Online predators are people who use the internet with the intention of manipulating or exploiting young people, usually for sexual gratification or other forms of abusive conduct.
Contact with strangers is prevalent in online environments and certain difficulties or impairments can put young people at heightened risk of sexual exploitation. Online predators exist on all platforms and engage with young people predominantly via chat functions or private messages in order to groom or exploit them.
Predators can manipulate or trick adolescents through charm, dominance, or threats where the adolescent feels pressured to perform an action or task. Child abuse material is common. This is where children are manipulated into recording their own abuse. Research shows 50 per cent of young people with a disability in Australia aged 8-17 had talked to a stranger online in the past 12 months.
This Online Safety Training is a joint initiative between Interaction and ySafe and has been made possible by funding from the eSafety Commissioner's Online Safety Grants program.