The World Wide Web is a place full of possibility and wonder. But like any freshly-settled frontier, it is also teeming with dangers – many of which have their antennae pricked specifically for the web’s youngest and most vulnerable users.
From predators lurking in chatrooms to AI-enhanced child pornography, online threats to children and teens have been around as long as the Internet itself. Yet, the rapid clip of technological change has made it all but impossible for even the savviest “netizens” to keep up with these potential pitfalls.
Fortunately for befuddled parents in Alamance County, there’s an interagency effort in this part of the state whose very mission is to help them safeguard their nearest and dearest from the online world’s greatest hazards.
Since 2021, the Invictus Project has provided families in central North Carolina with the knowledge and resources to defy the child predators prowling online. Two years ago, this nonprofit venture teamed up with the sheriff’s offices in Alamance, Davidson, Forsyth and Randolph counties to create a specialized task force that works with state and federal agencies to combat these same insidious offenders.
Whitney Miller, the vice president of Invictus, notes that this four-county task force has racked up hundreds of arrests since its creation in 2024 – largely for the possession or dissemination of child pornography. Miller points out that Facebook and other online hosts are legally obligated to report this illicit material. Information about these items is then passed on to law enforcement by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
“In the state of North Carolina alone, we received 28,000 reports last year,” she went on to recall in a conversation earlier this week. “At this point, we’ve had more than 200 arrests, and the majority of the arrests that they do are based on those cybertips.”
In addition to following up on these “cybertips,” the task force has also set up a number of undercover sting operations where trained law enforcement officers have posed as minors online in order to identify and unmask would-be predators. The office of Alamance County’s sheriff pulled off several of these stings during a recent operation dubbed “Ghost Wire,” which took place over 12 days in October with the support of Invictus.
As publicity goes, it’s hard to match the visceral appeal of these sting operations. But Miller is adamant that these law enforcement initiatives can do only so much to protect children from the dangers around them.
“The enforcement component is vital in this,” she acknowledged. “But we’re never going to enforce our way out of it. We can only do that with education.”
Later this month, Invictus will turn up the dial on these educational efforts with a series of community forums about the dangers that children encounter online. These gatherings will include two upcoming events at Graham’s Trailhead Church. The first on Tuesday, January 20 seeks to elucidate parents, grandparents, and other concerned adults. The second on Sunday, January 25 is intended strictly for teenagers. In both cases, however, these gatherings are meant to jumpstart a constructive dialogue about the rather slippery threats that confront young people when they venture online.
Miller observed that the Digital Age has opened a Pandora’s Box of new ills which defy the traditional “stranger danger” advice that many parents had ingrained in them when they were young.
“Parents are still looking for that scary, creepy white van in the parking lot,” she added. “But children are being lured to that white van by technology…Children are more aware of what this looks like because they’re living in it.”
One source of peril that young people face on the Internet is the child predators who masquerade on social media as children or teens. In order to avoid these devious malefactors, Miller suggests that young people should look out for signs of online grooming and learn how to turn their location off when they frequent social media sites. The upcoming forums will also touch on other, less tangible threats that stem from emerging technologies like artificial intelligence.
“We’ll be discussing things like sextortion,” Miller explained, “which has an AI component where someone can take an image of your child off Facebook and modify it.”
Miller noted anyone concerned about these dangers can learn more about them when Invictus hosts its forthcoming confabs. These events have been organized by a small coterie of concerned residents whose members include Alamance County commissioner Pam Thompson.
A one-time school board member who has also worked as a victim’s advocate, Thompson insists that the vast majority of people are woefully unaware of the risks that kids may encounter when they go online.
“Sometimes it’s right underneath our noses, and we choose not to look at it,” she said in a conversation on Tuesday. “Invictus has such a great track record dealing with these issues that I wanted them to have a platform to talk about it.”
The first of the organization’s gatherings will take place at Trailhead Church from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on January 20. This particular event is open to all members of the community who are concerned about online threats to children and teens.
Then, on January 25, youth groups from across the county will gather at Trailhead for another two-hour dialogue. This event, which is slated to start at 4:30 p.m., is chiefly intended for young people who are 13 or older.
Both of these get-togethers will take place at the church’s home base, which is located at 615 West Harden Street in Graham. Although neither of these events will offer any definitive solutions to the problems that minors face on the Internet, Miller is hopeful that they can, at least, serve as a starting point for parents and children to deal with these matters.
“The key is really to inform parents so they can have informed conversations with their children,” she added. “We’re not looking for that white van anymore, but reminding people that you gave your child a key to that van when you gave them a cellphone.”
