Growing calls for parents to prioritize online safety as AI advances and deepfakes pose risks for children

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As artificial intelligence and deepfakes continue to become more sophisticated, it’s time for parents to step up and pay more attention to their kids’ online safety, says the Windsor father.

Steve Brown, co-founder of the community group Fantastic Father and father of a 9-year-old girl, said, “Things go so fast. The moment you think you understand something, something new happens. comes out,” he said.

“I’ll admit, with all the AI ​​out there right now, we have to not only educate our kids, but ourselves.”

For some answers, Brown reached out to Joanna Konrad, executive director of Youth Diversion, who hosted an online safety presentation at Windsor schools last year.

On June 2nd, she will present a version of that presentation to a wide audience at the WFCU Center. Admission is free.

This presentation is not intended for children. It’s more for parents. Conrad said her own experience has shown that giving young children long presentations doesn’t work.

“We are educating our children about certain subjects, but when they go home they do not talk to their parents about it. But parents don’t even know what the message is, ‘to communicate,’ Conrad said.

Conrad said parents these days are under the erroneous belief that young children are given absolute privacy. Instead, she wants parents to be able to supervise their kids digitally just like they would in real life.

“I always tell parents that if you are observing in person how they interact with other people, you should be observing them online as well. Are they talking?” she said. caring human? ”

Conrad said he was aware of recent incidents in Windsor where young people created deepfakes of acquaintances and shared them with strangers.

She also observed a growing desire among some young people to “oversexualize” their social media content.

Conrad said last week she had to have a conversation with her 6-year-old son about sexual activity she learned online.

“I never thought my 6-year-old son would know this, but he does, so we have to discuss it here,” she said. I was.

Konrad recommends parents follow these six “key tips” to keep their kids safe.

Know all your kids’ online passwords.

Be careful not to add people as friends that you don’t know in real life.

Pause before posting. Avoid posting images of your child that strangers may use for explicit purposes.

Remove all mobile devices from your child’s room when it’s time to go to bed.

Create an open dialogue where children can talk openly about what they see online and who they talk to online.

Weekly Device Check: Check your child’s device to read chats and make sure they are not in contact with dangerous people.

“The absolute rule of being at home with kids is that there is no such thing as absolute privacy. Parents have a really hard time swallowing that, and kids certainly do,” Konrad said.

“Parents should know the password. They should have full access to these devices. If they don’t, ask yourself, ‘Why don’t I know? After all, it’s the parent’s device, not the child’s.”

Brown said she learned a lot about the current dangers of social media in preparation for her June 2nd presentation, and said it’s important that all parents take it more seriously.

“We have to play an active role in what kids are doing on social media,” said Brown.

“When AI and humans can literally express themselves and put themselves in situations where God only knows, it’s scary to death that people think it’s you.”

Use this link to view more information about Conrad’s online safety presentation.