#HER INTERACTIVE VIDEO GAMES SERIES#

There are tools to detect previously identified abuse content, but scanning for new images - like those extorted in real time from young gamers - is more difficult. The Times has also found that the troubled response extends to the online gaming and chat worlds, where popular and successful companies have created spaces that allow adults and children to interact, despite efforts to create some safeguards.

The New York Times reported earlier this year that the tech industry had made only tepid efforts to combat an explosion of child sexual abuse imagery on the internet. Games are a common target, but predators are also finding many victims on social platforms like Instagram and Kik Messenger.ДЄ gamer at DreamHack, a festival held last month in Atlanta. Reports of abuse are emerging with unprecedented frequency around the country, with some perpetrators grooming hundreds and even thousands of victims, according to a review of prosecutions, court records, law enforcement reports and academic studies. Their goal, typically, is to dupe children into sharing sexually explicit photos and videos of themselves - which they use as blackmail for more imagery, much of it increasingly graphic and violent. Often they pose as children, confiding in their victims with false stories of hardship or self-loathing.

The criminals strike up a conversation and gradually build trust. Sexual predators and other bad actors have found an easy access point into the lives of young people: They are meeting them online through multiplayer video games and chat apps, making virtual connections right in their victimsвЂ™ homes. They include graphic descriptions of some instances of the abuse.

#HER INTERACTIVE VIDEO GAMES SERIES#

Articles in this series examine the explosion in online photos and videos of children being sexually abused.

Her interactive video games