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Online predators, cyberbullies addressed at InfraGard meeting

Michigan InfraGard. The event, which took place in the Learning Resources Center on campus, involved discussions on topics like cyberbullying and human trafficking. (Journal photo by Christie Bleck)

MARQUETTE — In the digital age, adults need to always be on guard to protect themselves and their children from online predators and cyberbullies.

That was the focus of a Feb. 8 Michigan InfraGard quarterly meeting, which took place at the Learning Resource Center on the Northern Michigan University’s campus.

Michigan InfraGard is a public-private partnership with the FBI dedicated to the protection of Americans, particularly infrastructures and resources.

Members of local law enforcement, child welfare agencies and other segments of the community attended the meeting, whose speakers were based downstate and gave their presentations via video.

One of the speakers was Cathy McCann, of the Michigan Cyber Safety Initiative, who focused on social media and cyberbullying.

“The key component to keeping our children safe is open and honest communication, and so it’s very important when children come to us with information with what we feel is inappropriate contact on the internet, or inappropriate activity, we have to be very careful not to overreact,” McCann said.

The consequences could be harmful to the kids.

If parents overreact, their children aren’t going to talk with them again on the subject, she said.

Student safety programming has been presented to nearly 2 million Michigan children in kindergarten through 12th grade. Students receive the Michigan CSI program, which teaches them how to be safe online, and undergo OK2SAY student safety programming that covers topics youths face today, including appropriate online behavior, cyberbullying and threats to their well-being.

One key thing they learn is to never share personal information with strangers online and to never meet with those strangers in person.

“Even kindergartners know that,” McCann said.

With the younger set, they need to know the difference between telling and tattling.

“It can be very difficult for children to know ‘When do you really need an adult to intervene?’ versus ‘Maybe we can work this out ourselves,'” McCann said.

Older kids hear discussions about suicide, self-injury and how digital footprinting works.

That means teaching kids to think before they post.

“Anytime they post something that they might regret having posted later on, they can’t control it,” McCann said. “Of course, you all know this. They can’t control it. They have to assume that it will be public, and it will live forever.”

If youngsters find themselves in difficult situations, she suggested they come up with a code — in her example, it was “Have you found the dog?” — which they can text to an adult, who responds by saying they will come get them in five minutes.

“It’s sort of a safe and elegant way for them to make their exit,” McCann said.

She had other suggestions for parents, including the main one: paying attention.

“As parents, we believe that the very best thing to do to try to protect your child is to pay attention to what they’re doing and ask really good questions,” McCann said.

That means getting an account on a child’s social platform to monitor activity, and to check and adjust the privacy settings to not make them public.

She acknowledged being popular is important with youths, but a large number of social media friends can be a warning sign.

“If they are not friends with somebody offline, they should never be friends with them online,” McCann said.

Cyberbullying also is a problem, but it’s one that can be battled with empathy.

“If we can teach our children to be empathetic, they’re less likely to bully somebody or stand by and watch somebody else be bullied,” McCann said. “We need to help our kids understand the difference between funny and cruel, and that’s a lesson that we all need to know.”

Again, talking to someone is important, but she also noted confidential tips can be given online at ok2say.com.

Nicole McGee, Ph.D., a victim specialist for the FBI’s Detroit office, talked about human trafficking.

She said human trafficking involves things like moving, harboring and recruiting a person through coercion, force or fraud for the purpose of monetary servitude, debt bondage, slavery or the sex trade.

McGee geared her presentation toward juvenile domestic sex trafficking.

However, it’s not always runaways who are victims.

“I have had several, several victims who haven’t run away,” McGee said. “They go home every night. They go to school. They are returned home after school, or they are children who — maybe they have parents who work in the afternoon — their parent thinks that they’re at an after-school activity, and they’re not.”

How are victims recruited? Through a variety of means, she said, which include social media, escort websites, friends and family, and pimps posing as boyfriends.

“It’s so easy for them to access our children,” McGee said.

She mentioned several red flags for identifying possible trafficking victims, such as possessing hotel room keys, injuries, not speaking for themselves and certain tattoos — which often are the ways traffickers brand their victims.

McGee dispelled what might be a stereotype to many people: that trafficking victims come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Instead, victims come from all socioeconomic backgrounds.

“Whoever is vulnerable on the internet can be a victim,” McGee said.

The FBI, she said, operates the Innocent Images Initiative, which targets organizations involved in child prostitution.

According to the FBI website, much of that work is performed through task forces across the United States.

Another presenter was Chris Burrows, chief information security officer of Oakland County, who talked about CySAFE, a free information technology assessment tool created in 2014 to help small- and mid-sized organizations assess, understand and prioritize their basic IT security needs.

For details, visit www.g2gmarket.com.

Bob Hanson, a criminal justice professor at NMU who spearheaded the quarterly meeting, said constant vigilance is necessary in the digital world.

“There’s some really scary stuff out there,” Hanson said.

Christie Bleck can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250. Her email address is cbleck@miningjournal.net.

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