Yes, it's exactly that. When the phones came out and almost every child was given one, we did not know then what we know now. When social media came out, especially in 2010 and 2011 with Snapchat and Instagram, all the predators basically went online. They had full and easy access to all of our children, because we did not realize what was happening for so long. With gaming now, they can chat directly with kids through games. They can pretend to be anybody they want to be. They can create their own avatars.
Currently, the platforms give predators direct and easy access to our children. Since our children are spending so much time online, they're very vulnerable and very open with some of their struggles, with their mental health issues. Maybe they are angry with their parents, or maybe they're complaining about not having enough money for this or that. Then, that gives the predators easy information from which they are going to try to feed that need or address that emotional need that isn't being met.
They create this friendship and this trust very quickly, and they bring that child into a place where they feel like they're best friends. Then they slowly start to groom them and slowly move the chat perhaps somewhere more private like Snap. Eventually comes the ask for a photo, for a nude, for a more explicit photo. From there, that just opens the door to all the things we talked about: sextortion, trafficking, sex trafficking.
Kids are being sex-trafficked from their bedrooms, because when sharing that photo, they don't realize that the average nude image of a child, a CSAM, is viewed 400,000 times, as stated on Defend Young Minds. That is sex trafficking right there. It's being sold, traded and uploaded to Pornhub, where it's monetized. Kids are being trafficked from their bedrooms through the devices that parents have given them, and parental controls are not enough.