Kathryn Kosmides
Contributor
Kathryn Kosmides is a survivor of gender-based violence and the founder of nonprofit background check Garbo.
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s message about Instagram’s impact on teenage girls was unequivocal: Facebook’s studies found that 13% of British teens said Instagram prompted thoughts of suicide, and 17% of teen girls say Instagram makes eating disorders worse.
These statistics, however, are only one part of the bigger picture when it comes to the general safety of teenagers online.
It’s estimated that there are over 500,000 sexual predators active on the internet each day. In 2020, there were over 21.7 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation made to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline. Online enticement reports — which detail when someone is communicating with a child via the internet with the intent to exploit them — increased by more than 97% from the year before.
Reports of online predators are on the rise, but predatory behavior online is as old as Netscape.
My family got our first PC in 1999. I started on gaming platforms like Neopets and Gaia Online. Soon, I was posting thoughts and communicating with other users on Myspace and Tumblr. As my online world expanded, I encountered old men …
