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It often starts with virtual abuse: threats and extortion that make children pose sexually for the pedophile who is hidden on the other side of the screen.
Perpetrators know where to look, an SvD review shows they choose apps strategically.
– It’s quite simple: where the children go, the perpetrators also go, says police Andreas Grym to the newspaper.
Snapchat was formed to attract more people to dare to submit nude photos. But the fun filters made the app popular with kids.
When Svenska Dagbladet has reviewed over 200 convictions for sexual offenses against children, it is an app that stands out. Between January and August of this year, 139 children appeared in sentences where the aggressor contacted them through Snapchat.
– I’m not surprised that it can be a first form of contact. Many other forums are careful to moderate and are constantly searching, says Emma Vangstad, who leads the TI-related child sexual abuse group in the police region in the middle of the newspaper.
Difficult for the police
In addition to the app being popular with children as young as nine, it has another advantage for pedophiles: anything submitted is automatically deleted in the app and the police have a hard time obtaining material proving the crimes of the perpetrators.
– Snapchat is difficult. It’s a problem with the content, which is often what interests us the most, Emma Vangstad tells SvD.
Photo: Silas Stein / TT
Snapchat has proven to be the worst app.
On December 10, the Skaraborg District Court is expected to announce its verdict against a 29-year-old man who, according to prosecutor Ylva Johansson, has “searched” for children on Snapchat. Most of the more than 70 victims of the trial have come into contact with the perpetrator, whom Svenska Dagbladet has decided to call Niklas, via Snapchat. There, Niklas has pretended to be a girl named Mira, Mi, or Nicole.
– There are many, many children who have done it themselves without telling any adult, says Ylva Johansson.
Blackmailing Ten Year Olds
Sometimes the payment is used as bait for children to submit their first intimate photo. Then the spiral of evil begins, where Niklas threatens to spread the image to the school if they do not send more images. According to the prosecution, several children, in some cases as young as 10 years, have been persuaded to commit “highly degrading acts”.
Andreas Grym, a police officer, works at the Väst regional cybercrime center. He knows Snapchat very well, he tells the newspaper:
– Basically we only work with Snapchat. It’s pretty simple: where kids go, perpetrators go too.
– Platforms come and go, but what remains is Snapchat. When I looked at the end of
last year, they accounted for more than 90 percent of our grooming cases, says Andreas Grym.
Photo: Stina Stjernkvist / TT
Gender image of person with mobile.
Svenska Dagbladet has searched for the company Snap, which is behind Snapchat. They send an email with a general response on how they work to protect children from abuse.
“We work hard to detect, prevent and stop abuse on our platform. We will continue to proactively work with international governments, law enforcement agencies and other security organizations to invest in ways that can further improve our handling of such behavior, ”a company spokesperson wrote to the newspaper.
The man named Niklas has confessed to several of the crimes. Prosecutor Ylva Johansson demands eight years in prison.
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