America SPECIAL INVESTIGATION


Big Tech Raking In Billions From Child Predators


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Last year there were 32 million reports of suspected online sexual exploitation. BY DAVID A. PATTEN


hild welfare advocates, nonprofi t watchdogs, and conservatives are sounding alarms over the staggering


increase in online pornography depict- ing minors. They accuse Big Tech social media


fi rms of raking in tens of millions of dollars off page views promoting child pornography.


Online exploitation of children


is spiraling out of control. Last year alone, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s tip line received over 32 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation. From 2021 to 2022, documented


attempts at the online enticement of children for sexual acts nearly doubled, from 44,155 to 80,524. And because most digital platforms


Newest Menace: Sextortion T


14 NEWSMAX | JULY 2023


don’t report unsafe interactions with children, analysts say those statistics likely represent just a minuscule frac- tion of the problem. Local, state, and federal law offi -


cers report they’re so overwhelmed with cases that they can’t keep up. In some jurisdictions they have the resources only to focus on the absolute worst abuses. The new reality: Every desktop,


laptop, social media site, and online video game in the nation has become a potential conduit for content that, only


he latest horrific trend in child traf icking is called sextortion. Predators befriend kids in online gaming chatrooms by


posing as other boys or girls. They entice the minor to send them an explicit image and once they have it, they mercilessly exploit the child’s guilty exposure. By threatening to share the images with the child’s teachers, coaches, pastors, parents, and classmates, they place the child


under enormous psychological pressure. Then they blackmail the child for money, often by having them secretly send their parents’ or grandparents’ credit card numbers and credit card verification codes.


The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reports: “Several of these cases have had tragic outcomes with panicked children taking their own lives.”


GROUND PICTURE/SHUTTERSTOCK / NADYAEUGENE/SHUTTERSTOCK


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