Latest / The Parent Tap / AI Sextortion Took Her Son in Minutes on Meta

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AI Sextortion Took Her Son in Minutes on Meta · The Parent Tap

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: That is screaming, breathe, just breathe.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I got to the hospital and there was an ex-fBI agent there.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: And my sister handed me the phone and said, I think you need to see this.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember he went up, he went down, and I was like, What?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: What is that?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because it was my child's face, but nothing else looked like my child.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: They don't even need a photo anymore.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Financial extortion used to require a kid to send something.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now AI can generate the image.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: The threat looks just as real.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Shannon Heacock is a Kentucky mom who turned the worst thing a parent can face into a mission to protect other families.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: She's been in courtrooms, testified in front of lawmakers, stood with advocates pushing Meta to do more than settle.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because the schemes are faster now, the images are fake, but the fear is real.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And boys are getting hit the hardest.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: She walked me through what financial sex tortion actually is, how predators are using AI, and what a parent does the moment their kid comes to them with a threat.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: One conversation that could change everything.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because the predators are fast and your response has to be faster.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Your kid gets a threat tonight.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Will they come to you or try to handle it alone?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: He was definitely our tornado.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Being a twin, he liked to boss pilot around just because he was a few minutes older than her.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: But he was also one of those he didn't put up with bullying.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't like conflict.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: He was loud, but he was quiet.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: He loved his friends.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: He loved his school.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: He loved his niece.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: She was his world.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think the memory that I will always cherish is that day we had bought them a Jeep and him riding home with me, switching gears, and trying to learn.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And if we pulled in the driveway and he said, Come Saturday, you'll take me out in the backfield and we'll you'll teach me how to drive the Jeep, right, Mom?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yeah.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that Saturday didn't come.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: My goodness.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's it's so heartbreaking to hear from I don't even I don't remember the words.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping not navigating this in the right way, but I just feel for you from parent to parent and is an imaginable loss, right?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so what was he like to be around?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: What because it described him a little bit, but what was he like to be around and what what impression did you leave upon other people?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: He left a I think he left an amazing, amazing impression on people.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: What was he like to I'm telling you our how you sit in silence and then go sit at an amusement park full.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: The full amusement park would be Elijah.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was I remember one day he came in, he said, I'm gonna be a plumber today.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Really?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, Yeah, so let's go to the basement.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're having some plumbing trouble.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what he was like, Oh, not your plumbing.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: So he was anyone else but mom, yeah.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, anybody else but moms.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: He uh it's funny because even now I can wash clothes and find his laundry in my laundry, and I'm like, what in the world he liked to be right, and he loved to be in perfect condition before he walked out this door, so he probably took longer than Palin did to ever get ready.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I love seeing all the photos behind you and the I'm sure I can't really make out the words, but signatures and probably words of encouragement, support, all that kind of thing.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, they were laid out at the funeral home.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a bunch of them that signed and left him that we just we go and read I do and yeah.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I love the shirt, Eli Strong.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I can see the shirt and so I believe that's what it says, right?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: The top is kind of okay, kind of cropped.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, awesome.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, I love that.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so thank you for again being here and being so brave to talk through this and doing all the advocacy you're doing.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Would you mind again if this is out of bounds, let me know, but would you mind the day, like what happened and what traps how quickly this trap closed in around him?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that night we had a ball game the following day.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: He was working on procs because I'm the cheer coach, so he was he really wanted us to win.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I was I looked up and it was like around 10, 10:15.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Elijah, go on to bed.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's past your bedtime.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I went on to bed, told him I loved him.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: He went I thought he went to bed.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: 11 30 something, 11 40, Palin calmly walks into our room and says, Eli's hurt.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it when I first got to him, I thought that he had fallen.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: I thought Eli has done his thing and gotten up and trying to make more things.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: It took him 20 minutes, 150 messages, AI deep fakes, and$50.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: That is that's hard to believe in terms of the speed of it and to to not even know that that is just terrifying from the parent perspective to know that it could happen that fast and to be over something so trivial as$50.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Man, they're feeling the same.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so have you been able to find justice for Eli in terms of like getting the people responsible held accountable for what happened?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: The FBI found the mule, that would be the pictures and the money and the first contact.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: He is sitting in Texas free.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Then it leads back to Nigeria, and as I've explained to the FBI over and over, you cannot tell me this man in Texas is still not doing this because the way they had worded it to us was I thought it was a child, as they came off describing the mule.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was like, is it and I was thinking to myself, oh my gosh, we were thinking, if this is a child, oh my, what do you do?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want something's gonna give.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want a child to be the one doing this.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, no, it's but he's between 30 and 60.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: But we went in with our pew- pews, as she said, and scared him in front of his neighbors, so he's not doing it again.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: She said, I took all his elect we took all his electronics.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I went and bought this computer when my computer crashed.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody asked for an ID.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody said, is the FBI watching you?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: I just paid for it and left.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: So Eli, just to recap here, so Eli was targeted by an organized financial extortion ring using rapid fire threats and AI generated images.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Can you break down how that works?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why now, even like basically in the past it used to be if you had nudes on your phone or something like that, they could extort you.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: But now it's basically anybody is is a possible victim because of these AI generated deepfakes.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: So can you kind of break down how that happens and maybe what what website or what app or whatever he was on?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any information on that in terms of that?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: So we could just definitely keep our kids away from those sites.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was definitely on Meta, one of Instagram.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: We did not know that till six months ago.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Then it moved to iMessages.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: How does it honestly now I remember I don't because your son is dying in your home and you don't know what to do, and I don't mean that harshly because you don't know what to do to walk up and find your son laying there trying to breathe, and we'll we're doing all we can and I'm digging the blood out of his mouth.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Dad is screaming, breathe, just breathe.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I got to the hospital and the FBI, there was an FBI agent, an ex-fBI agent there.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And my sister handed me the phone and said, I think you need to see this.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember he went up, he went down, and I was like, What is that?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because it was my child's face, but nothing else looked like my child.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then at that moment he put it on airplane mode and said, Hey, Elisha's a victim of sex torsion.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right there before we flew out to the next hospital.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: We knew.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Never heard of this word in our lives.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm just trying to write I'm trying to find the words to speak because this is yeah, this is so mind-boggling for me.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now his twin.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: His twin the other day finally admitted she read the messages on the way up to the hospital.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Did that reveal anything else, or was that just more No, she won't talk to us about it.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was just tonight that we just decided to talk a few things because her and Jenny had been about ready to kill each other, so I needed to let them settle down as what are you doing?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you so mad at each other?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when it came out.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know they were in the home when we were trying to revive.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of stuff that we just did not remember that they did.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: That was happening before this that kind of led up to it, or is it just that one incident?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: They hit fast, they hit hard, and they don't care.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a grown woman, and someone sent me a message that said, Hey, can I see a picture?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I uh screenshotted a picture of Bailey Zimmerman and sent it to them.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, No, can I see a better picture, your whole body picture?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I'm busy.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like, please, can you s so I sent another just from a oh no?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, see, that that was me.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell children, I talk with kids and I talk to them, especially if you send a picture or don't send a picture, it's not the end of the world.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't encourage it, but I'd want you to know that it's not like the message I got the other night from that mother, she had heard my story, talked to her son, and then bam, he was hit.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: She knew what to do.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: My God.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: And given the circumstances of what happened, that that window of time, very small window of time without parent supervision, what would you say, or what would your message be for parents that do put their kids to bed at night?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you expect everything to just be normal, right?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of the normal routine.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: But what what safeguards should we put in place to make sure that our kids are not going through what Eli went through?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: First, I would like to say, because I will get feedback, you're a bad parent, you didn't take his phone, you didn't you know what that night, I did not take his phone.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: I hold that guilt every day.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: I did not take I was tired.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: He was tired, and I just sent him on his way.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even think, hey, go turn your phone in.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's we had rules of we have rules of phones and game systems.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: No week during the week, certain during the weekend, even the phones on weekends were turned in at a certain time.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, my other friends don't do this.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: You're such a but you mean mom.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: I heard that a lot.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Mean mom, you're so mean.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: My other friends don't do this.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, mom.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: But my thing to parents is talk to.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And the comment was made one time that what was Elijah's part in this?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Where is his responsibility?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: He's in the grave, so I don't know what else you want from him.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Speak about it to your kids.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Do not be embarrassed.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Roadblocks, I can tell you right now, that is the scariest thing I have ever seen.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: I just I have a four-year-old granddaughter.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: No, and I get attacked a lot because I've been told everything underneath the sign.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I I don't attack you when you hand your five-year-old a phone or a tablet and go play on roadblocks.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because who's on the other side of that?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Talk to your kids, talk to their friends, you know them with Elijah.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: The whole school knows, everyone knows in Kentucky, sex tortion is this bill sit for four years on a desk.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Eli died on a Friday.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: We buried him on a Friday, and they signed that bill that night making sex tortion illegal and making it mandatory in schools.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: One of the teachers was telling Palin, I'll be glad when we have the new law in for cell phones.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we do.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: We have bell to bell.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: And Palin said, Yeah, it's funny how they signed that, but they couldn't sign a bill that sat on their desk for four years that might have saved my brother.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's that's gotta be just infuriating.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's infuriating for me, just sitting heartbreaking and something like I I hope no other parent has to live.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure that is that some somewhat how you're feeling now too, is like you you channel everything into advocacy, into justice, and to how are you taking care of yourself going through all the craziness that's transpired?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously, I'm not.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: I know that.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: I just if I'm not busy, then I am still mourning.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: For a lot of people, I mean it for a lot of people after the first year, things I was told it would get better.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is their senior year.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's the first year we were all in a fog.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: We I still sit on my couch, wrapped up in his green blanket, waiting for him to walk around the corner with his green blanket.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Still, some days I'm stronger than others.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: I if I'm not out doing whatever I I'm doing at the day, I'm usually in the gym with girls and they're they keep me busy, and uh it is a true blessing to be their coach.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then I have Palin and Channing that have me tied up in everything they can put their arms on.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: This is what when the parent, when people get on and they criticize us, you didn't parent right, you didn't do this.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: How do you parent for something like that when you didn't even know it that monster was out there?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that sex tortion was a thing.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Never heard of it.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And like anybody will tell you, I'm a helicopter mom.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: I know where you are, what you're doing, who you're with, and it happened to us.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: And we that one night I didn't do the right thing.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Look what happened.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, it's one of those stuff, it's an invisible predator in a sense where it's like it's not the van, it's not the bad guy that you can see, but it's behind the screens, and you can't protect you can't protect your kids from everything, and that's the danger of this new world we live in.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And why raising kids in this day and age, I feel, and I'm not just biased because I'm a parent, but I feel like it's harder than any other generation because of all these dangers out there.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: What could parents do to kind of get involved with being part of the solution to all this?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a place we can kind of funnel the audience to or a place to kind of meet up to get support, help back you and honor Eli's memory?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: What is it under Elijah's page?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we have a kidsfightback.org for Elijah.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Kids that is I and I probably wouldn't get much hate if I would shut off and limit my audience.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: But what if?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: What if someone needs?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: What if a child doesn't have anybody to go to?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I could save a lot of heartache, but anymore I d it doesn't bother me anymore.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Some days I'm like, whatever, then some days I cry.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: But parents, we've got to think that the whole, like we said before, this is a war that you nor I are invited to.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're not after us.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: They're after our kids.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: They want our kids.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't because I couldn't yes, it's been done a few times to adults, but like I've told children before, they don't want to see this.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: So they're coming up to you.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: They don't want some grumpy old woman that's not gonna put up with it.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: And if parents just educate, just read about it.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: We are we've done stories in Belgium, we're fixing to do one in Turkish.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's where it's at.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: We're trying to help because I never want another person to feel like I do.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Where I have to go to a grave and hug a t his headstone to feel something.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, the squeaky wheel gets the oil, and so that's kind of how I've always thought about it.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, something has to be done.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Cause like how many lives need to these those these folks are still out there and they're still preying on children and they're still probably doing exactly what happened to Eli.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so that that's the scary thing for me.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you think you're home, you're safe, and you're confined, and you're not, you don't know what's going on.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it makes me want to go hard check my daughter right now, see what the heck she's up to.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna go do that.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: I've had to do that.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's one of the better episodes for sure, in terms of every parent has to hear this story.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like every parent has to hear this story.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care how old your kids are, you have to hear this story.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: It could happen.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: It literally could happen, and now I'm just like, oh my God, we need to catch these bastards and we need to do something about this.