Online Grooming: What Everyone Needs to Know

Online grooming is when someone builds an intimate and emotional connection with someone, typically a child or teenager over the internet to exploit them, be it emotionally, financially, sexually or otherwise. Anyone can be a victim of grooming and anyone can be a perpetrator. We often think about the scary stranger behind the internet, but it often can be someone that the individual knows and trusts and groomers will often conceal their identities using fake profiles and fake information. And you might be asking, what are some of the warning signs of online grooming? The first, I would say, is definitely asking personal questions such as where someone lives, what school they go to, if their parents are home, those types of questions. Second is that they’ll ask to go off platform. So if you met someone on a social media site or a gaming app, they’ll ask to take it to an encrypted messaging platform, typically like WhatsApp, signal or Telegram.

And finally, they’ll start asking for photos or videos, which are seemingly appropriate and normal at first, but often get more uncomfortable and explicit as time goes on. The one thing that we can all do to help stop and prevent online grooming is by having open and honest conversations with the children and teens in our lives. This means letting them know that they can report both posts and individuals to online platforms, that they can come to you if something does happen and you will not be angry or they shouldn’t have any shame. And finally, that there are legal rights and options that a child may have if this happens to them. If you or someone has been impacted by online grooming, please reach out to Helping Survivors and will help you as best as we can.