ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – A group of parent advocates held “A Day of Action” on Tuesday.
They joined ParentsTogether to ask Facebook parent company Meta for more security features and parental controls. They sent a letter to Meta over a year ago and said they had not received a response.
Stephen Carnes, who lives in Rome, Georgia, joined the call. Stephen’s daughter Eryn met a sextortionist posing as a teen through an online game and continued communicating with the person over Facebook.
Stephen said the man convinced Eryn they were in a relationship to solicit images from her, then told her to kill herself. She was 15 when her younger sister found her dead by suicide.
“Mr. Zuckerberg, you are being presented with an opportunity to prevent other families from experiencing the unspeakable horror my family has faced. I would like to help you achieve a positive outcome to prevent this exploitation of our children,” Carnes said. “Mr. Zuckerberg, you are being given a chance to effect positive change that could leave your name as a force for good in the face of evil.”
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reports that sextortion is up 323% in the past two years. Last year alone, reports of child sexual abuse images, often central to sextortion, topped 100 million.
RELATED: FBI reports 700% increase in sextortion schemes targeting teens online
Meta has said they’ve made strides to reduce sextortion cases. In April, they announced they were testing new features and partnering with Lantern to disrupt criminal activity on their platforms.
Parents were not satisfied. They called on House leadership to vote on the Kids Online Safety Act, which passed in the U.S. Senate last month after two years of lobbying.
MORE COVERAGE:
FBI: Georgia teens targeted by ‘sextortion’ online
FBI sees increase in online child sextortion crimes in Atlanta, warns parents
Copyright 2024 WANF. All rights reserved.