Cyberstalking: A Growing Epidemic

threatening me, stalking me. By the past eight plus years since COVID, this alarming issue has risen over seven The amount of information that can be used to target somebody is overwhelming. I got a random message saying I've got naked pictures of you. They sent extremely dangerous people to my home to do unspeakable harm to my family. Well, the first thing, the most important thing you can do, is oh, you just cracked the case wide open from

my mind. We're sharing a frightening incident that's recently happened in our family. You had a situation, yeah, um, yeah, cyber stalking turned into real life stalking. Yeah. I'm used to people saying things online. I'm used to having thousands and thousands of people with not very good things to say. I've been cyber bullied for my whole life. Cyber stalking is a little bit more insidious and scary because it's like checking the GEO tags on your photos and they're like,

where do they go for their Christmas vacations? Where did they go with their family when they're over here. They're watching all of your social media accounts to see what your movements are. And this guy was doing that to me, and he was doing that to me for a couple of years. Actually, he basically got my patterns. During December when we were gone for family vacation. He actually came to my house and broke in while we were away. Yeah, crazy, crazy times crazy justin up waiting for you to come

home and found a little camp behind the house. Thank god I wasn't there. That was scary. It was scary. We caught him exactly. There was footage on the cameras that was a physical trespassing situation, and he had priors. His priors were scary. Um he was a pedophile. So I ended up having to go to court and testify about it. They only gave me like a certain amount of time for a restraining order. I wanted to extend it, but for some reason they said that I couldn't and

I would have to testify again. I would have to come back to court again. Well, the good thing is he is in custody. So how did you feel going back to your home though? Did you feel besides just feeling violated, were you fearful? Um? I mean yeah, I wash, but my mind is very extreme, and so it was almost like, okay, like you're going to be scared, just leave. Then it's either leave or stay. There's no in between. We went in and shored everything up. We shored it up.

We got you loaded and protected. Once they got all the evidence that they needed from inside, we had to take all the stuff out the refrigerator because we were afraid maybe he put something in the drinks or in her food to knock her out or you know, like we had to go through everything, toothpaste, everything, everything in the house had to go. And I wouldn't have thought about Yeah we went, Yeah, we did. We went in events, we did all like because we didn't know if he

put cameras up like we didn't. We had to like really like strip the whole house down, we short her up strongly. Did you find the police to be helpful in this or I mean from a mother's point of view, I would say yes, because they caught him. Yeah, I'm they were on it. Now. I'm not happy with the laws. I'm hoping at some point laws can be strengthened. In regards to cyberstock, yeah, technology is advancing very very fast,

faster than law enforcement can keep up. The stuff that people can get away with and not have any consequences is crazy. My niece, Jade is being tormented by a cyber stalker. As an influencer, Jade makes a living by having a strong presence on social media. Jade says, for years, someone has been making her life miserable, tracking her every move online, harassing her, constantly tagging her friend's boyfriend and exes, making upwards of fifty comments per day. As soon as

Jade blocks her, a new account appears. This weaponization of social media has devastated her and she doesn't know how to make it stop. This is serious. It's serious business out there for everybody. Yeah, so they started to tag my ex boyfriend and my current boyfriend on all my pictures, all my family's pictures, my business related, all my partnerships that I have with friends, going to different people's pages

and just tagging saying the most hurtful things. My boyfriend at the time, he plays football, and they started tagging his teammates on his page and all his stuff and just saying stuff like what basically just wishing that my mom would have swallowed me instead of having me saying that, like, you know, yeah, degrading things like oh, you're a home, You're passed around, You're a liar, just trying to destroy me.

We have some of the messages sent to you. You've been passed around from locker room to locker room, dumb groupie home, Okay, you need to get ran through by athletes to take care of you when your parents not doing it. The biggest hole in the city. And this is every single day. And I kind of had an idea of who it could be because I only had like two friends when I was young, and my grandpa Robs, so he passed away when I was in high school. They're making so many fake accounts using his name. Robs

was rolling over in his grave. Rob Sol was disappointed in you, like and just so you guys know Russels, my father, Willow's granddad gave ms X, so they knew him and nobody else knew him. So hurtful and scary because my dad grandfather, who would know who my grandpa is? So then my family hired a private investigated. Once they found out who it was, I was like, Wow, it was a girl that I was best friends with growing up. She was always in competition, had to be the best,

All the boys had to like her. I remember her, Yeah, I know her. I remember her. As we got older, I kind of just realized she wasn't a good person. She moved away and I kind of just forgot about her, and which happens well in relationship. I know she was stalking me and my family, all my friends profiles for the past eight plus years and y plus eight years years. How many fact accounts do you think that she had? Now, Like, yeah,

it was ridiculous. When I would blocka account, she would come back literally five minutes and make another account saying oh I can do this all day, and I'm just like it just got worse, and the more I ignored her, the worst it got. So when did it get heightened? Once the pandemic started. It was like it was just too much time for someone and she just, I think, explode it and couldn't contain her emotions and her feelings.

I think she was making things up in her head that I did these things to her just because I didn't want to be her friend anymore. I found out that she moved out here, back out into Cali after eight plus years of not being here, and now she's fifteen minutes down the road, and I'm like, wait what. And then she reached out to me and she was just basically threatening me. Have you confronted her yet? I have. I've confronted her and I let her know I knew who it was. She denied it, she admitted it. I

was just like, let's sit down. She didn't want to sit down, she didn't want to talk. So you were just deeply desperate, desperate. She just ended, it's really difficult when your social media is the main source of like you cut your brand, deals, your income, your career. And I'm just like, oh my gosh, this girl is just trying to completely sabotage everything. And it's still happening to me.

I'm still even after confronting her, it's still going. And after confronting her, I found out that she worked with kids, and I was just like, oh my gosh, you work with kids and you're doing this to me every single day. Did you ever go to the police? I try to get a restraining order? And it was just devastating to hear that there was absolutely nothing I could do. It was just so much that was wearing down on me,

taking a toll on your mentor your your heart. How did you stay out of the space of just wanting to get revenged, like you just want to go and like so a break through their window or something, you know, not seriously, Yeah, I was about to pull up. I'm like, I have to do something, Like I can't just sit here and just be okay with this. And that's why I just want to stress the importance of seek help,

talk about it like you're not alone exactly. So. Flynn Adam's, daughter of gendary actress Jane Seymour, has been traumatized but cyber Starkers, who exposed her home address online which led to dangerous strangers showing up at our door. Now she's devoted her life to stopping it from happening to anyone else. Wow,

Hi fly welcome. Yeah. So in my situation, and I made a very critical mistake that I think a lot of people can relate to, which is not accounting for how quickly unmanaged abuse incidents like the ones that you're experiencing can escalate into very very real threats of violence. I was working as a very high ranking executive at a at a large technology company. There were two people in particular. They were in my universe enough to where they knew enough about me to make the attack dangerous.

And they went right into creating fake accounts pretending to be me, um, my husband, other family members, even our businesses. Wow. One day, they went so far as to post our our home address as a place where they they advertised, sorry it's um, it's hard to get through. They impersonated me and my family in such a way that they suggested that my home was a place to go to to facilitate certain fantasies. Okay, okay, um they sent extremely dangerous people to my home to do unspeakable harm to

to me and and to my family. So, I mean, I can absolutely relate to the fear when you are woken up to this reality of oh, my gosh, somebody I don't know has intentionally weaponized a piece of technology to do harm to me. It wasn't something that I had actually considered before that happened. I had direct contact to security heads, to legal heads at these platforms where this was happening, to very high ranking members of law enforcement,

federally and locally, and very little was done. And to this day my situation has not been resolved, not not in a meaningful way. What really scared me the most and sort of, you know, stop that. The current trajectory of my life was this fear that, you know, what are you supposed to do to actionably protect yourself? Did you find out who the perpetrator it is? And were you able to stop it? No? Um, it's it's complicated because of the way that law and technology haven't quite

caught up with each other yet. It's a feedback loop. You go to law enforcement, law enforcement tells you go to the platform, the platform tells you to go back over here. It's just like, yeah, yeah, they just don't understand, Yeah, they just they just don't get it. I even had to judge tell me that if I didn't like what the people said about me, on the internet. I shouldn't have a computer, And I thought, like, what we're learning

is that abuse itself is subjective. You know, everybody experiences So yeah, okay, wait, I'm sorry. That was the crux of it. Yeah, that was the core. That was the core. Subjective is subjective. That is, to me, the key of why these things aren't being resolved in the way that they should. Wow, you just cracked the case. I didn't think about it like that. Yeah, I mean, you really

got me together that it is subjective. But that's so important because you can't take it, you can't take it to court, you can't take it anywhere unless you understand the thing you're addressing. Have you had an opportunity to confront the people that have been doing I never would. It's it's it's a different level of danger. So you're brave on your part that you have to be careful. And I wanted to reach out and say no. So that was everybody around me telling me stop being communication

with it. She's thriving off of it. She wants you to act flim How did this experience impact your personal life permanently and forever and ever and ever for the worst. Um, I do my best to try to move beyond it. But the psychological damage, the emotional consequences of this kind of behavior. UM, it has changed the way that I live. My house is the most secure thing that you've ever been in. UM. I have seventeen different devices that I use for different things. It changed the way that I parent.

I've become this kind of HeLa monster. You know. I won't let him walk outside, I mean even in our own backyard without wanting to know where he is. It's sort of like obsessive thinking. Um. And that's sort of affected my marriage where I just I could not stop thinking about it because what would be some of your suggestions in regards to Jade's case. One, always always always be your own advocate. Never ever ever let anyone, not even law enforcement a social media company tell you that

what you're experiencing shouldn't make you feel unsafe. That really is your decision. The most critical point is capturing what happened to you. Because the first, first, most critical mistake that people make. I made it when when I tried to resolve my situation, I had brought in screenshots, right, which I thought, who doesn't bring in a screenshot? But

those are not corroborating substantial pieces of evidence. So text messages on your phone, yes, if they if they take your phone and they audit your phone, if it's from the device itself. But if you're screen grabbing things, I did that. I have a whole photo album of all the messages, all the screenshots, So that doesn't mean anything. How do I know you didn't photoshop the screen grab? So you can't ever delete the text messages from your phone because you never know when something is going to

get worse. If I see something I don't like, I keep it. If you walked in there with you know, ten thousand pages of captures, I mean, this is this is a crime. By the way, I mean, people need to know you can't use screenshots. That's huge. I really do think that we need a daily practices in digital safety as an ongoing, evolving course. The amount of information

that can be used to target somebody is overwhelming. We worked with Flynn to create a photo that many parents are posting these days, especially as children are headed back to school. Tell us all the ways this photo is revealing personal information. Cream So that's first problem. ABC is not good. That doesn't seem good. Joy's first day sixth grade with his favorite his middle school. You're having so much anxiety right now. You're like, oh no, I'm not

for buddy Billy. So he's going to the sixth grade. His name is Joey, he plays soccer, and his best friend's name is Billy, and he goes to North Middle School. All of that information, yep, you got it. All of that information. As a general rule, you have to be conscious of a thing called the current. Now never never never tell anyone where you're at the time that you're damage because if you are being stalked, um, it just takes yet. And then also be aware of what's behind you.

Is that you know you're a picture of the rest of your family. Are you holding something? If your child is holding his favorite toy you mentioned you know this is Bobby's favorite bear, you know whatever it's called. Right, you have to be very careful not just about the photo but about the content. The more data you give, the more ammunition you're giving somebody attack you because all

that information right there is anything that a pedophile. When you need to draw Joey or Billy into the car, exactly, We're gonna go to ABC ice Cream and meet your mom there. Yep, Yeah, Bobby's waiting for you. Yeah, Bobby's waiting for you. It happens like that in a second. And we see it so often with identifying information and photographs, whether it's you know, telling people that you're on vacation, or taking pictures even in your home, revealing pictures of

the children's room. So now I have insight into what your child likes, what they do, what their preferences are. It's so sad because the average person is just excited their kid is going to school. My nieces and nephews are posting pictures of their kids. They're they're happy they're back in school. They're showing pictures. Nobody is thinking about that, which is why it's always so important to remember that accountability for dangerous behavior is a two way street. You

have to be proactive in your own practices. This is the kind of stuff, you know, you got to really be aware of. I took a picture of you the other day, and I zoomed it because I was like, wow, somebody could look at this fine figure out where you were. So I made it super super close so that it was just you and you couldn't tell anything about the background, and I caught it because I was like, wait a minute, this is very distinctive. I looked at this picture and

I wanted to know where she was. You could figure it. I could figure this out. It's incredibly dangerous. If you don't want something on the Internet, don't put it there. And I will tell you this too. I'm a data scientist, so I love data. We're beyond the point of people saying we'll just get off the platform. The world is connected in a way that it's never been connected before, such a median or to get your business to thrive. It is part of our lives. Flynn, I feel like

you need to teach a class. I agree, that's so important. Ashley Reynolds was a victim of an extreme type of cyberstalking called sex stortion, blackmailed by a complete stranger, tricked and con into sending neked photos as she found herself at the center of one of the biggest sextortion cases in history. I've always been a normal kid. You know, I'm your everyday girl. Around fourteen years old. I just finished my freshman year of high school. I got a

random sage saying all caps lock in subject mind. I've got naked pictures of you. Opened this and I was like, I've never sent naked picture to like anyone, like I grew up literally being likes. So I brushed it aside. And then I got another message from the same person and still brushed it aside. Then I was at my aunt's house and I get a text saying, you can't be ignoring me because you need to send me seven naked pictures or I'm going to send all of your

friends these pictures. And I was like, you don't have anything of me, and so I put up a fight, but it got to the point where he got into my head, like psychologically he was relentless, and I kind of just gave in. And that's when the fourteen year old inside of me thought I could just handle it. And I was like, fine, you know what, I'm going to take these pictures. I'm going to send it because that's what I thought would be the only way to get him off my back. It doesn't make sense, but

like I was fourteen, I have a completely different mindset. Yeah, and I like, you don't want to tell anyone because you're like, what if I'm getting one of its literally excused myself went to the restroom. I was like, I'll send these pictures and be done. Once I sent those seven pictures, that's when I knew for a fact he had naked pictures of me, and that was where he

got his leverage from. So what started off with those seven naked pictures he wanted that first night that I actually complied, it actually turned into I was sending over sixty naked pictures of myself every single night. It wasn't like every once a week, it was every single night. He had a list. It was to of cover your chest. It started it starts off slow, keep your shirt on.

It turned into cover this and then expose yourself, and then it turns into like hearing and finding out things like I didn't even know existed that I had to do to myself. And so yeah, and it was like if I didn't send him what he wanted, he was going to basically send what he had to like my friends. And he showed that he would do it because he actually sent um a couple of pictures. And so I spent my fifteen birthday in my bedroom with the door

shut taking pictures of myself. So he basically was telling you, I have pictures of you, but if you don't send me more, then I'm going to release the ones that have. Yeah, it got to the point where he started to want me to send him videos of myself and wanted me to like do stuff that way. Were you're just so

afraid that you felt like you couldn't tell your parents? Yeah, I remember hearing on the news and I'm saying, like, you know, you could go to jail for sexting, and I was like, so like, why would I want to come forward with anything we don't understand? Get and sucked in? You get the fear and the the steaks are so distorted, and it's like you don't want your parents to see you in that light, you know, it's like dirty. And I feel like, wait, if I say this, are they

gonna like not even help me. It's more so of like not wanting my parents seeming like that. So it's like I don't know. But when they first found out, I was at a Christian club type of thing and my mom sends me a text and she's like, me and your dad are picking you up right now. We get home in the family come Peter was in their bedroom. My mom goes, what's this and I was like, and then I was crying because I was afraid that I was going to go to jail. It was our party

that was relieved that your parents, Oh my gosh. Yeah, and then my mom called the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children. They're the ones that got the FBI involved. I was the whistleblower on my case. So what started off was me thinking, it's only happening to me. Over three hundred and fifty girls, he was doing this too. I'm not the only one three fifty girls, And to this day, we've only been able to identify a hundred and nineteen of them. So there's over two hundred girls

who have no idea. They're probably getting married now and wondering, you know, isn't going to come back. But get this. The youngest one that they identified so far was only eight years old. No, no, no, eight years old. Have they been able to catch this guy? He's yeah. The first time I saw him was when we had our trial, because they had a few of the victims speak when they were sentencing him. We went to Jacksonville, Florida, and it's the orange jumps to shackles. He had like slimy,

long hair, end. It's so weird to be able to say I put someone in prison for a hundred and four years. Nice for you, mynded. Yes, if you have a computer or a smartphone. Dr Thomas high Slip, who worked with the Department of Defense, has critical information on how to protect yourself. You investigate cybercrimes. Okay, amazing. So if this is happening to you and you want to

call the police, what exactly do you say? The best thing you can do is go to the police station, get in an interview in person, right, don't just file a report online or call. Also, take your devices with you. If you're using the cell phone or a computer or an iPad, bring those with you. If you don't have it, it's okay, we'll look into it. If you have them right there, they can bring him in a laboratory and they have the information they need to start the investigation.

Got it. And also say the magic words. A lot of people don't want to say they scared for the life, or that they feel threatened or they're seriously distressed by these actions. Say the words. If you call my office and you say so, someone's bothering me. And to keep making ice post it's just kind of annoying. So you're like playing it off. So if you're on the line, you've got twenty other cases to work, you kind of like, alright, just file report I see three and we'll get to it.

But if you're in person, listen, this is really affecting me. I can't sleep at night. I need help. And that's the reality. Because you can't sleep at night, that's affecting you. Even when you tell yourself it's not, you're thinking about it, right. And finally, if it involves your child, bring your child. I mean it can be hard on the child, but also talking about it can help. Right. It's the human

problem now, it's not a technology problem. And when it comes to law, we need a cyber security law or a cyber safety like its own thing. The laws have not kept up with technologies. They've gotten better and they're they've made some changes, like recently the federal statute for cyberstalking. They added severe emotionals and stress so it didn't have

to be a threat against your life, which helps. And so you can file your reports through with the Internet Crime Complaint Center at the FBI and the websites I see three dot Government with the work that I do now, I cannot unsee the things that I see on a daily basis, the things that human beings are willing to do and say to each other. Man. We had a big case a couple of years ago a group in the South comant of prison system. They were using one

cell phone all day long. All they did was cyberstock people and try to get them to do sex storation. They were targeted against military members, and so they would find a military member's profile and start hitting them. Send me a picture, and these young guys would send it like you were talking about absolutely yeah, yeah, And then they had people on the outside who would go collect

the money for Wow. We had to start a big task force and went on, you know, for a couple of years, and we finally were able to break it up and rest a bunch of people. But you know, that's an example of how far they will go. They got all day sitting there on their cell phones, nothing but target people. This is something to be aware of. The this is a very scary set. American send one

point eight million nudes per day. That means that since we started this Red Table talk, more than thirty three thousand naked photos have been sent across the country and check this. Seven out of ten times when strangers swap X rated pictures on dating apps, the result is someone having a racy photo of a person they'll never meet. Sixty of men who had a nude of an ex kept the photo after the breakup. Six percent of women expected their partners to have deleted them. Listen, don't even

take the photo. Don't send it, but don't take it. Really big, big, still taking nudes on the phone. I don't stick it. A lot of people feel like not me, and you feel like you're sending it to somebody you trust. Then the revenge do you break up with some boyfriend girlfriend for two years and you break up and they're mad and they got photos of you. But the rules are different from the rules are different. Now, Well, thank you you guys. This was like really really really learned

a Lotah, thank you guys, this was great. Thank you. In this day and age, with you, I would have taken yourself. No, I took it away. But yeah, yeah, but I'm saying, in this day and age, I would really just get that phone together so that I would know every single thing, single movement on that fall to join the red table Talk family and become a part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook dot com slash

red table talk. Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast, produced by Facebook, Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.