And he is right that a deterrent like Sweetie to warn predators they are being monitored can scare many so much–especially the more casual one–that they stop for good. Child exploitation and human trafficking are a huge, very real and pressing problem in the Internet age. It will scare the living daylights out of most of them.” “This will serve as a deterrent to hundreds of thousands of potential so-called ‘casual’ pedophiles.
Once potential predators are identified, police could take the next step by issuing a warning. Public chat rooms should be observed, monitored, and patrolled by law enforcement, says Guyt.
Though the Internet must be free it should not be lawless.” We should therefore intervene before a crime is committed. No victim, no witness, no evidence, no case. This is live streaming video and when the perpetrator switches off the computer, the evidence is gone. Secondly, there are no witnesses on the Internet. They won’t come out either to testify against their own families. They are either young prostitutes trying to survive and make some money or they are children forced by their parents. One member on each team would create a fake profile and imitate a 10-year-old girl named “Sweetie” in chat rooms, while the other team member collected information the customer was revealing through IM messages, which they then used to piece together the real identity of the predator. To prototype Sweetie, Guyt and his team first set up a pair of two-member research teams.
The novel approach that we promote does exactly that.” How Sweetie Was Born Of Code And Conscience These men had and have the intention to commit crimes against young children and should be stopped before they do. But, he says, “That wasn’t our point anyway. So I’m left wondering what crime have these men (and women, as Sweetie did have female solicitors) actually committed? Couldn’t it be argued that these people haven’t broken any laws? Guyt admits that is a valid argument. She’s not even a “she.” Sweetie is an “it.” And it’s code. However, judging the criminality of such actions gets confusing because Sweetie is not a 10-year-old girl–no matter what she looks like. There is no doubt that the 1,000 individuals on the dossiers Guyt and his team identified were engaging in sexual acts (usually including sexual conversations and masturbation via webcam) with Sweetie. Once the children make contact, the men on the other end of the Internet connection then pay via PayPal or Western Union Online to watch live streaming video of the children acting out their sexual desires. “They surf public chat rooms to establish contact with men.” “These children are either young prostitutes working from Internet cafes or children who, forced by their parents or other family members, perform sex shows in front of a webcam from their homes,” Guyt says.
This means that the children in these chat rooms aren’t just there for curiosity’s sake, or just hanging out virtually with friends and are then unfortunate enough to be lured into a random predator’s cyber arms. However, the FBI has identified thousands of Internet chat rooms dedicated solely to Webcam Child Sex Tourism. Some may just chance their luck by trying to find unsuspecting children on Facebook or other non-purpose-built chat rooms. WCST usually works like this: A customer logs into an Internet chat room and purposely seek out a child to engage with.