Even writing the words sextortion and recovery scams makes me feel ill. They sound awful and they are.
The importance of Digital Literacy in our plugged-in world should be self-evident. Unfortunately, we are seeing a meteoric rise in complaints about online abuse and “sextortion” and even scams from people claiming to help you beat the abusers. ie Recovery Scams.
It is nasty. It’s complex. And it’s becoming more prevalent.
“The RCMP’s National Child Exploitation Crime Centre said it received a total of 52,306 complaints about the crime for the year 2020-21, marking a 510 percent increase from seven years earlier.”
Yikes. This is terrifying for parents and hopefully for your kids as well. If they are not sufficiently concerned about it or don’t know enough about the potential consequences, it is up to us as parents and educators to let them know. Talk to your kids yesterday, today, and forever about digital literacy. We can all up our game. The more we learn, talk, and support each other the safer we will all be online.
Some questions you can explore with your kids include:
-Has anyone you know ever sent pictures to someone that they ended up wishing they hadn’t?
-Has anyone you know had embarrassing pictures shared online or amongst friends that they didn’t consent to? Or have they been threatened with the sharing of photos they’ve sent to someone?
-Do you know what sextortion is?
-How could you protect yourself from sextortion?
#digitalliteracy #digitalwellness #medialiteracy
Here is an article in The Star newspaper with more information.
Contact the Kermode Education team today to see how our eLearning platform can help your kids or your students improve their digital literacy skills.
