In the last hours, Natalie Weber took advantage of the visibility he has as a panelist in American breakfast to raise awareness about a situation that he had to experience firsthand. In order to alert the audience, He said that his twelve-year-old daughter, Mia, fruit of her marriage to the footballer Mauro Zarate, accidentally fell into a pedophile chat room.
In the cycle that leads Pamela David On America TV, the model contextualized the situation: “My daughter was the only one in the class who didn’t have a cell phone.so for his birthday we decided to give him one, but with the condition that he doesn’t have social networks: yes, WhatsApp to talk to his classmates and a tablet that he has for digital tasks,” Weber began by saying this Thursday, and continued: “On Monday night I found out through the moms’ chat that they had put Mia in a group whose creator is a pedophile.”.
The model recounted the modus operandi of this type of behavior and how Mia ended up in that chat: “What they do is put the boys as administrators of the group, but the creator is a pedophile. My daughter was added by a classmate, They add kids, they put them as administrators and the key is to reach a thousand.” At that moment, a mother, whose daughter had been added to the chat, alerted her: “Mía was not only in this chat but in two others. When he heard me talking about the subject with that mother, he got scared and closed the chat.but I began to internalize what I had to do.”
Natalie said there is a feature within the app that serves to prevent these things: “By changing the WhatsApp settings, you ensure that they cannot be added to any group without their request. They can create, but not be added.”, He explained. “There is also another tool that is activated so that No receive calls from unknown peoplethat is, people who are not registered among your contacts.”
“Seven out of ten kids have contact with someone they don’t know on social media”, warned the model, who regretted not having made the complaint “because I made the mistake of having her leave the chat and delete it.” In addition, she told about the attitude she had with her daughter: “I didn’t challenge her. That’s when I realized that I didn’t have the tools to face a lot of things.. I sat and talked. Later, the school did a very good job and she came alone to tell me: ‘Mom, I’m not ready to have Instagram.’ He got scared and deleted the chat”.
Finally, Natalie gave details of the group that her daughter joined, to warn other parents about experiencing the same thing as her. It was called: “Unite people until you reach more than a thousand” and had certain rules that had to be fulfilled in order not to be expelled. Among them, “do not add people over 15 years old” and “Do not insult the administrators when they eliminate them.”
According to specialists, this is a case of grooming and, in such a case, they recommend:
1. Copy the chat URL: this URL is obtained from the settings options in the conversation. The URL is “like a digital ID” that allows justice to identify the predator, even when the name or profile photo is changed.
2. Do not block or threaten him, much less warn him that he has been discovered.
3. Nor continue chatting with the groomer as a way to gather more information. This is part of the criminal investigation task that must be carried out by authorities specially trained for this purpose and doing so on their own can obstruct the case.
4. Not reporting it on the platforms before intervening with Justice: it only puts them on notice, they close that account and continue operating from others.
5. Do not close the account before this happens.
6. If the aggressor is part of the known environment, proceed in the same way. Grooming is a criminal offense and Justice must always intervene.
*Useful contacts: Internet Watch Foundation whistleblower portal, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and ICMEC: https://report.iwf.org.uk/ar; Public Prosecutor’s Office of the City of Buenos Aires. 0800 33 347225 (24 hours); or online complaints by entering www.mpfciudad.gob.ar or sending email to [email protected]; Children’s Team, from the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights. Free telephone line (24 hours a day, 365 days a year) 0800-222-1717 or email to [email protected]; Helpline 137 for victims of domestic and sexual violence, or WhatsApp message at 11-3133-1000; Public Guardianship Office. WhatsApp (every day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.) 15-3637-3727/15-7037-7037. Telephone: 08001227376.
