Photo: The Canadian Press
Derek Lints wipes away tears as he talks about his 17-year-old son Daniel at his Pilot Mound home, Man., On Wednesday, June 15, 2022.
Daniel Lints was kind and responsible with an ingenious sense of humor. The rural Manitoba teenager had a bright future and a loving family. He played hockey and was a regular visitor to the nearby community pool.
He was a normal, happy 17-year-old until one cold February day he accepted a message request from an attractive young woman on Snapchat.
She coerced him into sending an explicit picture. In a few minutes he was being blackmailed and in three hours he took his own life.
“I feel like he was murdered,” says Derek Lints, Daniel’s father, as tears roll down his cheeks.
Lints and his wife Jill say they are facing an unimaginable tragedy. Daniel, whom most people called Danny, was the victim of a growing global sextortion scheme aimed primarily at teenagers.
“I know Danny would have made a difference in this world,” says Jill Lints as she sits at the family kitchen table in Pilot Mound, Man., 180 miles southwest of Winnipeg. “He would have done good things and he already did. Good things.
“The world lost a good person.”
Police agencies around the world have been sending urgent warnings about sextorting against boys.
The ingenuity is sophisticated, says Stephen Sauer, director of Cybertip.ca at the Canadian Center for Child Protection. Overseas-organized organized crime networks impersonate young women on social media platforms used by teens such as Snapchat and Instagram.
They approach teens and give them sexual attention quickly. Users take advantage of the level of development and impulsiveness of young boys and rush to ask for a picture or video, Sauer says.
Then the threats begin.
Sauer says anonymous users, knowing there will be a sense of embarrassment, say they will send the images to family and friends if the teens don’t give them money.
“Young people are especially vulnerable to this.” he says. “They’re still developing their sense of self. They’re still developing their identity and are often engaged in sexual exploration.”
Many teenagers, like Danny, empty their bank accounts. But all too often, when blackmail continues, they take their own lives.
The RCMP’s National Center for Child Exploitation Crimes received a total of 52,306 complaints by 2020-21, 510% more than seven years earlier. Experts have pointed to the increase in online activity during the pandemic as a contributing factor.
Cybertip, Canada’s online child sexual abuse reporting advice line, had an average of 20 complaints a month for this type of exploitation in 2021. This year it rose to 55 a month and increased even more. up to 75 reports in May.
Coast-to-coast assemblies have issued warnings. Calgary police warned earlier this month that it had only had about 50 cases in the city since the beginning of the year. “We believe these crimes are very little reported,” the sergeant said. said Graeme Smiley.
Police are telling parents to talk to their children about online risks. The RCMP says that any victim of exploitation should stop contacting the instigator and alerting a trusted adult, Cybertip or police.
Danny’s parents say at least two other boys in his small Manitoba community were attacked in the months following his son’s death.
Pilot Mound, with a population of just over 600, was the perfect place to raise his son and two daughters, they say. People take care of each other and there is a sense of security.
A threat from around the world was never expected to spread through social media.
Daniel was calm and happy. He worked hard and bought his first mobile tablet with his own savings to play with friends. Derek Lints talked to his son about staying safe online.
As Daniel grew older, he was given more freedom online. He told his family about a presentation at school about Amanda Todd, who committed suicide at the age of 15 in 2012 after years of online extortion. A Dutch citizen is on trial in British Columbia and has pleaded not guilty to five counts, including criminal harassment and communication with a young man for a sexual offense.
One in three Internet users in the world is a child, one in five in Canada. Many countries are pushing social media companies to ensure that platforms are safe for this demographic.
The European Union recently agreed on a historic regulation for the tech giants. Australia and New Zealand are moving in the same direction.
Canada has set up an online security advisory board to form a regulatory framework to address harmful content online.
Sauer says social media platforms have a responsibility to protect children. There’s so much more they could do, he says.
“There seems to be a lack of will and pressure and obviously a lack of regulation in this space.”
More than 10 years after Todd’s death, the Lints are frustrated that children are still in danger of extinction. They want all parents and teens to be aware of sextory scams. They want pressure on social media companies to protect children.
“This is our way of fighting these predators who stole Danny from us. That’s what we can do right now,” says Jill Lints.
“We can tell everyone.”