STARKVILLE — Parents find a string of emojis in their child’s phone they don’t understand. Little do they know, these emojis mean their child is using drugs or they are the target of human trafficking.
For Lead Law Enforcement Officer Lee McDivitt of the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office, this scenario is a daily reality. He warned parents of the Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District about these threats at a child abuse prevention event at the Greensboro Center on Thursday night.
“These are all innocent,” McDivitt said. “But anything — I have seen in law enforcement today — can be turned into something nefarious. Things that we enjoy … bad people turn into things that are not good for us, or our kids, or our family.”
McDivitt said the problem starts with a breakdown in communication, as slang changes and parents don’t keep up. He said parents should research unfamiliar words and phrases children are using day-to-day through the Urban Dictionary to know if there are any illicit implications.
But if a parent finds an abbreviation or emoji on their child’s phone they don’t understand, McDivitt said to go deeper, as these could be indicators of coded drug slang. McDivitt gave the examples of the snowman emoji, which stands for cocaine, the horse emoji, which stands for ketamine, and a school bus, which stands for xanax.
“When you see these things, and they look odd in a conversation, you need to take the time to sit down and talk to your loved one,” McDivitt said.
McDivitt also displayed emojis that are being used by teenagers and human traffickers for sexual solicitations. Many of the symbols were hand signs and common food items, like tacos, fruits, vegetables and more.
“All these are simple food things, but that is not what they stand for,” McDivitt said. “And if someone sends this to your son or daughter, you need to be able to look at that phone and say … ‘Who sent you that?’”
But McDivitt warned parents the “emoji code” constantly changes every time children, or criminals, know authorities understand it.
When it comes to protecting children, McDivitt shared a few things he believes should not be on a minor’s phone.
McDivitt’s first offender was Snapchat, which broadcasts a child’s location through GPS services and also “deletes” messages after they are viewed. He said Snapchat can make it easy for criminals to locate a child, and vanishing messages can make it difficult for law enforcement to collect evidence if a crime occurs.
McDivitt also warned parents about Cyberdust — which encrypts messages on both ends, making them difficult to track — and Badoo, a dating app designed for “casual dating” for young people but frequented by traffickers.
Another concern for McDivitt was children intentionally hiding information from their parents using vaults. He warned parents to keep watch for suspicious apps, like a second calculator app. These fake calculators may contain illicit messages or content that can only be accessed through typing the correct password into the keypad.
But vaults can appear in a variety of ways, McDivitt said. He recommended regularly going through children’s phones and tapping all of their apps to verify they are what they appear to be. He also said vaults can appear as a “blurry spot” on a phone.
“If you see a blurry spot on the phone … tap it a couple of times,” McDivitt said. “It’s a hidden vault that could lead anywhere.”
McDivitt did not swear off technology altogether, when it comes to children’s safety. He recommended using apps like Life360 or technology like Apple AirTags to track a child’s whereabouts. He shared his personal method of tracking his children: Putting AirTags in his children’s shoes.
“Anybody who is going to carry a screaming 5-year-old … (has) to keep them mobile, so you’ve got to keep shoes on,” McDivitt said. “Tags in the shoes mean my kid gets found, and the wrath of God gets put on whoever took my child.”
Barbara Culberson, Families Strengthening Families program manager for the SOCSD Discovery Center, said information like this is crucial to families and schools in the county, as threats which used to seem far-off are now right at children’s fingertips.
“There is so much going on with our youth right here in our midst,” Culberson said. “… If you have a device that connects online. … The world has now come into your home. … We’re really trying to make sure parents aren’t in denial of what can happen. We want people to know what can happen and prevent it.”
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