Teen Used Facebook to Blackmail Classmates

The Associated Press recently reported on an Eighteen-year-old Wisconsin high school student Anthony Stancl who created a Facebook profile to pretend to be a teenage girl. Under this guise, over the course of nearly two years, he used the fictitious account to convince more than 30 of his male classmates to send in nude photos or videos of themselves.

Once the videos and photos were in Stancl’s possession, he threatened to put the photos or videos on the Internet unless they engaged in sexual acts with him. At least seven of them have said they were coerced into sex acts, which Stancl allegedly documented with a cell phone camera.

Reports have said there were about 300 photos of underage males as young as young as 15, on Stancl’s computer, police in the teen’s hometown of New Berlin, Wisc., confirmed.

As a parent of three teenage boys, this is about as scary as it gets.

I don’t believe refusing to let your child have a MySpace or Facebook account is the answer – and certainly refusing to let them explore the internet isn’t realistic – but what is – is teaching your children that things like this happen – horrible people do exist and many people fall prey to the world of make-believe on the internet. Teach your children that you love them no matter what and if they ever find they’ve made a mistake and are being back into a corner with threats, that you love them regardless of what they could do or could have done.

Make coming to you easier for them. Communication is key in keeping your child safe on the internet.

Source: CNet News