The conversation we're not having about digital child abuse

We need to talk to kids about the risks they face online, says information security expert Sebastián Bortnik. In this talk, Bortnik discusses the issue of "grooming" -- the sexual predation of children by adults on the internet -- and outlines the conversations we need to start having about technology to keep our kids safe.

[This talk contains graphic content.
Viewer discretion is advised.]

This is Nina Rodríguez's Facebook profile.

This person had three different profiles

and 890 kids between 8 and 13 years old
among her friends list.

These are excerpts of a chat
with one of those kids.

This is an exact copy of the chat.

It's part of the case file.

This kid started sending private photos

until his family realized
what was going on.

The police report and subsequent
investigation lead them to a house.

This was the girl's bedroom.

Nina Rodríguez was actually
a 24-year-old man

that used to do this with lots of kids.

Micaela Ortega was 12 years old

when she went to meet
her new Facebook friend,

also 12.

"Rochi de River," was her name.

She actually met Jonathan Luna,
who was 26 years old.

When they finally caught him,

he confessed that he killed the girl
because she refused to have sex with him.

He had four Facebook profiles

and 1,700 women on his contact list;

90 percent of them
were under 13 years old.

These are two different
cases of "grooming":

an adult contacts a kid
through the internet,

and through manipulation or lying,
leads that kid into sexual territory --

from talking about sex

to sharing private photos,

recording the kid using a webcam

or arranging an in-person meeting.

This is grooming.

This is happening, and it's on the rise.

The question is: What are we going to do?

Because, in the meantime, kids are alone.

They finish dinner, go to their rooms,

close the door,

get on their computer, their cell phones,

and get into a bar,

into a club.

Think for one second
about what I've just said:

they're in a place full of strangers

in an uninhibited environment.

The internet broke physical boundaries.

When we're alone in our bedroom
and we go online,

we're not really alone.

There are at least two reasons
why we're not taking care of this,

or at least not in the right way.

First, we're sure that everything
that happens online is "virtual."

In fact, we call it "the virtual world."

If you look it up in the dictionary,

something virtual is something
that seems to exist

but is not real.

And we use that word
to talk about the internet:

something not real.

And that's the problem with grooming.

It is real.

Degenerate, perverted adults
use the internet to abuse boys and girls

and take advantage of, among other things,

the fact that the kids and their parents
think that what happens online

doesn't actually happen.

Several years ago,
some colleagues and I founded an NGO

called "Argentina Cibersegura,"

dedicated to raising awareness
about online safety.

In 2013, we attended meetings
at the House of Legislature

to discuss a law about grooming.

I remember that a lot of people thought

that grooming was strictly a precursor

to arranging an in-person meeting
with a kid to have sex with them.

But they didn't think about what happened
to the kids who were exposed

by talking about sex
with an adult without knowing it,

or who shared intimate photos thinking
only another kid would see them,

or even worse,

who had exposed themselves
using their web cam.

Nobody considered that rape.

I'm sure lots of you find it odd to think
one person can abuse another

without physical contact.

We're programmed to think that way.

I know, because I used to think that way.

I was just an IT security guy

until this happened to me.

At the end of 2011,

in a little town in Buenos Aires Province,

I heard about a case for the first time.

After giving a talk,

I met the parents of an 11-year-old girl
who had been a victim of grooming.

A man had manipulated her
into masturbating in front of her web cam,

and recorded it.

And the video was on several websites.

That day, her parents asked us, in tears,

to tell them the magic formula

for how to delete those videos
from the internet.

It broke my heart and changed me forever

to be their last disappointment,
telling them it was too late:

once content is online,

we've already lost control.

Since that day, I think about that girl

waking up in the morning,
having breakfast with her family,

who had seen the video,

and then walking to school, meeting
people that had seen her naked,

arriving to school, playing with
her friends, who had also seen her.

That was her life.

Exposed.

Of course, nobody raped her body.

But hadn't her sexuality been abused?

We clearly use different standards
to measure physical and digital things.

And we get angry at social networks

because being angry with ourselves
is more painful and more true.

And this brings us
to the second reason why

we aren't paying proper
attention to this issue.

We're convinced that kids
don't need our help,

that they "know everything"
about technology.

When I was a kid,

at one point, my parents started
letting me walk to school alone.

After years of taking me by the hand
and walking me to school,

one day they sat me down,

gave me the house keys

and said, "Be very careful with these;
don't give them to anyone,

take the route we showed you,
be at home at the time we said,

cross at the corner,
and look both ways before you cross,

and no matter what,
don't talk to strangers."

I knew everything about walking,

and yet, there was a responsible adult
there taking care of me.

Knowing how to do something is one thing,

knowing how to take care
of yourself is another.

Imagine this situation:

I'm 10 or 11 years old,
I wake up in the morning,

my parents toss me the keys and say,

"Seba, now you can walk to school alone."

And when I come back late,

they say, "No, you need to be home
at the time we said."

And two weeks later,

when it comes up,
they say, "You know what?

You have to cross at the corner,
and look both ways before crossing."

And two years later, they say,

"And also, don't talk to strangers."

It sounds absurd, right?

We have the same absurd behavior
in relation to technology.

We give kids total access

and we see if one day, sooner or later,

they learn how to take care of themselves.

Knowing how to do something is one thing,

knowing how to take care
of yourself is another.

Along those same lines,
when we talk to parents,

they often say they don't care
about technology and social networks.

I always rejoin that by asking
if they care about their kids.

As adults, being interested
or not in technology

is the same as being interested
or not in our kids.

The internet is part of their lives.

Technology forces us to rethink
the relationship between adults and kids.

Education was always based
on two main concepts:

experience and knowledge.

How do we teach our kids to be safe online
when we don't have either?

Nowadays, we adults
have to guide our children

through what is often for us
unfamiliar territory --

territory much more inviting for them.

It's impossible to find an answer

without doing new things --
things that make us uncomfortable,

things we're not used to.

A lot of you may think it's easy for me,

because I'm relatively young.

And it used to be that way.

Used to.

Until last year,

when I felt the weight
of my age on my shoulders

the first time I opened Snapchat.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

I didn't understand a thing!

I found it unnecessary,

useless, hard to understand;

it looked like a camera!

It didn't have menu options!

It was the first time I felt the gap

that sometimes exists
between kids and adults.

But it was also an opportunity
to do the right thing,

to leave my comfort zone, to force myself.

I never thought I'd ever use Snapchat,

but then I asked my teenage cousin
to show me how to use it.

I also asked why she used it.

What was fun about it?

We had a really nice talk.

She showed me her Snapchat,
she told me things,

we got closer, we laughed.

Today, I use it.

(Laughter)

I don't know if I do it right,

but the most important thing
is that I know it and I understand it.

The key was to overcome the initial shock

and do something new.

Something new.

Today, we have the chance
to create new conversations.

What's the last app you downloaded?

Which social network do you use
to contact your friends?

What kind of information do you share?

Have you ever been
approached by strangers?

Could we have these conversations
between kids and adults?

We have to force ourselves
to do it. All of us.

Today, lots of kids are listening to us.

Sometimes when we go
to schools to give our talks,

or through social networks,

kids ask or tell us things

they haven't told
their parents or their teachers.

They tell us -- they don't even know us.

Those kids need to know

what the risks of being online are,

how to take care of themselves,

but also that, fundamentally,
as with almost everything else,

kids can learn this from any adult.

Online safety needs to be
a conversation topic

in every house and every
classroom in the country.

We did a survey this year that showed
that 15 percent of schools said

they knew of cases of grooming
in their school.

And this number is growing.

Technology changed
every aspect of our life,

including the risks we face

and how we take care of ourselves.

Grooming shows us this
in the most painful way:

by involving our kids.

Are we going to do something
to avoid this?

The solution starts
with something as easy as:

talking about it.

Thank you.

(Applause)