Online Predators & Child Exploitation: What Parents Need to Know

This is Women Road Warriors with Shelly Johnson and Cassie Ticcaro from the corporate office to the cab of a truck. They're here to inspire and empower women in all professions. So gear down, sit back and enjoy. Welcome. We're an award-winning show dedicated to empowering women in every profession through inspiring stories and expert insights. No topics off limits on our show. We Power Women on the Road to Success with expert and celebrity interviews and information you need. I'm Shelly. And I'm Cassie. For many parents, the internet has become one of the most dangerous and unpredictable places their children can enter. Where predators, traffickers, sex-dorsion schemes, and harmful online influences can reach kids with just one click, one message, or one social media app. Our guest today has made it her mission to fight back. Lynn Shaw is the founder and president of Lynn's Warriors, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending human trafficking, sexual exploitation, online predation, and the growing dangers children face in today's digital world. She's educating with awareness, advocacy, and legislative action. Lynn's Warriors empowers parents by letting them know about the social media manipulation, the online predators, AI-related dangers, and the mental health impacts that technology can have on children and teens. The organization is actively involved in grassroots mobilization and policy advocacy. They support legislation designed to strengthen online protections for minors, hold tech platforms accountable, and push lawmakers to address the rapidly growing crisis of child exploitation in digital spaces. Before becoming a leading voice in this fight, Lynn built an extraordinary career in entertainment and media, producing projects connected to Broadway productions including Amadeus, The Crucible, Hairspray, and The Wedding Singer, while also creating major media and cultural events in New York and beyond. She's using that influence and expertise to protect our next generation from dangers parents don't even realize exist. Please welcome the founder and president of Lynn's Warriors, Lynn Shaw. Lynn, thank you so much for being on our show. No, thank you Shelly and Kathy for having me. It's a complete honor. I'm very humbled. And obviously, I just love the name Road Warrior. So here I am, and thank you for wanting to really jump into this very complex topic that most will back away from in media. Yes, I'm so excited about this. Thank you so much for being our guest. Yes, thank you for what you're doing, Lynn. And you're right, the media does. They back away from so many things that they should be reporting. That's their job. And we need to keep the accountability out there and create the awareness. How did all of this begin? What motivated you to take up the gauntlet, if you will, and really start the fight to stop this? You know, Shelly and Kathy, if you had asked me, you know, 10 years ago, I could never imagine I'm doing what I'm doing today. I mean, I came out of college and I used to write jingles for television commercials when we had in the day live musicians and we did live, you know, for the ad agencies. We did live music and then working on film scores. It was always music I was involved with. Fast forward many years, I was working with a client who, well-known client, and I did work with a lot of celebrities, and she was writing a book about domestic violence. And in doing the research and ghost writing and helping her get the word out, I came across the intersection, all my research, domestic violence, human trafficking, it all intersects. I became a crazy woman. I literally woke up one day and said to my husband, I am going to become a warrior. He's like, what? I said, I'm going to become a warrior. I assure both of you, I have never used that word before. I've never used it. And he's like, what are you talking about? I said, I'm going to at my age, who's going to stop me? I'm going to call myself an expert. I'm going to educate myself and I'm going to get out there and just spread awareness and education. Because in entertainment over the years, it was always they came to us about all the other countries. It was always like trafficking would be in Philippines or Thailand or let's raise money for waters in Africa. And I'm talking about we are focused on America. This was happening in all of our backyards across America. And I couldn't understand. I had a great childhood. This is happening. And so that's it. That's really what sprung me into action. And I formed a nonprofit and I just started going places, meeting people, going to Washington. I've never done any of that before and just getting out there. And you know, it's really a journey that's really only just begun in my opinion. It's such a huge web to untangle. And I don't think people really have the awareness of this. I think parents think I have parental controls on the computer and on my kids phones and that sort of thing. But I don't think they know exactly what's happening. Could you give a crash course if you wouldn't mind on what parents should look for? What is going on on the web? Well, first of all, let's start with this is because this is a dark subject, right? Exploitation. Nobody could ever imagine their child, their teen might get involved in all of this. People tend to close the door or close their eyes. They don't want to talk about it. That is the truth. Now they do want to talk about it after something happens. But the most important thing is this awareness and prevention piece. Right now, because kids ages nine to 17 have access in their homes to four different devices, the phones and Chromebooks and gaming laptops. That is the predator in your home. This is the part, Shelley and Kathy, I don't understand. They think because their child or their teen is at home, you know, safe under their roof that they're safe. But the predator was right there under our noses because when you give your child any device, it is like opening up your front door and just saying, come on in everybody from across the world. Just come on in. And most of us don't do that. We don't keep our front or our back door just unlocked and welcome people in. And people don't understand when you hand your child a device, that is exactly your handing in the world. So you have to, if you're going to buy that device, if you're paying for the internet, you've got the router in your home. I really think you have a duty of making sure you talk to your child. Number one, you put on any parental controls that are available on devices, right? And that you really are part of their lives and you form this family digital partnership because I could go on and on, you know, on this for hours. But number one is the awareness. Don't think your child is safe just because they're in their bedroom with the door closed. Actually, one of the things we recommend, no devices in the bedrooms. Number one, kids need the rest. We work with schools across the country. Teachers report kids are falling asleep on their desks and they're staying up all night scrolling. We know from all the studies that have come out, especially in the last two years, we have so many studies now because the internet was born in 1996. So now we basically have proof. We have 30 years of proof, right? That kids are addicted. You can, anybody can become addicted to the internet. This infinite scrolling, these dangerous algorithms that we also know are fed to everybody because we have whistleblowers from the big tech companies. We have internal memos have been have been disclosed to us and their job is keep a child, keep a person online, right? Eyeballs, it adds, helps us with our ad dollars and that's a client for life, you know, keeping this child. So parents have to understand you're not safe in your own home, but the number one key is also communication. I was in a meeting today and the number one thing was that children are reporting and teens, right? Anybody under 18 will say, I'm afraid to tell my parents anything. I'm embarrassed to tell my parents anything. My parents will yell at me. We got to get over all of this. The kids are learning everything online from strangers. They're seeing everything, right? So let us be the leaders, right? Let us be the ones that talk to them. We all have done dumb things as kids, even as adults sometimes, you know, but we accept it and just say, okay, I'm not a trusted adult. You know, come to me, we'll fix it because we have too many kids harming themselves from strangers, from strangers. So the thing is awareness. The thing is, you know, like you eat and you brush your teeth and you go to school, you go to work, you got to talk a couple of minutes a day. You know, what games are you on? Who are you talking to? Let's talk about safety. Let's really concentrate. People have to do this and that's the key that's missing because everybody's like, I'm tired. I'm overwhelmed. I'm like, quiet if they're on an iPad. Let me have a few minutes of peace and we get that. I mean, there's something called parental autonomy. We're not judging. We're trying to help and we're trying to educate and we're trying to give you all these tips to make it easier for you. It really starts number one, awareness. You have to educate yourself and you have to talk to your kids. We don't know what 12 year olds, what they're dealing with. You know, unless we talk to them kind of thing and even that they're reluctant to come forward. Kids are savvy. Kids are smart. They can get around safety controls. You may do everything perfectly in your home, but your child as far as devices, because we deal with a lot of parents. And what happens, your child goes to a friend's house and that other child shows them something anyway. So it's this overall environment for all of us that we have to keep talking about it. We have to keep raising awareness and we have to hold those who cause harm accountable. That is another piece that's missing. Absolutely. And there are things that children and teens should not be seeing or engaging in. I mean, this is a terrible manipulation. These are formative years and the kind of harm that can be done is unbelievable. But you're saying that they're talking to people. Where are they hanging out? What is going on? What exactly is happening? Are there predators that are reaching out and getting them to meet somewhere? Because I've heard of that too. It seems like a myriad of terrible possibilities that can really, it's devastating for our kids. Yeah. Well, we know we have a very well-documented youth mental health crisis. We've had FBI warnings about all of this. We've also just recently, HHS, Health and Human Services put out a report about screen times and addictions. This was just, I think it was last week. Kids are online too much. We know children are spending up to nine hours a day online. Wow. What's happening is, I'm always like, well, how do they go to school, sleep, eat? How do they do anything? And then there's nine hours. So that goes into that addiction. They're scrolling all night. Right? And it's just out of control. So if a parent saw something like that or a caregiver, my child is constantly scrolling online. But we're actually teaching now, okay, in your homes, everybody put down devices for 15 minutes a day and then build up to 30 minutes. It sounds very elementary, but this is what we're teaching. We live in a digital world. It is not going away. And we're sitting on AI. That's a whole other conversation. It's here. We are at the Warriors, pro-innovation, pro-technology. We work with great ethical technologists. We want the technology to work for us, for our children, to engage, empower, and educate them. We don't want to have our kids working for the technology, which is the way it is right now. Right now, kids are spending all their time on YouTube, Snap, and TikTok. Countless hours. What happens, okay, wherever the kids are, so are the predators. It's that easy wherever the kids are. In my day, it used to be, you know, stranger danger. Remember the game rooms and like malls? They would have the, you know, the animal. And the elbow. Yeah. And it was always, those were the sites where, because we didn't have the internet, these predators would go and offer some kids, you know, quarters for games and things like that. But now the internet, everybody has a phone, basically, or a device. So what they're doing now is basically getting the kids sliding into the DMs, the direct messages, okay? And we know that the studies vary, but I'm going to go with one in four, 18 and under, our approach sexually online. Okay. My God. Now, wow, asking for an image, sexual dialogue. We work with law enforcement. We work with the DEA. I have seen it all. It's unbelievable. But what happens, so that's one in four. This is about 25%. Whatever we think we know, it's always higher, right? Because this is kind of hidden in darkness, a lot of this stuff, with the trafficking exploitation. And we know the one in four, so 25%, right? 32% of them will go out, attempt to meet that stranger in public. So where's our stranger danger? Like that stayed for decades, stranger danger, right? Like where's our new stranger danger of making our children understand this is going on? You can't go out and meet a stranger. Look at the cases and the headlines in the last couple of years. If you dig around far enough, usually they don't even list it, but I dig around in different things. They always have a line, met somebody online, attempting to go meet somebody they met online. It's almost always when a child is harmed or disappears, it's connected to the internet. And so have we not learned anything over the last 30 years? You know, now we have these studies coming out with the mental health, with the predators. But when we talk about all of this, we have to get into big tech, right? X, Facebook, meta, I should say, which is Facebook and WhatsApp and Instagram. All of these big tech companies, there's no regulation for them. It's the only business where there is no regulation because in 1996, it fell under Section 230, the Communications Decency Act. And there were two platforms then, which basically said, and I agree with in 1996, we're a newsstand. We're a billboard. You can't hold us responsible for third-party content. But today, we have games popping up every day, platforms popping up every day, apps popping up every day, and they're still falling back on this Section 230. That's what they're doing legally. So we are moving to sunset that Section 230. But everybody has to understand, like, that's why they're allowed to get away with this. But this is the only piece of legislation since 1996. It hasn't been amended in 30 years. Usually different bills, you know, legislation, every couple of years get amended. Nothing with Section 230. And we could talk about that one all day and all night long. So what are the actual stats? How many children and teens have been abducted, have been hurt by these things? I'm sure that there are many, many, many cases. And you would think that lawmakers would be looking at that. Well, here's the thing. Again, a lot of the stats, recently we've had some good studies come out. But starting, that's starting in the last two years. Before that, with the human trafficking exploitation, law enforcement would hand the warriors, you know, they'd hand things from 2010. And I'm like, I can't use this. This is so old. And that was always one of the things. We don't have the resources for new studies. It costs so much money. Look, the law is always lagging behind technology. This we know as well. As far as we know, again, the numbers are very murky, right? Because a lot of this does not get reported. What we do know about 2,300 American children go missing every day. Now of that missing, that can be sex traffic, labor traffic, runaway children, we consider missing children, runaway children. Okay, people fight about this all the time. Runaway children. A lot of kids are kicked out of their homes. A lot of kids have to run away. They're abused at home, right? They run away. They have no choice. We work with these kids. They're better off, they think, on the streets than the abuse at home. And also, so you've got to take all that into account. I would say to you, the numbers are staggering in the hundreds of thousands a year, right? But as far as online, it's a whole different kind of animal. Right now in the United States, we have over 2,000 cases pending in the courts of holding big tech accountable. And we've got thousands more waiting because recently we did have two wins in court. We had New Mexico, okay? And that was data that they were giving away the children's data, which we cannot do for somebody under 18. And then in California, product liability. So we used to go into the courts about this section 230. It was about content. But these lawyers were very smart. And they told me they were going to do this a long time ago. We're going to go in differently. We're going to have a product. They're putting out a product that harms, knowingly harms. Now we could back that up because we had a lot of whistleblowers come forward that worked at these big tech companies and also all these internal memos where Mark Zuckerberg himself is spelling out, you know, children are herd animals. We know how to get them. We know how to addict them. We just want money and eyeballs. We had all that. And these are two cases recently that were won, which opens the doors for all thousands of other cases coming down the pike. So as far as numbers, I don't even know how to calculate that because it's thousands of children whether they're buying, I don't even know because on Snap they're buying drugs with two clicks and having them delivered to their back door. We have sex distortion. We have cyber bullying is a huge problem. We have eating disorders. All these videos teaching girls how to starve themselves to death and they eat a cotton ball with orange juice on it, one cotton ball. This is the content that kids are absorbing these days. So the numbers are out of control. Wow. I'm sure some of the parents are going, what are some of these terms you're talking about? They haven't heard of it. Yeah. Wow. Like I'm just sitting here flabbergasted. I mean, you know, you know, but when it comes down to numbers, you don't really, I don't even think we can grasp the enormity of how this poison, this disease has infected the world. It's absolutely horrifying. It's horrifying. So now what do we do? Right? We have to figure out what do we do? Look, we don't like, at the Warriors, we don't like the word ban. We don't use word. We don't want to ban anything. We want to make things safe, right? We don't want to take anybody's First Amendment rights away. I'm thinking of things people wrote to me today. That's why, you know, we're not trying to, you know, the Constitution and First Amendment rights. We are trying to work on some common sense legislation. We don't want the government all in everything, but let's, let's face it, ladies. They're watching everything we do anyway, right on our devices, our phones, our laptops, and surveillance all over. So they know already everything going on. You know, right now we're working on a very simple piece of legislation actually for four and a half years called the Kids Online Safety Act. And it puts three little words, duty of care. Duty of care that these big tech companies do everything in their power reasonably. This is the language. It's so simple. When they put out the product, they do everything in their power to make it safe for kids. Okay? Now, we passed a year and a half ago in the Senate, 91 to 3. That's terrific. It goes over to the House. We think it'll be the same type of thing. Who doesn't want to protect kids? Have a little something holding big tech accountable? I have to tell you, the gloves are on because it sat in the house for a year and a half collecting dust. We're now working very hard with lots of survivor parents. They're so brave, these parents, their children are dead. And they've come forward to fight for not only themselves and their children that are no longer here, for these thousands of parents across the United States who don't, they can't talk about it. They're the trauma, they're devastated, you know, to talk, tell their stories. And we're fighting so hard, you know, in Washington to just have one piece of legislation that holds big tech accountable. Because the other thing we get all the time, and it's the big tech playbook, is blaming the parents, blaming the parents constantly. The three of us know, parents need to step up, parents need to do the best they can do. But we also know that people are overwhelmed. People are trying to put food on the table, pay their rent or mortgage, right? So they can't be watching everything all over. Why is big tech allowed to make, I don't even know how much money they make, trillions. I don't even know what the number is, zillions, whatever that is, off the backs of all of us and our precious vulnerable kids. Why is that allowed? So we're trying to have big tech take some responsibility here. And I can't tell you the fighting going on because right now, big tech has all the money and all the power. A corporatocracy. Yes. Yes. Isn't that sad? Because on Capitol Hill right now, meta employs one lobbyist per every four members of Congress. And they are constantly five days a week in the ears of legislative aides, the Senate. And you know when people go to vote and things like that, they're so busy and all that, it's like the last thing they heard. So if somebody in your ear all the time, right, twisting words, whatever, they're just going to go vote in favor of big tech. Or frankly, you know, when you leave Congress, you want to be on the board of big tech, you want to go somewhere, maybe that has a lot of money, right? It used to be any financial institutions. Now it's become big tech. I mean, they're literally at the dinner table, you know, at the White House, right? But and I want to point something else out. All of this work is bipartisan. It belongs to no political party. Everybody surely should be able to get on board for the safety of our kids, right? Yes. But absolutely not. We're making strides and we are, you know, the pendulum is slightly swinging back and that's because the public is beginning to wake up a little bit, become more aware. They see the harms or they see these parents whose children are no longer here. They're hearing about the Kids Online Safety Act and other things. And by the way, the states have done terrific work for child safety, much better than the federal government. Stay tuned for more of Women Road Warriors coming up. Dean Michael, the tax doctor here. I have one question for you. Do you want to stop worrying about the IRS? If the answer is yes, then look no further. I've been around for years. I've helped countless people across the country and my success rate speaks for itself. So now you know where to find good, honest help with your tax problems. What are you waiting for? If you owe more than $10,000 of the IRS or haven't filed in years, call me now at 888-557-4020 or go to mytaxhelpmd.com for a free consultation and get your life back. Welcome back to Women Road Warriors with Shelley Johnson at Cathy Takarro. If you're enjoying this informative episode of Women Road Warriors, I wanted to mention Cathy and I explore all kinds of topics that will power you on the road to success. We feature a lot of expert interviews. Plus, we feature celebrities and women who've been trailblazers. Please check out our podcast at womenroadwarriors.com and click on our episodes page. We're also available wherever you listen to podcasts on all the major podcast channels like Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon Music, Audible, you name it. Check us out and bookmark our podcast and tell others about us. We want to help as many women as possible. One in four kids are approached sexually online. Think about that for a moment. That is a startling statistic. Online predators are a real danger. Lin Shaw is the founder and president of Lin's Warriors, a non-profit organization on the front lines fighting human trafficking, online predation, sexual exploitation, and the growing dangers children face in today's digital world. Lin's Warriors is working to hold tech platforms accountable while educating parents about social media manipulation, AI-related dangers, and the serious mental health impacts technology and predators have on children and teens. Her organization's been working really hard to get the Kids Online Safety Act passed in Congress. You know, Lin, things have changed so dramatically in just a few short decades, with predators essentially being in the palm of our hands on devices and no regulations or stopgaps in place to shield kids from that or the terrible messaging that can be online. When you think back, of course, the FCC certainly for broadcasting set certain standards and things you could and could not say. And television for many, many years when we just had the standard networks, not the plethora of stuff that we have today, your programming basically was not supposed to be too controversial or too sexy or anything else until what? Nine o'clock when most kids were supposed to be going to bed. There was an element of we want to protect the kids. We don't want to expose them to certain things. This is not good for little ears. That's not going on now. And I mean, when you think about the weight children process, this is so predatory all the way around. And the fact that someone can step in and start talking to them, they have no idea who these people are. I'm sure these people are even trying to pass themselves off as another kid. Yes. They do that a lot with the sex distortion cases, especially. Yes. And how do parents stop this? I mean, a lot of it, parents don't even know what's going on, even if they put maybe parental controls in place, right? Well that's just it because most devices do have parental controls. We know for instance with an iPhone, an Apple iPhone, there are 31 steps to have any kind of safety and we always get by step 10 or 11 a parent saying, it's too difficult. I gave up and you know what? I hand the phone to my child and say, just be careful. You can't give up because there's a lot of free resources out there as well. I mean, we collaborate with a lot of different organizations across the country. Our great friends and colleagues, ProtectYoungEyes, protectyoungeyes.com, our friend Chris McKenna, he will personally walk you through every step of every device and help you do this. I mean, this is all free and people need to know there are resources out there that will help you. But again, we live in this society, everything's quick, everything's next, everything's time, time, time. We're not taking the time. And this is what the predators and big tech count on, right? That we will just become overwhelmed. So we're not going to take any of these steps. And the other thing is, a lot of these safety steps because we have people who test these things out, the majority of them do not work correctly. Not only that, kids are smart. They don't have to get around controls. They know better than we know about all this stuff. And that's another thing I hear from adults. They'll say, well, I didn't grow up with the internet. Well, I'm 65. I'm 65 years old. I didn't grow up with the internet. You learn, right? You learn about how to make things work. You have a responsibility, especially if you have a child in your home. You learn how to stay safe. And that's the other thing. You know, it was always wear seatbelts, wear bicycle helmets, don't drink and drive. We all remember that stuff. But I don't know. There's something with the internet. People are just thinking it's safe. And that's the thing I don't get because we do have more information coming out. We do have more organizations. We do have more parents talking about it. There is a lot of hope. I want to talk about that as well because we do have a lot of people stepping up in the classrooms, states stepping up, certainly parents stepping up, kids themselves. We're working with a lot of young people, 30 and under. They're realizing they've been the guinea pigs. They don't like it. They're angry. And they are coming together. We march peacefully with them here in New York and across the country. Just two, we're putting down devices. We're putting them down even one day a week. We're starting somewhere. We're educating our younger siblings and the younger kids. We don't want them to go through what we've been through with all of this slop, which is the word being used now, which is the correct word being thrown at us. But interestingly enough, the other day I read, it was great. Remember my space? We had my space in the beginning. Yeah. And it was supposed to connect like family and friends. Well, that was for like college students or something. And then we had Facebook was college students and we thought, wow, this is great. We can talk to grandma across the country and our family. We don't see. It sounds very nice, right? And they got us habituated and used to this. And then there was just this rollout of all of these platforms. But right now, more people on a daily basis are talking with strangers. They're not connecting with family and friends. Isn't that interesting? So we're talking to all these strangers. These strangers are the ones giving our children advice. And that's the problem because a lot of it is danger, very dangerous. And it's shaping young minds. They're very vulnerable. And it's so easy for them to do that, say that teenagers get mad at their parents. So they go and get on the internet and talk to a stranger who understands. And you can just see the setup. I mean, these kids are vulnerable. They do not think like adults. They don't have the life experience. I mean, it's just awful. No. I mean, developmentally, their brains are the front lobe. They're not. They're easily manipulated. They're easily excitable. They're easily manipulated completely. I watched Dateline a lot. Oh my goodness. Oh my God. Some of these things that happened to these kids. And you're right. Kids react. They're fighting with the teenagers or fighting with their parents. And then somebody will lure them online. And you know what? They're going to sneak out the window and try and be rebellious. And then next thing you know, they just never come home. Right? Yeah. That's just a small instance. But no, but you're correct. And with that, remember, we live in a society now, everybody. And this goes for adults. Right? We're supposed to lead by example, mentor. Right? But when you have women my age dancing in bikinis or something, and the kids see this, like how can we help them? You know, don't put those provocative, don't go on only fans or something. But it's nobody's fault because the kids grew up. I'm going to say 30 and under. I like to stick with that. Right? They grew up in putting your feelings online. You know, putting everything, your food online, what you're wearing online, all of this stuff. And that's where the predators come in, pick up. They'll tell you know, a 12-year-old girl, you're so beautiful. Right? Who doesn't want to hear that? And they manipulate them right away. This is all we used to say, the manipulations happen within 48 hours. We're saying now they happen within hours. Okay? Our kids are so depleted. You know, we really learned a lot during that COVID period. That's where when kids were home with their government issued Chromebooks. And all of a sudden, mom's checking on homework. She goes in the kitchen to check on dinner, comes back, and her 10-year-old's watching pornography. They issued over a million Chromebooks to children across the United States. They never even put on any safety features. So that's where a lot of parents started saying, what's going on here? You know, or little Susie was watching Strawberry Shortcake, and the next thing, it's a pornographic Strawberry Shortcake. Like, that's where a lot of the waking up started happening with all of this. I will say that's the only good thing for me that came out of that period is people were getting to push back, wake up, seek answers, want to get involved. And that wasn't that long ago, right? So what we can't blame kids, they grew up in this environment. For instance, I'm going to pick on Netflix. I'm not going to pick on them. This is a fact. Netflix. We just completed a study of their content for children. Okay? 40 deemed for children. This is how they have it rated. And streaming is a whole different animal, right? And what we had with broadcast TV and all that, streaming 42% of Netflix content for children has sexual themes and words and innuendo in it, 42%. So our kids are growing up in this kind of, yeah, sexualized, right? The music, the streaming, the entertainment, just society. Look how it is, again, fueled, I believe, by the internet. And why does it have to be sexualized? What's the objective there? Okay, Shelly, come on now. Because very crassly, the answer is money. Yeah, oh yeah. All of this, the answer, it's a horrible answer that I'm forced to say the truth is big tech getting away with what they're getting away with is because there's so much money involved. Netflix, so much money involved, right? So many people also complicit, right? Yeah. About all of this. These are the things in media. That's why I'm so thankful that both of you are having me. We can discuss this. Because media, what do they want to talk about? Jeffrey Epstein, P Diddy. That's what they focus on. And they tell me, because we get clicks and likes and all that and it's content driven, all right, but shouldn't we have this duty to talk about this and put out some warning signs? And if we just have a few parents listening to this or grandmas or grandpas who say, you know what, I'm going to check with my grandchild or I'm going to check with my, like we've done our duty. If we can affect change in one person, one child, one family a day, we have done it because it is too overwhelming. We're talking right now about the United States. We're not even talking globally about what is going on. And why is this allowed? A person can buy another person, a person can manipulate another person, our beautiful children. And everybody's forgetting. Just our future American adults and leaders. Where are we going to be Shelly and Kathy in five and 10 years? Not in a good place at all. Unless there's some meaningful change, right? Yes. Comes about. Now there is tremendous pushback. This states are fighting. We put out a letter from 44 attorneys general saying that what's going on right now with child legislation is no good. It's missing the mark because they took our kids online safety act. They lumped it in with all these other bills, right? To make this one big package. And they took out those three important words, do you care? So basically I'm like, well, our kids online safety act with what the house did to it is a piece of toilet paper. That's the only way to describe it. It's meaningless. Yet you will have Congress then say, look what we did. We're fighting for families. We're fighting for our children. It's useless. It's a piece of nothing. So for 44 states, the AGs to come out, that is tremendous progress. I think that is tremendous. And you know what? They want to do preemption. So preemption is all of these great state laws with AI now, with holding big tech accountable. The federal government wants to come in now and wipe all that away and have one federal standard. And both of you can guess that federal standard. Who do you think that benefits? Big tech? Big tech. Big tech is writing the playbook right now. But there's going to be tremendous fighting back. These AGs will be suing. So this is actually good news. It's sad we have to talk about all this and have fights. It's children's safety, right? But then the other good news in Lower Marion County, which is in Pennsylvania, their governor Josh Shapiro, he announced, we're going to get back to textbooks. We're going to take the Chromebooks out of the classrooms. We're going to get back to pencil and paper. Good. And you start it. This is so tremendous, right? And the other thing is parents started this across the country. They were calling it pencil to paper. Now I think the media should be covering this. Parents alone said, here's a myth. Parents think because their child was issued a Chromebook, right? An iPad in their classroom. They will tell you the school, a lot of them. You have to be. We're doing all our lessons online. That's the way it is. Okay? That is a myth. You have the right to say, no, I'm opting out. They'll fight you on at some schools. We're opting out. We want a textbook and we want a package of papers with our weekly assignments. That is sweeping the country. Yet media doesn't know a thing about it because I talked to a lot of people in media, you know, off media kind of thing to see, did you know about this? Do you know about this? And the parents started this and that's called pencil to paper. And it's the same thing Governor Shapiro is doing where he's putting out an order now. We are going back. So that's a really good move and that'll sweep the country. Now we also have almost every state. It's called different things in New York. We call it bell to bell phones out of the classrooms during the day. The students are in the classrooms, meaning you check your phone in the morning. You get it when you pick it up, you know, after school. That doesn't solve the problem of all this predation, but at least the kids for those six or seven hours or however long they're in school will not be distracted. They'll be focused on, you know, their peers and relationships. They'll be focused on learning with teachers and we have reports coming in from all over. Kids are doing better. Kids are focusing. Teachers for the first time are reporting, we love it. We hear screaming in the cafeteria, screaming on the playground. We haven't had that because kids will sit in the cafeteria four together and they'll all be on their phones at the same time not talking to each other, but they'll be texting each other right next. So there's a lot of good stuff happening and we need to just cover and get it out there. This is good. Having them get away from the gadgets and the devices. Oh, God, yeah. I've talked to experts on memory and essentially if you are engaging your body like the book, the pencil to paper, you're going to learn better. Of course. The devices are actually, I think that there have been some studies also briefly that they're seeing elements of Alzheimer's or something like that in young children because of, yeah, because of the, beyond these devices. And they're being trained to look at things in 15 second increments. So their long term concentration is being severely compromised. I mean, all the way around, it's not the way our brain is designed to work. And then when you add in the predation and the dangers, that's like putting your kid and parking the child in the middle of a freeway. And they used to call the internet the information highway. Well, it carries some of the same dangers. I mean, you just wouldn't do that. But isn't it incredible? It sounds so good, right? The internet and it is good, right? There's a lot of great AI. We hear about medical, for medical reasons and things like that. Yeah. But now it's so dangerous because we look what's happened in the last 30 years and now we're in this new realm of AI. But that's just the thing. Kids, again, it goes back to that COVID period where kids were forced to be at home. They weren't around their friends, couldn't go out anywhere. They were on the devices. That's where we really saw all this increase, that isolation. And then that isolation continued when we sort of got back to normal. Okay. Yeah. And it just continued on. The predators take advantage, big tech takes advantage. And now we're trying to break that. It is happening now. Slowly. I have a lot of faith in young people. You know, we always hear about the kids that are doing these horrible things, right? If we really go into these shootings, a lot of stuff, they have been, again, teenage boys, especially, feeling out of whack with everything, feeling isolated. Isolation is a big word. Kids always tell me, I'm isolated. I feel isolated, right? Despite having all these devices, they feel isolated. So these boys are finding solace and joining these different groups online that are basically terror groups, and they're basically then going out and shooting people. I mean, that's the research when you look into it. Does media cover all that? No, they don't. So we have these kind of terrorist groups for almost a lot of them, the fun of it, manipulating our children because they can. Isn't that a sad answer? Because they can't. Oh, man. Yeah. And I'm like, that's a bad answer because, and they're allowed. They're like, why aren't we? But people fight. They're like, well, parents should watch their kids. Well, we need our First Amendment rights. We need our freedoms. It is horrific. It is horrific what's going on, and it has to be stopped in a certain degree. Again, we're not trying to shut down anything. We are trying to protect our children and help our families. Right. So parents have to really wake up. This is a call to action. It's no longer like you're waiting for something. Something will happen to your child. You may not even ever find out about it. We have more reports. Kids come to us. They don't dare tell their parents what has happened. So we have to teach also kids the steps to take if, especially teenage boys with this sex distortion, because we work with parents whose sons have killed themselves because they're too embarrassed to go to their parent and say, I exchanged a nude image and now I didn't have $50 to send to the stranger in Nigeria. I'd rather kill myself. Now think about that. That goes into mental health. That goes into a lot of things. The parents always say to me, if I had known, I would have just said, okay, who likes all of this stuff? Nobody does. But we cannot react so we're scaring our children not to come to us. That's a lesson. I used to think I have to go out and teach the children all the time. You know what? I have to teach the parents more than the children because they have to understand really what's going on the parents. Sure. I think that denial is probably something that is a huge defense that they have. They don't want to hear it. They want to deny it. My kid wouldn't be doing that. They don't want to comprehend this and you turn a blind's eye, but you can't. And especially when you have a teenager, my brother used to say a child is either too young to be left alone or too old to be left alone. Because when they're teenagers, they're going to find ways to do things and they're going to try to get over on parents and everything else. It's just the nature of the game when they're trying to be more independent. But the territory they're delving into is very dangerous and you're teaching parents what to look for. And this is a very important thing. Do you have maybe a few warning signs parents can look for and where they can reach out to you to learn how to protect their kids? Well, certainly. Always follow us, linswarriors.org. We also have our YouTube channel. We put out information on everything. It's in linswarriors. I, you know why? Because I want everybody to be a warrior in their own home and community. That's what I really want. You have to be your own best advocate, right? I'm not asking everybody to go march in Washington or your state capital, but I am asking you to do it in your own home, to do it in your own community. Spread the word, whether it's your friends, family members, everybody is associated to a child, even if you don't have a child. You have a sibling who has a child. You have a friend who has a child. And I don't mean hit people over the head, although I'm at a point where I think we do, because this is a crisis, what's going on. This is a true crisis, what's happening with our kids. So what you really have to do is take a few minutes a day. Go to linswarriors.org, read online about things. But we have all of our resources on the website. But also, again, I go back like a broken record, you really have to talk to your children. And here's what they report to me, Shalene and Kathy. They're like, my parents don't have time for me or my parents tell me, like, you know, I'm busy online themselves. Kids are looking for us to really give them a little structure, give them the attention. So they feel cared for. These are kids even coming. I used to say the predators go for all of vulnerable kids and they certainly do, right? But we have parents who have done everything correctly, teaching about safety online, great relationships with their kids, good families, right? Their kids are still dead because they took a challenge on TikTok and did subway surfing. Okay. Which is writing, we have this going on in New York right now. It always was happening, subway surfing, but not like this, where kids get on top of trains, subway trains, and they have a friend with them and they film it so they can put it on TikTok and they're falling off the trains. This is what kids are doing all because they want to be seen, be heard. So we have to really talk to our kids, but every day we have to be on top of them. And I mean it a good way. So it's really opening up that relationship with the family, right? And it's really talking. And I even suggest we have to go back to the basics. I kid you not. Again, we put down the devices a few minutes a day. We spend the time together. And whether that's having a family lunch or dinner, whether that's walking the dog together, this is what we have to teach right now. It's sort of unbelievable, but we have to. This is what young people are missing. Go out in the backyard or wherever you have a park if you live in a city. Get with nature. Right? Nature's very healing. Again, we have so many mental health problems. We have so many young girls that have killed themselves. When the mothers find sometimes they have left diaries and things like that, or they've been able to get into their phones, right? I'm not pretty enough. I'm not smart enough because they're looking at all this unrealistic stuff. Like you both know a lot of this is so fake, right? On Instagram and these teens that are driving these fabulous cars or they have all these Louis Vuitton pocketbooks, it's a fake world. We have to teach them this is fake. And they think, because they live in the middle of the country somewhere, they're 16, I can never be like that. I can never have that. So they kill themselves. This is so how, who are we going to hold responsible for all of this? And I'm again talking about some really great parents who have done everything correctly. So the pointers are, if your child all of a sudden have teenagers or moody, right? Kind of, they go through that hormonal thing. But I think everybody, if you're not in denial, you know your child best. If they're acting a little extra weird or moody. Again, if they're in their room for hours on end, they're probably on those devices. Don't think they're safe in there. Have your devices in a shared area. That's what we do. We also have no devices in the bedrooms at night. No. They're all put away. Your parents have to leave by example. So whether you put all the devices in the parents' bedroom, you put them away. The child also needs to sleep well, right? Things happen at night. Again, this infinite scrolling, it's just dangerous. So devices, no devices in the bedrooms. If your child also all of a sudden had a couple of friends, they don't seem to have friends anymore. They're just acting different. It's worth that conversation of opening it up and talking about it, seeking help. There's nothing wrong with seeking help, appropriate help. There's nothing wrong with the grades drop in school all of a sudden. That is always a sure sign of something. But you have to, again, the schools are also overwhelmed. You have to go in there, into the schools. You have to be that parent advocate. You also have to be the one that go in there and say, we have this problem now with all of this AI being unleashed into the schools and the parents are not being a part of it. The teachers are not being educated in it. Go in and say respectfully, how are you handling AI? What is the plan? Get a couple other parents to go with you. Try to team up. You can even have one or two other parents. Try to in your community get a few parents together. Talk about it. Again, this is a crisis. We have to do the work ourselves. It's no longer you send your child to school, you think your child's safe, or you think the government's going to, because these platforms are part of the government, they are working against us. We have to go out there, call them out appropriately with facts. And take action. This is just part of our daily lives. So everybody's got to get with it. Everybody's got to understand, again, if you buy a device, it's in your home, you have a responsibility for safety as much as you can. And you have to seek out a lot of these free resources, which we list on our resource page on linswarriors.org. But again, talking about it, like we're doing right now, it starts there talking about it. It's okay. Everybody's going through this. A lot of people think if I talk about it, it'll open up the can of worms. And my child will look for pornography. Well, I'm here to say the pornography, the kids are being deluged with it. They're not even looking for it. I had a little girl looking for Apple. She was doing a report on an Apple. By the third click, it was pornographic. She wasn't looking for it. The kids are being fed these algorithms, because again, that helps with the addiction. It helps with advertiser dollars. This is the way of the world. None of us like it. But what are we going to do about it? We all have to take action. Yes, every single person. Absolutely. Stay tuned for more of Women Road Warriors coming up. Join us on social media. Learn more at truckingmovesamerica.com. The majority of the safety steps we use to protect our children from online predators don't work correctly. That's what the experts are saying. Kids need to educate themselves and fight back. They have to realize the internet is not safe for kids. And more kids than you realize are talking to strangers and getting advice and being exploited online. Experts say kids can be manipulated within hours. Gone is the concept of stranger danger and we need to bring that back. But there's hope. Lynn's Warriors is an organization that is stepping up to fight back. Lynn Shaw's organization works to hold tech platforms accountable and educate parents about the threats that are out there. She and her nonprofit are doing amazing work empowering people and future generations. Lynn, you have so much information and so many resources for both parents and the children. It's really empowering. And people can reach out to your organization. You have warrior workshops too. Am I correct? We do. We tell them for sometimes we go into places of worship. Sometimes we go into libraries. It's a community thing. Community centers. Lots of schools we go into. I tend not to put ... I feel like that's private. First of all, I won't post pictures of children ever online. That's another mistake. We know everybody's proud of their children and their grandchildren. I'm here to say there have been cases where somebody says I want a six-year-old boy with blonde hair. And because you've posted pictures online of your son or grandson, they will go, they will find out. Remember, they know how to hack anything and find out locations and things like that. They will find out where you live. They will try to take that child. That is a truth. People have to understand that. Also, do you ever see those graduation signs? I don't know if you've ever ... You have those ... Oh, congratulations. Eighth grade Mary. Hey, you're putting ... And I say, why do you have that? They'll say, what's a school fundraiser? I'm like, okay, buy the sign and put it in your living room. You are targeting your own child. You're putting it out there. They know a child is in that home. The thing we have going on right now is, again, our society thinks we have to put everything out there. Pictures are such a no-note, yet everybody is doing it, putting pictures of kids. So we do a lot of that work in the communities. We don't put pictures online. We think that's private. And we bring a lot of what we call survivor leaders to the table. I've never been trafficked or abused or any of that. I did not know, Shelley and Kathy, until I started doing this, how prevalent this is. Even for generations, our generation coming up and all that, what they've gone through. And I feel so lucky I haven't been abused in my life. Isn't that a sad statement to say? And when I go out now, I'll be counting one in eight children that eighth child is abused, like in my head, because I know stats and things like that. So what we have to do is be extra cautious because of the internet, because predators want to make money. They don't care. They're onto their next. If they can't get you, they're onto their next. That is something with sex distortion. They don't care about you. If they can't get the $50 out of you, you block them. We have to teach our children this. You go on to the next. You tell your trusted adult, they're onto their next victim. They don't care about you. You're not going to kill yourself from a stranger because you can't give them $50. So we have a lot of work to do. And we have to depend on parents to get into those schools and also help out with all of this and want to be warriors and want to talk about all this. Because it's truly, we can talk about state capitals in Washington. It's in the community where it has to happen and then snowball outwards. And I'm happy to say it is happening. You're just not hearing too much about it. And shame on the media for not talking about it. That's what they should be talking about because what you're doing is creating awareness and you're helping all the future generations. Where can people reach out again? Just go to your website and they can ask the website. Yeah, go to my website. Sure. You can write to me, Lynn at lindswarriors.org. And I can direct them. I can recommend something in their area that they can turn to. But I want to put out one thing. If this happens to you, people should always have their fingertips. For instance, the human trafficking hotline 888-373-7888. That's an important number because you can just call that number and say, hey, I live here. Where are some local resources? You should always have a backup. See, people aren't prepared. So then when they get caught in something, they panic, kind of do nothing. Now the other thing is, what if your child comes to you and says, look at this creep, they want a nude image of me or I exchanged one. What do we do? You never erase the evidence. You always contact your local 911. You always contact local FBI offices. They're all around the country. And you always have handy 1-800-VELOST. That's the cyber tip line put out by the National Center on Missing and Exploited Children. We don't like talking about this, but you've got to have the pieces in place. So if something happens, you know what course of action to take and you don't freeze and do nothing because that's the worst thing to do. And another point I want to point out, we talk about trafficking exploitation. There is another myth that is usually strangers. Usually 65%, this is another tough one of the trafficking cases, are by somebody the family knows it's either a family member or somebody the family knows it's called familial trafficking. And that's like a taboo subject. Nobody wants to talk about Uncle Johnny and little Susie. It's buried. But we have to have kids know this is wrong and where can they go if something's happening to them? They have to have that trusted adult who again might be a guidance counselor, might be a teacher, might be another relative to report this. This can't sustain the way we're going on right now. And again, we haven't even touched really upon AI. The ethical technologist tell me it's only going to be bad. So although we're praying and we're hoping and we're teaching, when you hear that from people who work in this field, that's what they do. That is very frightening. Yes, it is. Thank goodness and thank God for your organization because you're giving people a way to fight back and be warriors like you said in their own home and protect their children. So people can just go to lindswarriors.org and they can find a wealth of information. They can reach out to you. This is wonderful. What your organization's doing. Well, I mean, thank you, but we will direct them. We truly, you know, we hear this word a lot collaborate, right? A lot of people do not collaborate. I'm here to say it's taken me a lifetime to get here, but I've realized they don't. We need true collaboration because what I do, you don't do what you do. I don't do. So we really do have to come together and share the information, get it out there and expand everything. And so there may be, you know, we have a situation where the 14 year old needs some housing. She's in a trafficking situation. I don't have housing, but I have colleagues who have housing. So it's that network, right? I like to say it's like a big wheel, you know, with a lot of spokes and each spoke makes that wheel go around because it's all interconnected to all of this. But the abuse has to have, it has to stop. You know, we work with the nurses United against human trafficking across the country. And they're reporting girls as young as nine are showing up in emergency rooms with strangulation marks on their necks because boys are viewing pornography, not their fault because they're being fed these algorithms and they think that's the way you treat a girl. Now, I just said nine years old. We're not even talking 15, 17. And this is going on. So this is like another piece. We need PSAs that the media refuses to do, you know, with the awareness piece that it's just happening because it is a lot to take in. And parents don't want to think this is happening or their child would ever do that. But kids do dumb things or they get involved in things, you know, over their head. We as the adults have to clear this up and we have to erase the embarrassment. There's no more embarrassment when kids are seeing all this stuff anyway online. So let's take it back, but let's hold, you know, companies accountable. Companies like Netflix should be held accountable, right? Big tech should be held accountable and they're beginning to be held accountable. So that's what we need all of you to join us, be a warrior and get on board, you know, house.gov, senate.gov. When we talk about pieces of legislation, we just need your name and zip code because four to seven people contact an office about one topic. They have to address it. It used to be 10. Now it's four to seven. That is how everybody can participate and it takes just seconds to do something like this. There's something for everybody to do. Thank you for starting this organization and doing what you're doing, Lynn. This is exactly what parents and families need. And you're putting the power back in the American family and frankly worldwide because this is a worldwide issue. So thank you. It's unbelievable what you're doing. If I could hug you through this, through cyber, hug me through the internet. I can use, but no, I'm very serious when I say to you, Shelley and Kathy, thank you. Thank you for showcasing this. It is not popular. People don't like this subject. We have to talk about too many children are being harmed. When I said, you know, 40 something percent go out to meet a stranger, it could be 60 percent because again, it's hidden in this darkness, right? This cloak of mystery and all this. And that's what the predators are counting on. And they're counting on silence that we don't talk about it and that they can just keep doing all of these crimes. So I want to say I am so honored and from the bottom of my heart, completely humbled that you're showcasing this and thank you for the work you do showcasing, engaging, educating, empowering women's voices to get it out there. I just love both of you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Lynn. It's been an honor. Yes. Thank you so much for being here today. Oh my gosh. We'll write back at you and I call both of you warriors. You are two terrific warriors. Thank you. Thank you, Lynn. If you're getting value from our show, Women Road Warriors, be sure to hit follow on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss out on what's coming next. We hope you've enjoyed this latest episode. And if you want to hear more episodes of Women Road Warriors or learn more about our show, be sure to check out womenroadwarriors.com. And please follow us on social media. And don't forget to subscribe to our podcast. On our website, we also have a selection of podcasts just for women. There are a series of podcasts from different podcasters. So if you're in the mood for women's podcasts, just click the Power Network tab on womenroadwarriors.com. You'll have a variety of shows to listen to anytime you want to. Podcasts made for women. Women Road Warriors is on all the major podcast channels like Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Audible, YouTube, and others. Check us out. And please follow us wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening. You've been listening to Women Road Warriors with Shelley Johnson and Kathy Takaro. If you want to be a guest on the show or have a topic or feedback, email us at sjohnson at womenroadwarriors.com.