WEBVTT 00:11.478 --> 00:20.103 [SPEAKER_00]: How does someone go from viewing mainstream pornography to seeking out increasingly extreme and eventually illegal content? 00:21.137 --> 00:30.880 [SPEAKER_00]: In today's episode, we sit down with Kelly Nets, a detective sergeant who has spent years investigating crimes against children and interviewing the people behind them. 00:31.800 --> 00:36.642 [SPEAKER_00]: Kelly shares the patterns she's seen in how pornography use can escalate over time. 00:37.422 --> 00:42.083 [SPEAKER_00]: What offenders have told her about how they ended up viewing child sexual abuse material? 00:42.864 --> 00:46.545 [SPEAKER_00]: And why some are actually relieved when they're finally caught? 00:47.505 --> 00:59.012 [SPEAKER_00]: She also discusses how technology has changed these investigations, and how her work has shaped the conversations she has with her own kids about pornography and online safety. 00:59.972 --> 01:02.354 [SPEAKER_00]: With that, let's jump into the conversation. 01:02.854 --> 01:06.396 [SPEAKER_00]: We hope you enjoy this episode of Consider Before Consuming. 01:08.357 --> 01:09.858 [SPEAKER_03]: Kelly, thank you so much for joining me. 01:09.898 --> 01:11.979 [SPEAKER_03]: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you first 01:13.805 --> 01:14.867 [SPEAKER_02]: My name's Kelly Nets. 01:15.107 --> 01:22.015 [SPEAKER_02]: I am a detective sergeant right now, so I supervise the investigation bureau at my agency. 01:22.035 --> 01:31.026 [SPEAKER_02]: I have been interested in law enforcement since probably kindergarten, but then growing up didn't necessarily think it was something that I was, 01:33.365 --> 01:36.647 [SPEAKER_02]: maybe capable of or it was just very foreign. 01:36.687 --> 01:38.769 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't have any family in law enforcement. 01:38.829 --> 01:43.832 [SPEAKER_02]: So even though I thought it sounded cool, didn't really think it was actually going to turn into anything. 01:45.233 --> 01:48.575 [SPEAKER_02]: Until 9 o'clock in the afternoon, I was in high school. 01:50.216 --> 01:59.599 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that was probably a really pivotal time for me of just watching the police officers running into the buildings and the police helping people. 01:59.619 --> 02:05.360 [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's when I decided like I'm actually going to try to do that even though it was. 02:06.460 --> 02:09.381 [SPEAKER_02]: I'd really never been in a fight. 02:09.401 --> 02:15.203 [SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't like super into fitness or some of the other things that were really popular for people who. 02:15.903 --> 02:17.684 [SPEAKER_02]: we're looking at a law enforcement career. 02:17.704 --> 02:25.245 [SPEAKER_02]: I've obviously had to get into fitness and had to make some changes but that's kind of how it started. 02:25.365 --> 02:30.847 [SPEAKER_03]: It sounded like you were really motivated by helping people ultimately, which is which is wonderful. 02:31.047 --> 02:38.649 [SPEAKER_03]: Did you always expect to work in crimes against children or what led you to specialize in that area and of investigation? 02:39.390 --> 02:47.580 [SPEAKER_02]: definitely wasn't something that I went into law enforcement thinking that was going to be my area of expertise. 02:47.800 --> 02:59.113 [SPEAKER_02]: I did definitely watch plenty of lawn order and I see it just tends to happen to women in law enforcement because we're women. 03:00.054 --> 03:18.551 [SPEAKER_02]: And when you work in just like a male dominated field, a lot of the time the guys that you're working with are younger and not super confident in talking to other women about sexual assault, and although there are men who are sexually assaulted, the vast majority of people that are reporting to law enforcement are women. 03:18.571 --> 03:22.174 [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think that's kind of how it begins for a lot of women is just. 03:23.055 --> 03:40.996 [SPEAKER_02]: our male partners are constantly saying we just just talk to her like you'll do such a better job she'll be so much more comfortable and so you start with interviewing a lot of sex assault victims and then kind of the natural progression from there as you just also start talking to the kids. 03:41.717 --> 03:43.037 [SPEAKER_02]: and handling those as well. 03:43.138 --> 03:50.080 [SPEAKER_02]: And once you've done the interview, then trying to pass the investigation back to your partner, oftentimes isn't a very smooth. 03:50.120 --> 03:53.521 [SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of the time I just ended up with them for that reason. 03:54.161 --> 03:54.842 [SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't mind. 03:54.942 --> 03:56.742 [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah. 03:57.402 --> 04:03.144 [SPEAKER_03]: And you've spent years now interviewing and investigating people who've committed sexual offenses against children. 04:03.885 --> 04:10.227 [SPEAKER_03]: Before we dive into deep, what are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about who those offenders are? 04:12.766 --> 04:20.849 [SPEAKER_02]: Coming into this, I was definitely surprised by the closeness of the relationship of the majority of the offenders. 04:21.529 --> 04:33.213 [SPEAKER_02]: I think TV's portrays it as a lot of like stranger assault being very common because that's maybe the more like mysterious and needs an investigation to make TV. 04:33.233 --> 04:37.455 [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that makes a lot of people think that stranger assault is very common. 04:38.575 --> 04:54.237 [SPEAKER_02]: I have had very few, if any, especially against children that involved a stranger, most the vast majority is a close family member or some other really trusted adult like a 04:55.478 --> 05:01.342 [SPEAKER_02]: daycare or baby sitter or a older sibling of a friend. 05:02.242 --> 05:06.285 [SPEAKER_02]: That's way more common than I would have thought it was before I started doing this job. 05:07.246 --> 05:13.410 [SPEAKER_02]: I definitely did not realize how many children are actually abused by their own parents. 05:13.750 --> 05:16.672 [SPEAKER_02]: That was something that was very surprising to me. 05:17.352 --> 05:18.493 [SPEAKER_02]: And still is, honestly. 05:19.332 --> 05:19.592 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 05:20.572 --> 05:26.034 [SPEAKER_03]: It's really devastating and I think you made such a good point about what we see in TV and movies. 05:26.535 --> 05:35.798 [SPEAKER_03]: It is that heightened stranger mystery and it's I think alarming for a lot of people to learn how close to home these events often occur. 05:36.410 --> 06:04.217 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that a lot of especially child sexual abuse requires extensive grooming and whether that grooming occurs just when the child is very young and their parents starts doing a certain behavior with them and it just normalizes it for the child or there's a lot of relationship building before the abuse will actually take place. 06:05.208 --> 06:18.115 [SPEAKER_02]: And so in the case of a stranger, you obviously don't have that, so kids are less susceptible to that and parents don't really let their kids so much be in situations where they're going to be with a stranger. 06:19.485 --> 06:24.510 [SPEAKER_03]: So we certainly know about kind of online access to strangers for communication. 06:24.550 --> 06:27.052 [SPEAKER_03]: And we can talk a bit more about that in a moment. 06:28.594 --> 06:30.696 [SPEAKER_03]: One thing you've said, yeah. 06:31.316 --> 06:37.822 [SPEAKER_03]: One thing you've said is that pornography addiction is a common thread that you've seen in many of these cases. 06:38.323 --> 06:40.245 [SPEAKER_03]: What first made you notice that pattern? 06:41.753 --> 06:49.302 [SPEAKER_02]: I think that I noticed it just because people's stories were just kind of repetitive. 06:50.203 --> 06:57.492 [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, the exact circumstances are different in every situation, but a lot of the time. 06:59.457 --> 07:15.315 [SPEAKER_02]: I noticed that people were saying that these actions that they took against a child were fueled by pornography addiction, turning into a lot of the time drug or alcohol addiction. 07:15.335 --> 07:16.896 [SPEAKER_02]: I may see a lot of... 07:17.817 --> 07:20.418 [SPEAKER_02]: of these struggles go hand in hand. 07:20.438 --> 07:26.939 [SPEAKER_02]: You just really hear the same kind of outline of the story over and over. 07:27.480 --> 07:29.660 [SPEAKER_02]: Where it's, I started this one thing. 07:29.900 --> 07:30.981 [SPEAKER_02]: It led to this. 07:31.241 --> 07:34.041 [SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't feeling satisfied with just that anymore. 07:34.161 --> 07:41.063 [SPEAKER_02]: So I added blank whether that's drugs or alcohol or what I'll call like darker porn. 07:41.123 --> 07:43.464 [SPEAKER_02]: Aside from what I will call regular porn. 07:44.855 --> 07:50.018 [SPEAKER_02]: And so you just kind of see that over and over and over and over in a lot of cases. 07:50.699 --> 07:56.462 [SPEAKER_03]: We know that the research about pornography shows that escalation within a pornography habit of on its own. 07:56.502 --> 08:00.385 [SPEAKER_03]: So someone may start out watching what you called quote unquote regular porn. 08:00.725 --> 08:05.768 [SPEAKER_03]: But that can escalate into some a needing, you know, more hardcore pornography. 08:06.349 --> 08:07.309 [SPEAKER_03]: Um, and often in, 08:08.510 --> 08:18.412 [SPEAKER_03]: In cases of child sexual abuse, I would assume sometimes that leads to material including minors, is that something that is pretty common? 08:19.452 --> 08:21.172 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, that's very common. 08:21.973 --> 08:27.193 [SPEAKER_02]: And excuse my generalities, I don't condone pornography viewing in any way. 08:27.294 --> 08:30.834 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just going to call it regular porn for the sake of the conversation. 08:31.854 --> 08:32.254 [SPEAKER_03]: Of course. 08:33.015 --> 08:34.195 [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I definitely see 08:36.148 --> 08:42.374 [SPEAKER_02]: Even a lot of the time, the group part of the grooming will be, like, let's take a picture. 08:42.394 --> 08:45.116 [SPEAKER_02]: I want you to wear this outfit. 08:45.136 --> 08:46.338 [SPEAKER_02]: You're going to look so cute. 08:47.684 --> 08:51.886 [SPEAKER_02]: And that's especially prevalent with older teens who are online. 08:52.746 --> 09:07.113 [SPEAKER_02]: And that's an easy way for predators to get especially teens into creating photographic material, what we call CSAM Child Sexual Abuse Material. 09:07.713 --> 09:21.080 [SPEAKER_03]: Right, and when someone is arrested for possession of CSAM or child sexual abuse material, commonly known as child pornography, you know, many people assume that they must have always been looking for that material. 09:21.320 --> 09:22.521 [SPEAKER_03]: Is that typically what you found? 09:23.121 --> 09:23.821 [SPEAKER_03]: No, not at all. 09:26.185 --> 09:35.453 [SPEAKER_02]: Every great once in a while, you'll come across someone who just genuinely struggle with an attraction to children. 09:36.854 --> 09:38.095 [SPEAKER_02]: But that's really rare. 09:38.656 --> 09:46.202 [SPEAKER_02]: The majority of people that we encounter who are viewing downloading, sharing, CSAM online. 09:47.043 --> 09:48.204 [SPEAKER_02]: did not start out that way. 09:49.124 --> 10:09.677 [SPEAKER_02]: Typically, it starts with just, I have to say, any consumption is not good, but an overconsumption of pornography and they just kind of become numb to it and their relationships, you know, they're they're watching, looking at so much porn that I think their relationships become 10:11.688 --> 10:18.434 [SPEAKER_02]: That's when I think a lot of people start using drugs or alcohol to try to make themselves feel more excited. 10:19.595 --> 10:36.951 [SPEAKER_02]: And when that's not really working, they start looking to other types of pornography, whether that's CSAM or BCality or other things that could maybe help them achieve the way that they felt back when they first started viewing pornography. 10:38.933 --> 10:54.850 [SPEAKER_03]: When you interview offenders, do they tend to describe this as a sudden shift or a gradual progression over months or years going from that kind of quote unquote regular or more common pornography to these stages you just mentioned. 10:57.613 --> 11:06.937 [SPEAKER_02]: I would say generally the progression of getting there is longer, but then once they see it, it's usually very fast. 11:07.718 --> 11:19.043 [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people that I've interviewed have described like accidentally downloading something that they thought was going to be regular porn and it was CSM. 11:20.003 --> 11:21.785 [SPEAKER_02]: and then they just couldn't stop. 11:22.646 --> 11:25.929 [SPEAKER_02]: It's very easy for people to get see stand now. 11:27.110 --> 11:34.276 [SPEAKER_02]: Very easy to get pornography in general, and so I think a lot of people will start with just regular social media porn. 11:35.841 --> 11:37.942 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, even site any site. 11:38.002 --> 11:42.484 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, really, we have cases that start on any social media site. 11:42.544 --> 11:59.530 [SPEAKER_02]: And then from there, once they've gotten into that, they just start getting exposed to more and more and once they get sent an image of CCM, it seems to like be something new and exciting and they then very quickly delve into that. 12:00.620 --> 12:00.840 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 12:01.481 --> 12:11.777 [SPEAKER_03]: And when, you know, these adult predators are arrested after years of an escalating behavior as we've spoken a little bit about, how do they typically respond? 12:12.358 --> 12:12.979 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, funny. 12:12.999 --> 12:13.440 [SPEAKER_02]: I hate it. 12:14.500 --> 12:18.381 [SPEAKER_02]: I've been surprised by this, but a lot of them are actually relieved. 12:18.542 --> 12:22.043 [SPEAKER_02]: It's the same thing, I guess I don't, I don't know why it surprised me. 12:22.543 --> 12:27.445 [SPEAKER_02]: We see that a lot in confession when someone confesses. 12:27.485 --> 12:31.987 [SPEAKER_02]: You can just a lot of this time see a physical change in their body. 12:32.167 --> 12:35.108 [SPEAKER_02]: They feel so good that they have just gotten this out. 12:35.788 --> 12:40.750 [SPEAKER_02]: It was this thing inside of them, they didn't want it, it's unnatural that they've just 12:44.993 --> 12:53.290 [SPEAKER_02]: The same thing then has applied with all of our C-SAM investigations for the most part, people are really honest about it. 12:54.072 --> 12:54.753 [SPEAKER_02]: And we'll say, 12:56.060 --> 12:58.282 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I did that. 12:58.482 --> 12:59.863 [SPEAKER_02]: This is how it started. 12:59.883 --> 13:04.787 [SPEAKER_02]: We've had people that I just think, man, like you did not have to tell us all of that. 13:05.188 --> 13:16.617 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, how it started and why and how it's affected you, but people a lot of the time are just really ready to get it out and be done with it. 13:17.458 --> 13:22.862 [SPEAKER_02]: think it's hard for people to come up with a way to move past it on their own. 13:22.942 --> 13:29.908 [SPEAKER_02]: And so when there's this huge pivotal incident where now it's been exposed, a lot of people are relieved. 13:30.508 --> 13:30.769 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 13:31.589 --> 13:35.853 [SPEAKER_03]: And we've heard that as well over the years with individuals that we've spoken to as well. 13:36.553 --> 13:43.519 [SPEAKER_03]: Without identifying anyone specifically, could you walk us through one case that really illustrates the progression 13:46.063 --> 13:50.272 [SPEAKER_02]: So as far as a typical investigation would go, 13:53.589 --> 14:00.454 [SPEAKER_02]: All social media providers are supposed to report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. 14:01.454 --> 14:07.258 [SPEAKER_02]: So all the U.S. based for the most part, are reporting as they're supposed to. 14:07.278 --> 14:19.026 [SPEAKER_02]: So we receive what are called cyber tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that were brought to their attention by whatever the social media site is. 14:23.609 --> 14:35.635 [SPEAKER_02]: Do some investigation, figure out if the person lives in our jurisdiction, who they are, what they're looking at, a lot of the time the images that flagged and caused the report to be generated and the first place will be included. 14:36.855 --> 14:47.100 [SPEAKER_02]: So that's kind of on our side how things get started and then from there, we usually will serve a search warrant, contact the person and do an interview. 14:47.730 --> 15:07.046 [SPEAKER_02]: Then during that interview is when we tried early, get into the person's life, how they got started, how they have now found themselves in this interview with us, with a warrant being served at their home and or their place of business, we've done that too. 15:07.666 --> 15:14.371 [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people will describe just starting that just started with porn. 15:16.553 --> 15:17.794 [SPEAKER_02]: They were lonely. 15:17.894 --> 15:19.476 [SPEAKER_02]: They started looking at porn. 15:19.576 --> 15:39.933 [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of it isn't even what I would necessarily consider porn if I touch a lot of people who just started with Instagram or other pretty innocuous social media where they were seeing something that was attractive to them for the state of the conversation we'll say like girls and bikinis 15:41.094 --> 15:48.437 [SPEAKER_02]: And then they just started looking for more, and that's when they started visiting kind of mainstream porn sites. 15:48.997 --> 15:54.659 [SPEAKER_02]: When I first started, we actually had like a special computer that was like to go on the dark web. 15:55.839 --> 16:05.343 [SPEAKER_02]: And it would try to share CCM with other people that were using the dark web, but I mean that technology is to funk to now because you can just get porn anywhere. 16:06.503 --> 16:11.509 [SPEAKER_03]: And so that's how I think a lot of our cases get started and a lot of people get into it. 16:12.149 --> 16:20.538 [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people at that point, which during that interview is when they disclose sex abuse, they experience as a child. 16:20.698 --> 16:21.499 [SPEAKER_02]: We definitely 16:23.048 --> 16:24.590 [SPEAKER_02]: We let them talk about that. 16:24.650 --> 16:32.156 [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't really influence what happens with the case, but as law enforcement, our mission is to do good. 16:32.756 --> 16:49.410 [SPEAKER_02]: And if someone feels comfortable talking to us about some sexual abuse that they experience, that's become just this twisted thing in their life that's now controlling their thought, their behaviors, how they spend their time, because they've become addicted to pornography. 16:50.470 --> 16:55.313 [SPEAKER_02]: And now they actually find themselves in legal trouble because they're viewing in CSAM. 16:55.333 --> 16:58.956 [SPEAKER_02]: We let them talk about all of that. 16:58.976 --> 17:02.898 [SPEAKER_02]: I think it helps people a lot to be able to just get all of that out. 17:04.224 --> 17:11.609 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, absolutely, um, do any of these individuals ever say things like, you know, I never thought I'd end up here. 17:11.809 --> 17:20.214 [SPEAKER_03]: Like, are they, you know, you mentioned they express relief in being able to confess, but are they kind of surprised at how deep they've gotten into things? 17:20.855 --> 17:23.136 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I think especially as, 17:24.609 --> 17:30.190 [SPEAKER_02]: we work through that interview and the case progresses and I think they start to come. 17:30.210 --> 17:45.614 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I would almost describe that a lot of them are just so wholly consumed by this obsessive drive to consume porn that they don't realize that everything around them has like burned down. 17:46.692 --> 18:03.291 [SPEAKER_02]: their relationships are destroyed, they've lost their job, one young man, I was talking to like his card didn't run, but it didn't matter because he hadn't left the house in weeks because he just spent in his room viewing porn. 18:03.752 --> 18:06.835 [SPEAKER_02]: So I think as the they start to come out of that, 18:07.516 --> 18:17.100 [SPEAKER_02]: there's definitely the shock factor of I don't actually have any friends anymore because I ghosted all of them so that I could stay home and look at porn. 18:17.900 --> 18:19.781 [SPEAKER_02]: And marriage is destroyed. 18:19.801 --> 18:26.044 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you'll look at a family from the outside and you see, oh, okay, like a husband wife, nice house. 18:26.844 --> 18:49.998 [SPEAKER_02]: kids and then when you start so you're going to dig into it and you're like thinking in my investigating the wrong person like this was a make sense from the outside and then you start digging in and you see no actually like dad's living in the basement parents relationship is not working out marriage is not good at this point because the need for porn has taken over 18:57.412 --> 18:57.672 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 18:58.533 --> 19:06.661 [SPEAKER_03]: You mentioned that a lot of your tips come from reports from social media platforms reporting to the National Center on missing and exploited children. 19:07.382 --> 19:11.986 [SPEAKER_03]: Are there individuals engaging in this behavior who are not integrated into social media? 19:12.066 --> 19:18.753 [SPEAKER_03]: And if so, how are they being caught, tower, how are they, you know, being found out in your system? 19:19.693 --> 19:34.629 [SPEAKER_02]: because a lot of those people who aren't necessarily on social media sites, now we live in such a computer dominated world that even people who aren't necessarily using social media are still using digital storage. 19:36.331 --> 19:53.024 [SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of our cases that don't come from social media will come from like Dropbox, any really cloud-based storage provider, Verizon, their storage provider, Synchronos, they report to us, same as social media. 19:53.164 --> 20:01.330 [SPEAKER_02]: So even if someone is just storing something on their device and they think it's not on social media, it's just on my phone. 20:01.470 --> 20:01.990 [SPEAKER_02]: It's not. 20:03.191 --> 20:04.712 [SPEAKER_02]: It's in the cloud and 20:05.733 --> 20:21.908 [SPEAKER_02]: So that's a lot of the time, although it comes to us, every great once in a while will have a case that just reported from the community that they saw someone doing something or they found something in their uncle's belongings that's concerning. 20:22.869 --> 20:23.890 [SPEAKER_02]: But those are pretty rare. 20:24.570 --> 20:34.573 [SPEAKER_02]: Now, even the people that we contact are using just like really old computers, they're still using cloud-based storage. 20:34.954 --> 20:36.674 [SPEAKER_02]: So all it takes is one image. 20:37.234 --> 20:46.857 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, which is I think so good to know, you know, for any listeners who are unfamiliar with this, it seems so scary with the way that technology has evolved. 20:47.738 --> 20:49.018 [SPEAKER_03]: And it's so good to know that there 20:54.720 --> 21:12.660 [SPEAKER_03]: You mentioned some ways that, you know, technologies change from when you first started and having a specific computer to catch people and now some of the things we've just spoken about are there other ways that changes in technology or the internet have changed the progression that you've seen today compared to early in your career. 21:13.080 --> 21:23.285 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think just the volume alone has changed that investing in CSAM cases when I first started, it was rare. 21:24.266 --> 21:25.747 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we had that computer. 21:25.947 --> 21:33.371 [SPEAKER_02]: It was just over in the corner doing its job, but that it would actually get hit that someone was trying to share something and was really unusual. 21:34.031 --> 21:40.617 [SPEAKER_02]: the volume of what's available online now has just changed the job. 21:41.178 --> 21:43.380 [SPEAKER_02]: I get several of these cases a week. 21:43.520 --> 21:50.267 [SPEAKER_02]: They don't all turn into something, but even in a small city, small agency like ours. 21:50.947 --> 21:55.228 [SPEAKER_02]: We're getting a couple a week and I think it's really just a volume issue. 21:55.268 --> 22:09.993 [SPEAKER_02]: The internet has made everything so accessible and there's so many different sites and so much social media and so much cloud storage that now it's literally a full-time job. 22:10.573 --> 22:10.833 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 22:11.554 --> 22:30.209 [SPEAKER_03]: I want to ask you about, you know, we often hear the claim that AI is great because if people can make AI, CSAM or AI child sexual abuse material, then that will eliminate the problem of perpetrators acting out and abusing children in real life. 22:30.309 --> 22:31.630 [SPEAKER_03]: Can you speak to that claim? 22:32.233 --> 22:39.475 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, one, it's not going to stop hands on offending for sure because it's AI. 22:39.735 --> 22:45.716 [SPEAKER_02]: So it's just going to continue to feed that need for more. 22:46.557 --> 22:51.798 [SPEAKER_02]: So if I'm viewing CSM of a real kid or a fake 22:52.799 --> 22:59.723 [SPEAKER_02]: It's not going to make any difference to me as to what it causes me to need more of. 23:00.103 --> 23:16.593 [SPEAKER_02]: So if I'm viewing AIC Sam and the opportunity is there to become a hands-on offender or continue being a hands-on offender, the AI is just going to feed it in the same way that real C-SAM feeds it. 23:17.611 --> 23:29.163 [SPEAKER_02]: then the other piece of that that I would argue is it doesn't matter if it's real or fake, it's still just shructive to the mind of the viewer in the same way. 23:30.184 --> 23:33.707 [SPEAKER_02]: If the whole purpose of AI is to look real, 23:34.768 --> 23:51.399 [SPEAKER_02]: Then there's really no difference in what it's doing to the viewers brain and then the consequences of that, you know, how it causes their attitude to change their desires to change their life to fall apart around them. 23:51.619 --> 23:52.440 [SPEAKER_02]: It's all the same. 23:52.480 --> 23:56.182 [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't matter for them viewing it if it's AI or not. 23:57.203 --> 23:57.403 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. 23:57.763 --> 24:03.488 [SPEAKER_03]: And we also know that for AI to generate images, it has to learn from real images as well. 24:03.628 --> 24:07.811 [SPEAKER_03]: So exploitation is still part of the equation regardless. 24:08.591 --> 24:08.812 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. 24:09.412 --> 24:10.032 [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely. 24:10.313 --> 24:22.882 [SPEAKER_03]: Are there ways that AI and in more modern technology is helping to, you know, find exploited children, touch perpetrators, are there ways that it's making your job easier given the 24:27.265 --> 24:48.120 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's definitely headed that way, I mean right now a lot of the images that are able to be identified by social media providers are from like hash matching, which has works great when it works, but the issue is that there has to already be in a signed hash value to an image. 24:48.180 --> 24:53.524 [SPEAKER_02]: So if you're constantly having new images, then it's not necessarily going to catch that in a filter. 24:54.004 --> 24:54.184 [SPEAKER_03]: Right. 24:54.404 --> 24:58.665 [SPEAKER_03]: For someone who doesn't know what that is, can you describe past hush matching? 24:59.526 --> 25:08.888 [SPEAKER_02]: Space is basically like a long series of characters that has been assigned to an image that like identifies that specific image. 25:10.008 --> 25:14.690 [SPEAKER_02]: If the image is modified, then the hash value will change as well. 25:16.390 --> 25:21.051 [SPEAKER_02]: So it's basically like a serial number for an image would be like a very 25:23.792 --> 25:49.691 [SPEAKER_02]: But now with AI coming on the scene, there's definitely companies out there that are looking into a relief a lot of the burden from social media providers, from you know, website, people that run websites to relieve that human burden that's on us to actually be viewing it on law enforcement, that's a huge part of our job is we actually have to look at it. 25:49.831 --> 26:04.122 [SPEAKER_02]: So if AI is able to relieve some of that burden in the future, that could be a huge positive for the mental health of the investigators, of the people who work for the social media sites who are actually having to check. 26:04.702 --> 26:10.726 [SPEAKER_02]: Just because something flags in their system, it still is then looked at by a human to confirm. 26:10.746 --> 26:13.609 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yes, that is actually CCM. 26:14.369 --> 26:20.436 [SPEAKER_02]: social media definitely doesn't want to be reporting like everything. 26:20.456 --> 26:22.338 [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone's in a world, things they'll get through. 26:22.478 --> 26:28.845 [SPEAKER_02]: I've definitely opened some images that I was thinking we're going to be seizing them and then I just feel like laughed because they were not. 26:29.605 --> 26:35.071 [SPEAKER_02]: So if AI is able to streamline some of that process and prevent that 26:36.032 --> 26:49.215 [SPEAKER_02]: really like traumatic brain injury that investigators and viewers who are doing it for a good reason as their job that we suffer, then that's a huge win for AI. 26:49.775 --> 26:51.095 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, absolutely. 26:51.155 --> 27:03.378 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, we've seen reports that criminal networks are increasingly using mainstream social media to direct users towards CSAM has the scale of these investigations changed during your career and 27:04.974 --> 27:08.276 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that's really common. 27:08.856 --> 27:16.781 [SPEAKER_02]: We get a lot of people who's communication starts on mainstream social media and then lives. 27:16.881 --> 27:25.466 [SPEAKER_02]: There's very common in a chat to see a predator say, let's go over to WhatsApp or let's go over to telegram. 27:25.566 --> 27:30.148 [SPEAKER_02]: Knowing that those are encrypted or they're not USB, 27:33.733 --> 27:35.695 [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, that's super common. 27:35.995 --> 27:37.936 [SPEAKER_02]: It definitely makes things difficult. 27:38.797 --> 27:46.003 [SPEAKER_02]: There is so much social media now that it's hard to learn all the sites. 27:46.803 --> 27:47.964 [SPEAKER_02]: The other thing that's hard is 27:49.205 --> 28:10.450 [SPEAKER_02]: on the back end when we get records from social media, it doesn't look at all like it does on the front end and so that can be really hard to figure out like how did this start, how was this image shared because it looks very different on the back end than it does when the the child is using it. 28:11.978 --> 28:12.218 [SPEAKER_03]: Right. 28:12.858 --> 28:24.882 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm curious to know if only fans has played a role in the work that you're doing or if you've seen that we often see an artwork that is something that young people are saying, you know, I don't need to go to college. 28:24.922 --> 28:35.126 [SPEAKER_03]: I can start in only fans or that's seen as a viable path forward for very young people and is that something you're encountering in your work at all. 28:38.033 --> 28:56.460 [SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't say so much as the young people talking about doing it, but acting out behaviors that they've seen, definitely, a lot of the CSAM that we get is just self-production. 28:58.307 --> 29:07.871 [SPEAKER_02]: that being that a lot of it is teens in the shower dancing in a provocative way, you know, making the video of themselves. 29:08.031 --> 29:14.574 [SPEAKER_02]: And in that, I think that's been just very normalized from site such as OnlyFans. 29:15.374 --> 29:20.717 [SPEAKER_02]: So in that way, I would say yes, it's definitely impacting them, because it's making a behavior. 29:22.357 --> 29:26.820 [SPEAKER_02]: that would have been taboo, that's no longer in the case. 29:26.940 --> 29:40.869 [SPEAKER_02]: Now that's expected, it's mainstream, everyone knows about it, talks about it, all their friends are doing it, and so that behavior is no longer something that they should think is a problem. 29:41.562 --> 29:41.762 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 29:42.723 --> 29:52.268 [SPEAKER_03]: And for anyone who thinks that child sexual abuse isn't something happening, you know, in their neighborhood and their city and their state, what would you say to those people? 29:53.779 --> 29:59.540 [SPEAKER_02]: So it's happening, it's happening all around, whether it's online or in-person. 30:00.241 --> 30:06.822 [SPEAKER_02]: It's, there's been plenty of cases that I thought, you know, this, I can't believe it is happening here. 30:08.382 --> 30:14.964 [SPEAKER_02]: Kids that we're going to school with my own kids that we would get a case on and I just thought I didn't, who knew? 30:15.584 --> 30:20.525 [SPEAKER_02]: Who knew it was in our small town and this small school 30:24.406 --> 30:25.867 [SPEAKER_02]: in such a terrible way. 30:27.008 --> 30:33.232 [SPEAKER_02]: And then the online, that's just, there's definitely kids that your kids know. 30:33.492 --> 30:43.579 [SPEAKER_02]: It's not your own kids who are engaged in unhealthy online relationships who are discussing things of a sexual nature with complete strangers. 30:44.099 --> 30:46.421 [SPEAKER_02]: Whether or not they know their strangers, um, 30:47.281 --> 30:47.742 [SPEAKER_02]: Who knows? 30:48.662 --> 30:52.165 [SPEAKER_02]: But if it's not your kids, it's their friends. 30:52.725 --> 30:59.150 [SPEAKER_02]: And so being aware of that and being able to ask your kids, you know, who are you talking to? 31:00.135 --> 31:06.096 [SPEAKER_02]: pop in on, you know, when they're playing their video games, stand over their shoulder, look and ask, who is this person? 31:06.276 --> 31:10.917 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, a lot of the time parents are going to find out that their kid doesn't actually know who that is. 31:11.597 --> 31:18.759 [SPEAKER_02]: It's just someone who joined their group or someone that another person brought in and said they knew, but they don't actually know. 31:20.059 --> 31:26.000 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think people will be really surprised to find out how deep some of these issues go. 31:26.862 --> 31:32.543 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, Kelly, is there anything else that you wanted to share today that we haven't spoken about yet? 31:35.884 --> 31:48.466 [SPEAKER_02]: I just would really encourage people to have open conversations with their kids, even though it's really awkward, but it's only really awkward at first. 31:48.786 --> 31:54.007 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, if you can just get past like the first five minutes of the conversation, 31:54.927 --> 31:55.588 [SPEAKER_02]: it will improve. 31:56.268 --> 31:59.410 [SPEAKER_02]: Once you've done it one time, now you can do it again. 31:59.530 --> 32:07.115 [SPEAKER_02]: So now the next time you need to have another conversation, it's not going to be as awkward and you've already done it, everyone's survived. 32:08.416 --> 32:12.339 [SPEAKER_02]: So you can just continue to build those relationships. 32:13.219 --> 32:21.864 [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of things that are hard being a parent is probably the hardest, the responsibility that you have. 32:22.244 --> 32:24.745 [SPEAKER_02]: You choose to let your kid use a phone. 32:24.965 --> 32:29.428 [SPEAKER_02]: You haven't even bigger responsibility, but dive in. 32:29.568 --> 32:35.631 [SPEAKER_02]: It is well worth it to be confident in knowing what your kids are doing, how to 32:39.913 --> 32:54.062 [SPEAKER_02]: online sexual abuse problem, whether it becomes a sex distortion issue, if they're just being bullied, you're going to not going to know any of that until you really dive in and say, oh, who are you talking to? 32:54.122 --> 32:55.242 [SPEAKER_02]: What are you talking about? 32:55.322 --> 33:02.787 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, show me and show a genuine interest and most kids actually want to tell you. 33:03.727 --> 33:17.216 [SPEAKER_02]: they pretend like they don't, you know, they'll give attitude, but a lot of them, especially the ones that are already in over their head, they really want someone to know and someone to ask about it. 33:17.696 --> 33:25.081 [SPEAKER_02]: And even though they might have an attitude, they're glad that someone is asking and someone is paying attention. 33:26.593 --> 33:26.833 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 33:27.153 --> 33:34.555 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, we hear that often that kids are often more eager to have these conversations and have this information than parents are. 33:34.896 --> 33:43.778 [SPEAKER_03]: Parents are often more uncomfortable than the kids are because kids want someone to answer these questions and they want a safe person to talk to when things come up. 33:43.878 --> 33:48.100 [SPEAKER_03]: And so I really want to encourage parents to make sure that 33:52.961 --> 34:11.269 [SPEAKER_03]: There is a lot of scary stuff in this world, especially in the work that I do, but especially the work that you do, and there are also so many great things, and being able to be educated about things being prepared and having these conversations with your kids can really go a long way. 34:14.143 --> 34:15.844 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, Kelly, thank you so much. 34:16.044 --> 34:22.648 [SPEAKER_03]: It's been so helpful and impactful to be able to speak with you and hear about the work that you do. 34:22.788 --> 34:24.429 [SPEAKER_03]: And thank you for the work that you do. 34:25.230 --> 34:28.692 [SPEAKER_03]: It is no small feat to be on the side of this that you are. 34:28.852 --> 34:36.517 [SPEAKER_03]: And we're so grateful to you and all of the individuals who are investigating and navigating child sexual abuse in the ways that you are. 34:36.577 --> 34:37.497 [SPEAKER_03]: So thank you so much. 34:38.698 --> 34:39.538 [SPEAKER_02]: That's my pleasure. 34:39.779 --> 34:40.179 [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. 34:47.995 --> 34:50.676 [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for joining us on this episode of Consider Before Consuming. 34:51.276 --> 34:54.177 [SPEAKER_01]: Consider Before Consuming is brought to you by Fight The New Drug. 34:54.717 --> 35:11.663 [SPEAKER_01]: Fight The New Drug is a non-religious and a non-legislative organization that exists to provide individuals the opportunity to make an informed decision regarding pornography by raising awareness on its harmful effects using only science, facts, and personal accounts. 35:12.203 --> 35:15.084 [SPEAKER_01]: Check out the episode notes for resources mentioned in this episode. 35:15.604 --> 35:19.127 [SPEAKER_01]: If you find this podcast helpful, consider subscribing and leaving a review. 35:19.568 --> 35:20.689 [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again for listening. 35:21.209 --> 35:23.211 [SPEAKER_01]: We invite you to increase your self-awareness. 35:23.571 --> 35:24.492 [SPEAKER_01]: Look both ways. 35:25.093 --> 35:26.174 [SPEAKER_01]: Check your blind spots. 35:26.714 --> 35:28.416 [SPEAKER_01]: And consider before consuming.