Protecting our Kids Online

Sometimes, protecting our kids online gets visceral.

Protecting our kids online starts with understanding how abusive online messaging works. I help parents and future parents protect their families by teaching how it works. The psychology behind all this is as old as humanity, but today's predators use modern technology to amplify that age-old psychology in ways that would make yesterday's predators salivate. It's a cybersecurity problem.

I am no expert on psychology, but I do technology for a living, I know my way around cybersecurity, and I'm an author. My 2024 novel, "Trafficking U," focuses on fighting sex trafficking. I'm also a father to an adult daughter who survived years of grooming and bullying, and a grandfather to two young men. Which means I have both a professional and personal interest in protecting our kids online.

If a child is in danger or has been targeted online (United States)

• Immediate danger: Call 911.
• Online exploitation, grooming, or sexual messages involving a child: Report to the NCMEC CyberTipline at report.cybertip.org or call 1-800-843-5678.
• Explicit photos or videos taken when someone was under 18: Take It Down, from NCMEC, can help get them removed from participating platforms.
• Suspected trafficking: The National Human Trafficking Hotline is 1-888-373-7888, or text “Befree” to 233733.
• Emotional crisis or thoughts of suicide: Call or text 988.
• Outside the United States: Find a crisis line for your country at Find A Helpline, and report child sexual abuse material to your local hotline through INHOPE.

Know where to turn. For links to expert advice on dealing with the psychology around online abuse, see "Online Abuse Resources."

Protecting our kids online: what parents can do

After years of studying how attackers work, here’s where I’d start:

• Know the three categories. Every instance of online abuse I can find fits into viral lies, grooming, or bullying. If you can name what’s happening, you can respond to it.
• Don’t assume it can’t happen to you or your family. Somebody tried to groom me with private messages, and it happened again with AI. If I’m not immune, your kids aren’t either.
• Expect viral lies to reach your own family. Here’s what happened when I had to fight city hall to protect my grandson.
• Listen to people who’ve lived it. A cyberbullying victim tells her story in her own words.

A few presentations

• TEDx Factoria, November 16, 2025: "If I were an online predator: the creepiest presentation I've ever done". This is a visceral presentation about how today's predators use cyberattack tactics to find potential victims online, lure them into slavery, and use artificial intelligence to scale their attacks.
• Edina, Minnesota Rotary Club, March 13, 2025: Online Predators. This is an earlier version of my TEDx presentation.
• Crown College, March 2, 2024: Online Abuse. Presented to a group of youth leaders at the Crown College Minnesota NEXT Conference. This talk describes public indoctrination, grooming, and bullying, and tactics to weigh credibility.
• If I were an Online Predator, How Would I find Victims? Recorded August 26, 2023. The first version of my TEDx talk.

Blog posts

• Internet Viral Lies, Online Grooming, And Bullying. Every instance of online abuse I can find fits into these three categories.
• If I were a Trafficker, How would I Find Online Victims? Cybersecurity 101; think like an attacker. I put on my cybersecurity hat to look more deeply into grooming children into slavery.
• When Dakota County, MN. Charged my Grandson with 5th Degree Assault for Playing in a Park in a costume. Online abuse up close and personal; when I had to protect my own family from online viral lies.
• When Somebody Tried to Groom Me with Twitter Private Messages. Since I study this stuff, you would think I should be immune to grooming, right? You would be wrong.
• AI Phishing: Grooming Authors Now, Grooming You Later. As I predicted in 2023, attackers now use AI to maximize their grooming efficiency. Somebody almost got me again.
• Guest Blog Post from a Cyberbullying Victim. An online bullying victim's story in her own words.
• Information Warfare is a Cybersecurity Thing. Duh! When I first realized that internet viral lies were a cybersecurity problem.