Criminal and even sadistic networks that prey on children online have reached Norway, with police reporting recruitment efforts aimed at young girls and teenage boys. The government wants to block social media to all those under age 15, but some don’t think that will be enough to halt online predators.
“This is a cynical milieu with a total lack of empathy or respect for life,” Kristin Kvinge, chief of Norway’s international crime unit Kripos, told newspaper Aftenposten on Wednesday. She’s demanding that large tech companies with platforms including Discord, Roblox, Snapchat, Instagram, Tiktok and Telegram release information about who’s behind those luring children into online activity that can result in self-mutilation and even suicide.
Kvinge said the schools, health officials and not least parents must engage themselves and monitor what children in their care are doing online. “By the time police get called in, a child has already been injured or worse,” she told Aftenposten. “Get your kids off these apps, and no child should be on Signal or Telegram.”
NewsinEnglisn.no staff
