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[This talk contains graphic content.
Viewer discretion is advised.]
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This is Nina Rodríguez's Facebook profile.
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This person had three different profiles
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and 890 kids between 8 and 13 years old
among her friends list.
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These are excerpts of a chat
with one of those kids.
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This is an exact copy of the chat.
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It's part of the case file.
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This kid started sending private photos
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until his family realized
what was going on.
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The police report and subsequent
investigation lead them to a house.
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This was the girl's bedroom.
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Nina Rodríguez was actually
a 24-year-old man
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that used to do this with lots of kids.
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Micaela Ortega was 12 years old
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when she went to meet
her new Facebook friend,
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also 12.
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"Rochi de River," was her name.
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She actually met Jonathan Luna,
who was 26 years old.
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When they finally caught him,
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he confessed that he killed the girl
because she refused to have sex with him.
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He had four Facebook profiles
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and 1,700 women on his contact list;
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90 percent of them
were under 13 years old.
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These are two different
cases of "grooming":
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an adult contacts a kid
through the internet,
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and through manipulation or lying,
leads that kid into sexual territory --
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from talking about sex
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to sharing private photos,
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recording the kid using a webcam
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or arranging an in-person meeting.
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This is grooming.
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This is happening, and it's on the rise.
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The question is: What are we going to do?
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Because, in the meantime, kids are alone.
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They finish dinner, go to their rooms,
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close the door,
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get on their computer, their cell phones,
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and get into a bar,
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into a club.
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Think for one second
about what I've just said:
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they're in a place full of strangers
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in an uninhibited environment.
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The internet broke physical boundaries.
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When we're alone in our bedroom
and we go online,
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we're not really alone.
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There are at least two reasons
why we're not taking care of this,
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or at least not in the right way.
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First, we're sure that everything
that happens online is "virtual."
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In fact, we call it "the virtual world."
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If you look it up in the dictionary,
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something virtual is something
that seems to exist
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but is not real.
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And we use that word
to talk about the internet:
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something not real.
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And that's the problem with grooming.
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It is real.
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Degenerate, perverted adults
use the internet to abuse boys and girls
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and take advantage of, among other things,
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the fact that the kids and their parents
think that what happens online
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doesn't actually happen.
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Several years ago,
some colleagues and I founded an NGO
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called "Argentina Cibersegura,"
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dedicated to raising awareness
about online safety.
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In 2013, we attended meetings
at the House of Legislature
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to discuss a law about grooming.
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I remember that a lot of people thought
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that grooming was strictly a precursor
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to arranging an in-person meeting
with a kid to have sex with them.
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But they didn't think about what happened
to the kids who were exposed
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by talking about sex
with an adult without knowing it,
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or who shared intimate photos thinking
only another kid would see them,
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or even worse,
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who had exposed themselves
using their web cam.
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Nobody considered that rape.
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I'm sure lots of you find it odd to think
one person can abuse another
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without physical contact.
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We're programmed to think that way.
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I know, because I used to think that way.
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I was just an IT security guy
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until this happened to me.
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At the end of 2011,
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in a little town in Buenos Aires Province,
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I heard about a case for the first time.
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After giving a talk,
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I met the parents of an 11-year-old girl
who had been a victim of grooming.
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A man had manipulated her
into masturbating in front of her web cam,
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and recorded it.
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And the video was on several websites.
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That day, her parents asked us, in tears,
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to tell them the magic formula
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for how to delete those videos
from the internet.
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It broke my heart and changed me forever
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to be their last disappointment,
telling them it was too late:
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once content is online,
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we've already lost control.
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Since that day, I think about that girl
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waking up in the morning,
having breakfast with her family,
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who had seen the video,
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and then walking to school, meeting
people that had seen her naked,
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arriving to school, playing with
her friends, who had also seen her.
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That was her life.
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Exposed.
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Of course, nobody raped her body.
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But hadn't her sexuality been abused?
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We clearly use different standards
to measure physical and digital things.
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And we get angry at social networks
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because being angry with ourselves
is more painful and more true.
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And this brings us
to the second reason why
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we aren't paying proper
attention to this issue.
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We're convinced that kids
don't need our help,
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that they "know everything"
about technology.
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When I was a kid,
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at one point, my parents started
letting me walk to school alone.
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After years of taking me by the hand
and walking me to school,
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one day they sat me down,
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gave me the house keys
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and said, "Be very careful with these;
don't give them to anyone,
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take the route we showed you,
be at home at the time we said,
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cross at the corner
and look both ways before you cross,
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and no matter what,
don't talk to strangers."
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I knew everything about walking,
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and yet, there was a responsible adult
there taking care of me.
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Knowing how to do something is one thing,
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knowing how to take care
of yourself is another.
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Imagine this situation:
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I'm 10 or 11 years old,
I wake up in the morning,
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my parents toss me the keys and say,
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"Seba, now you can walk to school alone."
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And when I come back late,
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they say, "No -- you need to be home
at the time we said."
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And two weeks later,
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when it comes up,
they say, "You know what?
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You have to cross at the corner
and look both ways before crossing."
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And two years later, they say,
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"And also, don't talk to strangers."
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It sounds absurd, right?
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We have the same absurd behavior
in relation to technology.
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We give kids total access
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and we see if one day, sooner or later,
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they learn how to take care of themselves.
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Knowing how to do something is one thing,
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knowing how to take care
of yourself is another.
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Along those same lines,
when we talk to parents,
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they often say they don't care
about technology and social networks.
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I always rejoin that by asking
if they care about their kids.
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As adults, being interested
or not in technology
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is the same as being interested
or not in our kids.
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The Internet is part of their lives.
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Technology forces us to rethink
the relationship between adults and kids.
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Education was always based
on two main concepts:
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experience and knowledge.
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How do we teach our kids to be safe online
when we don't have either?
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Nowadays, we adults
have to guide our children
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through what is often for us
unfamiliar territory --
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territory much more inviting for them.
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It's impossible to find an answer
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without doing new things --
things that make us uncomfortable,
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things we're not used to.
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A lot of you may think it's easy for me,
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because I'm relatively young.
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And it used to be that way.
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Used to.
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Until last year,
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when I felt the weight
of my age on my shoulders
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the first time I opened Snapchat.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
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I didn't understand a thing!
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I found it unnecessary,
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useless, hard to understand;
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it looked like a camera!
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It didn't have menu options!
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It was the first time I felt the gap
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that sometimes exists
between kids and adults.
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But it was also an opportunity
to do the right thing,
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to leave my comfort zone, to force myself.
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I never thought I'd ever use Snapchat,
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but then I asked my teenage cousin
to show me how to use it.
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I also asked why she used it.
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What was fun about it?
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We had a really nice talk.
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She showed me her Snapchat,
she told me things,
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we got closer, we laughed.
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Today, I use it.
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(Laughter)
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I don't know if I do it right,
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but the most important thing
is that I know it and I understand it.
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The key was to overcome the initial shock
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and do something new.
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Something new.
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Today, we have the chance
to create new conversations.
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What's the last app you downloaded?
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Which social network do you use
to contact your friends?
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What kind of information do you share?
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Have you ever been
approached by strangers?
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Could we have these conversations
between kids and adults?
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We have to force ourselves
to do it. All of us.
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Today, lots of kids are listening to us.
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Sometimes when we go
to schools to give our talks,
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or through social networks,
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kids ask or tell us things
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they haven't told
their parents or their teachers.
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They tell us -- they don't even know us.
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Those kids need to know
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what the risks of being online are,
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how to take care of themselves,
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but also that, fundamentally,
as with almost everything else,
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kids can learn this from any adult.
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Online safety needs to be
a conversation topic
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in every house and every
classroom in the country.
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We did a survey this year that showed
that 15 percent of schools said
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they knew of cases of grooming
in their school.
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And this number is growing.
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Technology changed
every aspect of our life,
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including the risks we face
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and how we take care of ourselves.
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Grooming shows us this
in the most painful way:
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by involving our kids.
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Are we going to do something
to avoid this?
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The solution starts
with something as easy as:
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talking about it.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)