Untrue advertising, utilizing fear tactics increases risk of sexual harm to children, teens
By Sandy . . . In this age of internet, online chat rooms, and social media, parents often feel overwhelmed, even helpless, when they hear about the potential dangers of online predators. Parents consider keeping their children safe their number one job. To accomplish that, they need facts, truth, and reality.
They do not need incorrect information. They do not need undocumented, often outlandish claims or numbers and statistics inflated, twisted, and tortured into something they are not. They do not need emotionally charged and pejorative language designed to incite disgust and fear.
Several child protection sites throw out almost astronomical numbers about online predators and often credit the FBI with the information. Noel Holmes, a journalist for the Pleasanton Express, wrote a piece about keeping children safe on the internet, and she used that information as though it were an undisputed fact. She used it with no documentation except, “According to the FBI . . .”
Exhaustive research has failed to turn up a document, a study, or an internet posting from the FBI using those figures. The FBI does have information online on the subject, information that is not inflated or written in order to fill parents with fear and hopelessness.
I wrote Noel asking for some documentation for the information so that I might read it at the source document. There has been no response from her or her publication.
Another site makes this claim: “For every predator CRC [Child Rescue Coalition] helps law enforcement apprehend, we prevent between 50 and 150 children from being sexually abused. To date, our technology has prevented the abuse of more than 690,000 children worldwide.” There is no citation showing from where these figures were derived.
However, an advertising agency, Ad Forum, in an advertisement for the Child Rescue Coalition,–which says it is a non-profit–gives a hint. They make the claim that 85% of internet predators are also hands-on child abusers. While there is a footnote number at the end of the statement, the link goes nowhere and there is no accompanying footnote information at the end of the ad. I wrote Ad Forum asking for an answer, received an immediate “We have your request” email, and have had no further response.
The number, though, the 85%, seems familiar.
Condemned by the BOP, the Butner Study originated from an unpublished paper presented by its author at a 2000 conference; though never subjected to appropriate scrutiny nor peer-reviewed, it was later published and later still harshly criticized and discredited. In a nutshell, the findings of the study are that through the use of polygraph examinations, either 79% or 85%–both figures are cited–of between 50 to 60 men who were incarcerated at Butner BOP in North Carolina with convictions for online pornography involving children claimed they also had committed hands-on sexual abuse of children, and most of them claimed to have had between 50 and 150 victims undetected by law enforcement.
By contrast, the US Sentencing Commission, in a 2021 report, found that 4.3% of those with non-production offense convictions were arrested for a sexual offense within three years of release (p.65). That figure is not broken down by percentage between contact and non-contact offenses, but even if the full 4.3% were contact offenses, that falls far short of the high percentage claimed by the Butner Study.
The Butner Study was flawed for a multitude of reasons, but one of the more compelling is evidence—including testimony from some of the participants—that they received benefit from making such claims and were penalized if they denied having undetected, hands-on offenses.
Advertising for CRC uses those numbers. It apparently determines how many online predators it claims it has “helped law enforcement apprehend”; may take 85% of that number; multiplies it many times over, up to 50, 75, even up to 150; and arrives at over 690,000 children they have “saved” from being abused. They extrapolate from the self-admitted, coerced testimony of less than 60 men and apply that to every person ever convicted of online child pornography, over half convicted of a non-production offense.
Similar scare tactics are used by law enforcement. A recent example is the Volusa, Florida, sheriff’s department’s naming of a raid on the homes of registrants in the county: Operation Creep Sweep. These raids frequently use the word “Operation” to legitimize their invasion into the lives of registrants. “Creep” is used to heighten the disgust and fear factors and is insulting and inflammatory.
These numbers, these claims, and this type of language are all over the internet. One need only do some basic searches to find them. No wonder parents are confused, terrified, and ready to support the organization or buy the products that will “save their children.”
Why is this dangerous? It is misdirection. It is promoting a fear that paralyzes and a dependency on something other than themselves to protect their children. Just like the registry, it promotes “stranger-danger” and creates an easy solution to a very difficult and complex problem.
Just as it is dangerous to believe your children are safe from risk of harm if you check the sex offender registry frequently and know where the registrants live and ignore the far greater risk from those already known and trusted by your family, it is dangerous to believe that a piece of software or harsher laws against those already convicted of a sexual crime can replace parental involvement in one’s children’s lives.
The actual FBI advice on the subject is excellent. Open, honest, frequent dialogue between parents and children; some agreed-upon boundaries and instructions; a realization that, just as with the risk of hands-on abuse, the risk of internet enticement is at least as likely to come from someone that the young potential victims already know: These will prove more valuable to parents in protecting their children than anything a tech company can provide.
