for

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Speaker 2: fifteen thousand dollars and the young person will say, well,

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Speaker 2: I'm only fifteen, I don't have that much money, and

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Speaker 2: they'll negotiate with them, well, how much can you pay?

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Speaker 2: How much do you have to you in our bank

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Speaker 2: account right now? And they'll start there and once someone pays.

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Speaker 2: They know that they'll feel desperate enough they'll go they'll

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Speaker 2: go back and keep paying. So I would just say

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Speaker 2: if you come across this and the person is underage,

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Speaker 2: you should report directly to the Australian Center to Counter

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Speaker 2: Child Sexual Exploitation. If your imagery has been posted online

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Speaker 2: and they will follow through, that's when they can come

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Speaker 2: to the e Safety Commissioner under our image based Abuse

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Speaker 2: scheme at eesafety dot dot au. But this is a

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Speaker 2: good chance to say these are the golden rules. First

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Speaker 2: and foremost, don't ever pay. And if you're a parent

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Speaker 2: and your child has paid something already, don't pay more.

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Speaker 2: Stee all contact with the blackmailer. Take the evidence that

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Speaker 2: you can, but block them. As I said, if they're

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Speaker 2: under eighteen, go to the Australian Center for Child Sexual

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Speaker 2: Exploitation because it is active child sexual abuse. If they're

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Speaker 2: over eighteen, screenshot the evidence, including the blackmailers social media

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Speaker 2: usernames and bank account details and any URLs. Then report

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Speaker 2: in app and block so report to the platform.

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Speaker 1: I know this is kind of an in the weeds conversation.

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Speaker 1: I know that it's sort of a little bit even political,

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Speaker 1: but it's such an important conversation. I have one last question,

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Speaker 1: a little bit left field, slightly off where we've been,

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Speaker 1: but still very much in your zone. Last year, Duly,

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Speaker 1: as the e Safety Commissioner, you made a recommendation of

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Speaker 1: the Albaneze federal government to trial an age gated system

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Speaker 1: to stop our kids accessing pornographic content online. The Albaneze

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Speaker 1: government shut that recommendation down. They refuse to go ahead

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Speaker 1: with that. What's your reaction to that decision?

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean we did two years of deep consultation

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Speaker 2: and understanding the technologies, the environment. This is often what happens.

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Speaker 2: We put six recommendations to government. They didn't outrighte e ject,

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Speaker 2: but really what the Minister said was I want you

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Speaker 2: to focus on Phase two of the Industry Codes, which

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Speaker 2: we have already started to do and in fact tomorrow

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Speaker 2: on the twenty second of February. We have a big

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Speaker 2: set of conversation that process. But the codes process around

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Speaker 2: illegal content took more than two years, so this is

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Speaker 2: going to be There are a lot of lessons learned

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Speaker 2: that we're going to try try and avoid, but this

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Speaker 2: is something that I think we need to move forward on.

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Speaker 2: The Minister has now tasked the department to look at

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Speaker 2: scoping a trial, and I can see these two things

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Speaker 2: very much working in parallel as we we seek to

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Speaker 2: get commitments from industry up and down the stack. So

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Speaker 2: what is the role of apps stores, What is the

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Speaker 2: role of device manufacturers, what is the role of social

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Speaker 2: media sites? Every single sector of the industry will serve

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Speaker 2: as a safety choke point and be able to do

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Speaker 2: something to keep child safe from pornography in a way

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Speaker 2: that's privacy protected, doesn't undermine, you know, the the right

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Speaker 2: of adults to access adult content. So uh, you know,

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Speaker 2: we still have some work to do and things are

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Speaker 2: moving apace, but so goes government.

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Speaker 1: I think that's the understatement of the year. We still

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Speaker 1: have some work to do. It's such a such a

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Speaker 1: challenging area. So grateful for the work that you do, Julie,

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Speaker 1: and the way that you so unselfishly and so persistently

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Speaker 1: take it to people who do not want to have

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Speaker 1: it taken to them and fight for the protection of

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Speaker 1: our children. If I was to summarize the practical side

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Speaker 1: of what you just said for parents who are listening

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Speaker 1: to this and saying I don't have know what to

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Speaker 1: do anymore, this is terrifying. What I've heard you say

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Speaker 1: is Number one, make sure that kids are using their

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Speaker 1: screens out in the open, don't have them in bedrooms

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Speaker 1: and bathrooms. Number two, make sure that kids know that

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Speaker 1: they can talk to you about anything that's happening online,

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Speaker 1: and ask them about their online lives and that of

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Speaker 1: their friends. Number Three, If children are approached inappropriately and

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Speaker 1: for some reason, they don't just say no, I'm blocked

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Speaker 1: the person. If they do get caught up in something,

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Speaker 1: don't pay, get screenshots, collect evidence, block report, go to

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Speaker 1: the authorities, the police, ACE, and you at the E

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Speaker 1: Safety Commissioner if there's any image based abuse that's occurred.

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Speaker 1: I think that's about all. What have I missed?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I think the homework for parents today

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Speaker 2: is go to E safety dot go au. We've got parents' guides.

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Speaker 2: We've got an E safety guide that walks you through

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Speaker 2: all of the games, apps and social media sapes your

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Speaker 2: kids might be using. But we've got a page on

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Speaker 2: sexual extortion that leads these out in detail. It also

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Speaker 2: gives you scripts about how you can talk to your

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Speaker 2: children about these issues and know they can come to

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Speaker 2: you if anything goes wrong that they're not going to

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Speaker 2: be in trouble. I think this is what we see

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Speaker 2: with more stigmatized issues, is that kids are afraid of

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Speaker 2: getting in trouble or for what they've done, or device denial,

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Speaker 2: and I think we have to let them know that

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Speaker 2: our preeminent concern as parents is their overall safety and

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Speaker 2: well being, no matter what is transpired online.

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Speaker 1: Julie Immigrant is Australia's E Safety Commissioner. Julie, thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for your time today.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: We will link to the e Safety Commissioner websites in

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Speaker 1: our show notes. Of course you can just google and

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Speaker 1: find everything that you need. Those resources are valuable. Please

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Speaker 1: look at them. As parents, we've got to be across

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Speaker 1: this stuff. It matters so much for our children's well being.

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Speaker 1: I really appreciate you listening to this very very important

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Speaker 1: conversation today with Julie Imman Grant, the Australian E Safety Commissioner.

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Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Roland from

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Speaker 1: Bridge Media. For more information about keeping your kids safe,

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Speaker 1: check out the esay Your website. Also the Australians senat

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Speaker 1: account a Child Exploitation or ACE dot gov dot Au

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Speaker 1: and of course for more about making your family happier,

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Speaker 1: Happy families dot com, dot au