OHIO — A judge in Ohio recently struck down a social media law that would force social media apps to add parental consent, saying that, while the intention was “noble," this law would violate children’s first amendment rights.

What You Need To Know

  • Communicate with your children that they can come to you for help and there are resources to help them

  • Check parental controls on their social media

  • Make the internet your ally with resources available

But the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation reports an increase in financial sextortion cases among minors between the ages of 14 to 17. A photo on their website shows messages saying "hey I got your nudes and will ruin your life."

Messages like those are targeting minors on social media, according to the Feds, and the problem keeps getting worse.

“If you’ve got maybe a middle schooler or a high schooler that may have already had a cellphone and was able to download applications, that can be a little bit more difficult,” Emily Torok, the Ohio School Safety Center executive director from the Ohio Department of Public Safety, said. “Because you don’t always know what they have on their phone.”

But Torok said there are numerous resources to help educate parents on how to approach this problem.

The first step to keep children safe, Torok said, is by talking to them.

It’s never a bad time to start a conversation about online safety, Torok said, and there are many online resources to help with ideas of discussion breakers.

“You don’t want to breach that barrier of trust with your youth and say, 'give me your phone. I want to look at your smartphone applications,'” Torok said. “Having those open and honest conversation about, you know, ‘you can always come to me’ having that trust that, you know, ‘you’re not going to get in trouble. I just want to be able to help you,’ and then also the, ‘this may not happen to you, but it may happen to a friend.’”

Torok said knowing what platform your child wants to use will allow parental controls.

She also said to look at the parental controls on their phones before handing them out.

“There are certain smartphone applications that allow you to prohibit from downloading different apps,” Torok said.

Torok said making sure your child knows there are resources out there to help them can make all the difference.

“We’ve had people speak at our annual school safety summit about how they just wish that their son or daughter would have known that there are these resources, like ‘take it down’ available,” Torok said. “That there are these ways to report cyberbullying and things like that, if they had only known that that existed, they would still be alive today.”

The FBI has tips on what to do if you’re being exploited:

  • Report the predator’s account
  • Block the predator
  • Save the profile and messages
  • Ask for help

In January, Braden’s Law went into effect in Ohio, which criminalizes sextortion of minors.

Torok said people can make the internet their ally by using its resources.

“So, the Department of Homeland Security has a program called Know2Protect that has a lot of really great resources for parent to go over with their kids,” Torok said. “There’s a lot of really other good ones from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.”

Here are some more available resources: