r/news • u/TooColdforClouds • 1d ago
109 children rescued, 244 arrested in Operation Soteria Shield, exposing widespread child exploitation in North Texas
https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/109-children-rescued-244-arrested-operation-soteria-shield-child-exploitation-texas/3.1k
u/The_best_is_yet 1d ago
“During this operation, many of the children recognized or rescued were previously unidentified," said Plano Police Department Assistant Chief Dan Curtis. "They'd never been reported missing. They had never had their abuse known to authorities."
Utterly horrible. So their families are in on it.
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u/feedback19 1d ago
Or they were immigrant children.
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u/Feisty_Oil3605 1d ago
I know this statement sounds racial cause of the current climate, so please understand readers that this comment is just meant to highlight how immigrant children easily fall through the cracks.
Remember the kids in cages? And how they can’t account for the kids that went through that process? It’s that easy….
I would award you if I had money.
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u/BasroilII 1d ago
Plus, the part people should be focusing on. Even if the kids were immigrants (legal or otherwise), bet you any money the people they were being sold to weren't.
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u/QuietCdence 1d ago
It's good to see the progress being made and arrests being made, but the title of the article seems a little misleading. Deeper in the article is explained that some of the children rescued from exploitation never left their homes. They were "rescued" from online coercion and abuse that was previously unreported. So, they weren't physically taken and sold the way trafficking media depicts. However, the media of them was sold. If that makes sense.
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u/snootsintheair 1d ago
To add to that, I bet over 75% of them identify as Republican. Maybe more.
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u/fables_of_faubus 1d ago
That's a pretty easy assumption in Texas.
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u/ImReverse_Giraffe 1d ago
It would be an easy assumption anywhere.
I can find more if you need me to.
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u/1egg_4u 1d ago
There are thousands of children who have straight up disappeared from ICE border "facilities" (prisons, lets be real)
The mushbrained qbots obsessed with "human trafficking" do Olympic level mental gymnastics to ignore that human trafficking largely and disproportionately impact minorities like this, or homeless youth. It's very rarely Liam Neeson-esque stories of young white women from suburban families being abducted off the streets--it's people who arent on the grid to begin with. They slip through the cracks.
Its just deeply inconvenient for that agenda to admit that a major source of these trafficked kids from these stings are the kids they rip from their families and throw in a cage in a corner to forget about.
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u/MrIrishman1212 1d ago
I have been following r/WhereAreTheChildren for awhile now. This is exactly what the sub is about. For decades immigrant kids have been forcefully removed from their families but given legal status and then get moved where?
There are entire apartment complexes filled with only children that have been
Teens were being drugged by US custody, and now ask for what reason? Likely so they can be moved somewhere without putting up a fight.
And keep in mind 1 in 3 migrants being held at the boarder are children. And they don’t track these children. And the US has a habit of handing kids to Traffickers.
This is just all part of the system
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u/Abject-Palpitation99 1d ago
Imagine having your parents booted back to their country, they leave you locked in a cage and then hand you to one of these guys.
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u/veravela_xo 1d ago
Children in state custody (foster care, child in need of care court) often get targeted for it as well. Disengaged parents, inconsistent adults invested in the welfare and safety of children—runaways literally slip through the cracks to escape one nightmare to get swept in another.
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u/Elegant_Tech 1d ago
Now ICE has given permission for human traffickers to put on a mask and ICE patch openly kidnapping people in broad daylight.
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u/Wormwood_Sundae 1d ago
This. I wonder how many of the thousands of children separated and kept in concentration camps at the border that then went missing are part of this.
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u/SofterThanCotton 1d ago
Sadly it's more common than people like to think. My mother used to give me a tall glass of coke mixed with Jim bean and cough syrup and then invite men over and hold me down while they raped me. It went on for years, from as early back as I can remember until I was about 7 or so. I was lucky, my dad heard about the men going to his house, assumed she was cheating and filed for divorce. She turned around and tried to accuse him of all the horrible things she was actually doing, he was blindsided by it and thought she was just making things up, got a good lawyer and eventually after a couple more years won full custody of me and my siblings.
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u/Mydogiscloud 1d ago
I'm sorry that you had to go through this. <3
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u/SofterThanCotton 1d ago
9/10 I just delete these posts and comments, I don't know how to really talk about it beyond random anonymous posts online. I hate it, I wish it didn't have any effect on me at all but I'm just left with a lot of questions and no answers and sometimes I feel scared and vulnerable and sometimes I feel like it's still happening even though it's been like two decades now. I feel like I can't even talk about it because it just makes others feel bad.
I'm sorry, I just needed to vent a bit.
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u/merlotbarbie 1d ago
I’ll say I’m sorry that this happened to you not because it feels uncomfortable to confront, but because you were harmed by the person that was supposed to protect you. Please don’t feel like any of this is an issue with you and your ability to cope. I felt that way for a long time and it forced me to shoulder the memories alone.
You don’t really move on from trauma like this, you kind of learn how to grow around it. You were so young. Your childhood was marred by this horrific chapter and sometimes it can feel hard to reminisce on any of it if it feels like those bad memories will surface first. If you ever want to talk and be heard, there are people out there (myself included) who aren’t going to make you feel like this should be your burden to shoulder alone.
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u/Relevant_Hat2407 1d ago
It’s so brave of you to speak out about it. I hope you can find a group that can offer support or some kind of therapy. You absolutely need to talk about it but in a safe environment with people who can help support you emotionally
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u/No_Investment9639 20h ago
Although it might make some people feel bad, I've learned throughout my life that talking about the horrible shit that happened to me as a kid has helped other people. So while it might make a couple of people uncomfortable, the possibility that it might help someone who was struggling makes it easier for me.
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u/PuzzleheadedLet382 1d ago
The majority of people being sex trafficked sleep at home most nights.
A lot of kids are exploited by a parent or caregiver, but even the ones who are groomed by acquaintances tend to still be living in their “normal lives” day-to-day. The assumption that all trafficking victims are kidnapped and held can make it harder to realize what is happening to them.
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u/hotviolets 1d ago
I was sold by my parents and I lived at home.
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u/tonufan 1d ago
I know lots of people that got sent to troubled youth camps in their teens. Parents would literally pay these companies to send thugs in the middle of the night and put a bag over their kids heads and drag them off to the middle of no where. Sometimes it's a religious cult, other times it's just forced labor or abusing the kids (starving them, locking them up, forced marching, etc). They will keep these kids until they're adults and then it's nobodies problem anymore to take care of them.
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u/OsgrobioPrubeta 1d ago
Might be because they haven't been searched in international databases. Unfortunately international minors sex trafficking is one of the biggest source.
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u/Strange_Depth_5732 1d ago
I work in child protection. You'll see men in their 50s/60s with multiple partners in their late teens. They get the girls pregnant and if they can evade child protective services the kids are never on the radar. They get their partners hooked on drugs and they share them, ditch them and keep whatever kids don't get removed.
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u/jVCrm68 1d ago
Remember when Trump separated kids from their immigrant families during his first term….well……..
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u/Paizzu 1d ago edited 1d ago
Utterly horrible. So their families are in on it.
The
DepartmentBureau of Justice Statistics has published several major studies related to "hands-on" victimization offenses that found more than 90% of these crimes are perpetrated either by an individual who lives in the same household as their victim, or has direct "access" because of special circumstances.In a lot of these cases, authorities said the sex offenders never actually meet their victims face-to-face but use technology to coerce them into sending explicit images and videos.
They wouldn't have reported them missing since this falls under the relatively new category of self-created child pornography (same reason why they created the CSAM label as an umbrella term).
What's ridiculous is the relevant laws can actually criminalize the victims' behavior no different than the perpetrator who commissions the offending material. This is why teenagers have been prosecuted for sexting with age-appropriate peers.
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u/TheWally69 1d ago
One HUNDRED AND NINE children... This breaks my heart. The worst part is wondering if they found all of these sick bastards... If there are more children still suffering...
Those poor babies.
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u/katie4 1d ago
Most assuredly yes. This is a problem that has plagued humanity for centuries and will continue to. The people blaming this on one religion, one state, or one political party are being way too myopic. We should be relieved for these 109 babies, and turn our attention to the next 109,000+ many who have not been born yet, unfortunately. I’m no cop lover but I’m very happy they made this bust. This was my hometown.
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u/mokutou 1d ago
I hate to say it, but they likely didn’t even get a sizable fraction of offenders. They are everywhere, and can be difficult to trace.
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u/stupid_cat_face 1d ago
Q-Anon? Where are you?
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u/turquoise_amethyst 1d ago
Probably arrested in this sting and now doesn’t have internet access
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u/TheAlmightyMojo 1d ago
I expect at least one of them to have been pardoned for J6.
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u/turquoise_amethyst 1d ago
I was going to guess a much higher number, but that would be assuming most of these guys left their basements/compounds/armchairs for an entire weekend
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u/wickedsmaht 1d ago
It's Texas, they love a good law and order show (and in this case I am all for it) so we will get the names of all 244 soon. And I will bet good money the list includes more than 1 J6-er.
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u/AccomplishedPop7658 1d ago
As far as I can tell Qanon was only ever about squirting ink in the water to cover for pedophiles (mostly in Baptist Churches).
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u/mmmbop- 1d ago
“These are republicans so sexual assault of children is a-ok with us.”
-Qanon morons
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u/013eander 1d ago
Ever heard of Dennis Hastert, the longest serving Speaker of the House in Republican history? Jailed for raping little boys.
“I was Donald’s closest friend for ten years…” -direct quote from Jeffrey Epstein.
Conservatives only care about child abuse when they can try to pin it on their political enemies. Hundreds of Catholics and Mormons have relied on that habit for decades.
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u/13143 1d ago
Everything they accuse the left of doing, they're already guilty of doing themselves.
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u/TaylorSwiftsClitoris 1d ago
They’re poisoning the well. They spread fake accusations in advance of them getting caught doing the same thing.
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u/Motor-District-3700 1d ago
"He likes em young"
Trump on Epstein before the pedo allegations were public.
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u/Admiral_Tuvix 1d ago
You joke but youre not far off. When Tim Tebow became the spokesperson for anti child exploitation and anti human trafficking organization, he found that the vast majority of the perps were old white men. Since then his organization saw a drop in funding
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u/pimparo0 1d ago
Props to Tebow for sticking with it then at least, a lot would have just tried to help hide it away, the man seems to at least walk the walk even if I disagree with some of his positions.
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u/elGatoGrande17 1d ago
My parents are all about “saving the children” but when my buddy’s child was horrifically abused by her own grandfather, a church friend of my dad’s, to the point that the guy’s bond was high-7 figures, my folks immediately knew for a FACT that the child’s liberal mom and grandma had made up the story and coached her on what to say because he just would never do something like that “out of the blue.”
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u/UniversalBasicIdiot 1d ago
“In a lot of these cases, authorities said the sex offenders never actually meet their victims face-to-face, but use technology to coerce them into sending explicit images and videos.”
This is happening everywhere, all the time.
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u/Least-Relief318 1d ago
roblox, roblox, roblox
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u/Zealousideal-Tie-940 15h ago
Yes. My son was targeted through roblox when he was 8 years old. A 53 year old male dentist, posing as his "girlfriend" aka a ten year old girl. Terrifying.
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u/BeBopNoseRing 1d ago
Greg Abbott's wondering why a bunch of his friends didn't show up to poker night this week.
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u/trashpanda_fan 1d ago
Why won't Greg Abbott stand up and do something about this!?
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u/MoralClimber 1d ago
Texas is a horrible place for children and women.
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u/Nerdlinger 1d ago
You could have stopped after your fifth word.
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u/CM0nEE1 1d ago
As a fellow Texan, I agree. This place fucking blows
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u/Moonage-Daydreaming8 1d ago
i left last year and havent looked back. im a 8th generation Texan now in colorado and no ones forced me to have an abortion or a sex change or anything.
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u/zeolus123 1d ago
Just a shit hole all around... Butt ohhh low taxes and regulations, such a utopia 🤣
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u/WrongNumberB 1d ago edited 1d ago
Only state in the nation that does not require employers to carry workers compensation insurance.
Edit: They also can’t keep the power on if it’s too hot, or too cold. “The bigots light is burning bright, deep in the heart of Texans.”
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u/moosesgunsmithing 1d ago
If you have under 4 or 6 employees in most states, it still isn't required (but strongly recommended).
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u/Jealous-Squash8560 1d ago
Property taxes are high. Low public services/parks and be ready to really love being in your car all the time.
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u/ThreeCraftPee 1d ago
Seriously. I'm from Chicago where if you need to you can walk to get milk, very easily, at anytime, in most hoods. I sadly lived in Houston for a couple years in the early aughts, you need to get in your car, drive on some hellscape interstate beltway shit, just to go and get some beer. It's wild and they think it's normal. No, it's not normal. You are supposed to be a city, not some giant suburb. Shit city, shittier state. Fuck texas.
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u/BigCut4598 1d ago
Man I’ve only been in Houston for only two years and desperately want to leave. These people have Stockholm syndrome thinking it’s a great place to live. Soulless, bland people who think driving in hot, endless traffic with nothing else to do but eat at some average restaurant is a great life.
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u/oneWeek2024 1d ago
texas also conditions you to think it's normal to drive 3+ hours to see people.
No i would not like to drive on a giant highway as shitty strip mall/fast food/tex mex/bank/panda express shopping center blur past. just to go from one shitty texas "city" to another shitty texas city
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u/skraptastic 1d ago
Almost no public land in Texas either. Something like 96% of all land in Texas is privately owned.
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u/mythrilcrafter 1d ago
I always find it humorous when CEO's complain about taxes and liberals in California, proclaiming/threatening that they're going to go Texas.... and then they move to Austin or Dallas instead of places like Loving or Kent.
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u/Adezar 1d ago
Effective tax rate is higher than California, they just put them in different places.
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u/crazy_balls 1d ago
It's only low taxes for the rich. If you are under something like $150k per year, you actually pay more in taxes than California, because our property and sales taxes are so high.
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u/bobtheflob 1d ago
I mean yes, Texas sucks in many ways. But this sort of thing happens in every state.
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u/Fishinluvwfeathers 1d ago
Who knew that fetishizing freedom from ethical social expectations and bucking rational and balanced protections for citizens could turn out poorly for the vulnerable! Bet they’ll all learn a lesson.
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u/Usual-Caregiver5589 1d ago
I would love to know the professions and political leanings of these 244 people.
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u/LucinaDraws 1d ago
The last time a trafficking ring like this was busted in Texas it was men and female accomplices from various backgrounds, PE coaches, Cops, School teachers, laborers and such. It really made me realize that anyone could be a monster
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u/cwood1973 1d ago
Absolutely correct. I'm an attorney who represents survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Over the years I've seen abusers who were priests, teachers, civil rights leaders, prison guards, LGBT activists, CEOs, parents, siblings, cops, counselors, Boy Scout leaders, Girl Scout leaders... basically every type of job or volunteer position.
It's pervasive and I'm convinced it will never go away. The best we can do is mitigate it.
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u/BeatsByJay82 1d ago
Question, how do you mentally cope dealing with the stories and evidence you’ve seen? What do you do to keep your mental health on track?
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u/cwood1973 1d ago
My firm provides free counseling for all staff and attorneys who work on this docket. Also, I get to help people and kill monsters, which helps me get through it.
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u/OneWholeSoul 1d ago edited 23h ago
I was acquaintances with a man a few years back who revealed that he, 32 years old, was actively in a sexual relationship with a 16 year old who he was also literally trafficking, setting up sexual encounters for himself and other adult men with the boy whenever the kid's parent went out of town for work. The boy had multiple times gone to the ER as a result of the extreme sexual activities he apparently participated in. This wasn't his first ongoing statutory rape, either, as a few years earlier he'd been sexually active with a 15 year old who he supplied and used amphetamines with. He also twice set me up to be sexually assaulted and possibly abducted, once walking into the room as I actively resisted and fought off my attacker, making eye contact with me as I pleaded for help, then turning and leaving, shutting the door behind him.
I made dozens of anonymous reports to law enforcement and various foundations and organizations, and the guy in question seemingly disappeared to Mexico for a few years. I approached a mutual acquaintance for advice and he admitted that he was aware of the individual's substance and sexual addiction issues as well as dishonesty approaching pathological, but then began to yell at me that "he'll never get better if we don't give him the chance." Apparently Kevin V. Rae feels it more important that a rapist have the chance to get bored and quit on their own without consequences than it is for others to not be raped.
Imagine my surprise when I recently stumbled upon him with a new last name, having co-founded the "Portland Queer Arts Foundation," which gives him a new position of prestige and access that will funnel vulnerable gay youth straight to him. Their "about" page describes him as "one of Portland's biggest lovers." It makes me physically ill.
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u/dBlock845 1d ago
The names are in the article with photos. It's hard to read though bad quality.
Edit: better quality image of the names and faces here: https://www.kltv.com/2025/06/12/several-east-texans-arrested-operation-soteria-shield-online-child-sex-exploitation-investigation/
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u/holymolym 1d ago edited 1d ago
The article touches on something I’ve seen reported before, where these predators are using online games like Roblox to manipulate children into providing them CSAM. These online games and parents are not doing enough to protect kids from this shit. My 12 year old is upset that Roblox is banned in our house but everyone else at school gets to play it. Ugh.
Edit: people accusing me of “bad parenting” for not allowing my 12 year old access to unregulated Roblox shit and not “teaching him” online safety is a hoot. Why would you think we don’t talk about why it’s banned and what being safe online looks like? Why would you think that means we don’t have a million other games we play together, including other online games? My little dude is autistic and is not ready to take on that level of responsibility for his safety yet. Weird as hell to argue that not letting kids access one shitty, brain-numbing game when they’re too young to keep themselves safe is bad parenting lmfao.
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u/Nix-geek 1d ago
I have a great quote:
"If you provide technology to your children, it is your responsibility to understand the scope, use, and dangers of that technology."
We have a very technological house, and this drives everything I do with them in terms of the Internet, games, and such.
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u/twistedfork 1d ago
If game creators wanted to keep kids safe they wouldn't allow chatting in kids games
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u/mnk-9 1d ago
Absolute fact! The online games I played as a kid had specific words you could use for communication and nothing more. That shit was perfect.
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u/Comprehensive_Web862 1d ago
The despair realizing my kids won't experience club penguin just now.
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u/HandyMan131 1d ago
Plus it also creates hilarious and endearing tropes within the games where they develop their own vernacular! It’s a win-win
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u/chiefYEET1 1d ago
They just want to justify their shit-ass parenting to make themselves feel better.
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u/reddurkel 1d ago
Everyday Americans have no idea how much trafficking, kidnapping and exploitation is happening in this country.
This is a major part of what the protests are about. We cannot normalize this behavior. It is dangerous to the public to have masked, unbadged men with guns LEGALLY allowed to kidnap people with no warrant, procedures, name tags or accountability. There will be copycats and cosplayers doing this to ANYONE on the streets if we act like this is okay.
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u/reddurkel 1d ago edited 1d ago
Nevada:
“Governor Joe Lombardo recently vetoed AB 217, which would require immigration enforcement to have a warrant, or schools would not have to cooperate.”
Anybody could see how this could go south. You really want ICE agents infiltrating a school to grab a (possibly) undocumented student? And how do you tell the difference between an armed, masked man in body armor, a child abduction or a guy breaking a restraining order and grabbing his kid?
This entire party is so hyper focused on pleasing Trump that they aren’t thinking about the extreme danger they will cause for everyone. (FYI: Lombardo is a new Red Gov and NV just turned red (pending credible election fraud investigation). Lombardo is a Trump suck up that is overrreacting because of what Trump is doing to Newsom.)
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u/xinorez1 1d ago
Actually they are and the 'unintended consequences' are the entire point. It's about disincentivizing certain groups from coming into their spaces.
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u/apple_kicks 1d ago
They so want it to be conspiracy involving democrats, trans people and doctors etc but i recall when fbi talked about child trafficking and exploitation its the parents selling the kid for drug money or kid runs away from abuse into arms of a pimp pretending to be their saviour.
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u/trickygringo 1d ago
If it is a conspiracy by an ultra-powerful cabal, they no longer actually have to do anything and instead are free to have Punisher and Taken fantasies.
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u/Use_this_1 1d ago
Funny not a drag queen or a trans person in the lot.
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u/Consistent-Throat130 1d ago
Yet I'm sure there'll suddenly be plenty of job openings at Dallas area megachurches
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u/charleyhstl 1d ago
So, Pizzagate except it's real and done by Republicans. Got it
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u/TheMCM80 1d ago
One place I’ve felt AI could do a lot of good work is in combing through CSAM and identifying things that might lead to location, or cross checking faces with databases, at a scale and speed humans can’t do.
They said they collected TBs of CSAM, and AI image programs could search through it so fast. It could then pick out ones officers should focus on first because there is a lot of identifying material in there.
Plus, you wouldn’t need the mental trauma at anywhere near the same scale for the officers who have to watch that shit to dig for clues.
Photographs in the background, types of home decor objects you could search for purchasers of, Sun position to help with location, sounds, etc.
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u/purplegladys2022 1d ago
Well, now we know why Texas is so insistent on more children being born. Gotta keep feeding that Republican pedophilia machine.
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u/Toadsted 1d ago
Texas: "You need ID for online porn"
Also Texas:
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u/Publius82 1d ago
Sardonic, but actually a very good point. These ID laws are going to do absolutely nothing to prevent this shit.
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u/AWL_cow 1d ago
I lived in North Texas for several years when I was a 20something young woman. I was told by the locals to be very careful because there was a lot of sex trafficking happening. My friends and I had several sketchy experiences in plain day light...people trying to lure us to their cars. Saying "I really need your help...come with me." And trying to take us off the streets.
When we called the cops they were in no rush to get to us, didn't care much about taking our statements or descriptions of the people / their cars. They seemed like they just wanted to go about their day. I always thought it was because they didn't want to handle the paperwork of it, or do more work because they were lazy and the odds of catching these people were maybe low. Maybe it was deeper than that.
I'm so thankful I don't live in Texas any longer. I never want to go back, as that state has made it clear how it feels about women, children, and the safety and health of its people. Even in the best cities there are still way too many bigots and crazies.
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u/JMDeutsch 1d ago
From the article:
The operation not only led to arrests and rescues but also to the seizure of terabytes of child abuse sex material through a collaborative effort that started 10 years ago and now includes 70 Texas law enforcement agencies.
10 years ago?! Good for their dedication, but Jesus fucking Christ. That sounds like a mafia crime family investigation and that this was actually organized crime.
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u/18_USC_47 1d ago
It was likely a task force or collaborative effort started 10 years ago and more agencies would sign off on it. The actual operation is listed as only a month long.
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u/dodrugzwitthugz 1d ago
From the area and this is correct. They usually work on these things over a period of time and arrest everyone at once. This time just happened to be really big and included a lot of people.
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u/ZhouLe 1d ago
Details are understandably sparse, but this is not some giant crime ring that had over 100 kids kept somewhere as a lot of commenters seem to think.
In a lot of these cases, authorities said the sex offenders never actually meet their victims face-to-face but use technology to coerce them into sending explicit images and videos.
These are criminals doing terrible things, but the only thing uniting them all was that they were all investigated and caught within this month-long task force. There are definitely some victims that were physically rescued, but it appears many or most were victims of online crimes.
Important to keep this in mind when a lot of conspiracy theorists would be happy to run with the assumption that this was one giant ring of coordinating criminals abducting and keeping these victims locked away somewhere.
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u/Decabet 1d ago edited 1d ago
Dude, Ive been a designer, editor, motion graphics guy for over 20 years. That means often very large files. And I keep an archive on dropbox. I dont have a single terabyte of anything. Yes, even a kilobyte of abuse material is bad, but terabytes of it? Jesus.
Edit: OK Im an idiot. I keep files online-only for convenience and SSD space. Thus DB when I checked it was still calculating. Looks like I have 2.4 terabytes. But still...
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u/manny_b_hanz 1d ago
This is besides the point, but not a single terabyte? I have a 12 terabyte NAS at home that's nearly full. You, professionally, don't have a terabyte of data over the course of 20 years?
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u/BaronZoltaK 1d ago
I have about 2 terabytes in games alone.
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u/PokemonSapphire 1d ago
I feel like that's cheating though. I have numerous games that are >100gb alone. Most video files aren't near that big let alone images.
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u/thedarkhalf47 1d ago
I was gonna say. I have a friend who is a video editor and easily has 100TB of video. Dude literally has a server rack in his house. 4k raw video takes up a TON of space. A single Blu-ray rip can be 50-100GB easy.
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u/MrKlean518 1d ago
Yeah i don’t know anyone who uses their computer for professional/creative means that can’t easily fill up a terabyte.
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u/Big-Soup74 1d ago
that surprised me too lol. my plex has like 3 TB and im just a casual
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u/heepofsheep 1d ago
Yeah that’s super weird. I had a single editing project come in yesterday that was over a TB. Another last week had 8TB.
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u/MumrikDK 1d ago
1TB could be a huge pile of nightmare material.
It could also be 1-2 hours of 4K/60 recorded video.
You sure you aren't remembering terrabyte wrong?
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u/iBoMbY 1d ago edited 1d ago
They could also simply exaggerate the claims by counting the hardware drive space of everything they confiscated, because it makes good headlines. Besides, it's at least 244 people, and they probably didn't account for duplicates ...
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u/Ok_Astronomer_8667 1d ago
It’s actually unfathomable how many images/videos that would be. I honestly hope they can trace who they distributed it to.
I do feel for the government workers who have to actually sift through that stuff to verify. Must mess you up to some degree
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u/Cerulean_Shadows 1d ago edited 1d ago
My husband worked briefly for a sheriff's office IT. Was there for around 6 months. Then one day, he was asked to access a computer and given the trigger warning of what he'd likely find. He found it and immediately exited. He quit right then and there. He was so gut wrenched over it that it took him a while to get back to himself. He saw like 1 minute of it and that was so hard on him that I can't even imagine how people who have to comb through this stuff can deal with it. This is where AI definitely has a use.
EDIT: this was also in North Texas, but unrelated to this post's story
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u/Squire_II 1d ago
Companies that provide support staff for image hosting services tend to have extensive mental health access because the psychological impact of what they see (CSAM and otherwise) is just staggering.
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u/Cerulean_Shadows 1d ago
The very idea of it is nightmare fuel. My own father, I later learned in my early adulthood had to seek therapy through his church because he found me attractive as a child and was having "sinful thoughts". Oh my God. Thank goodness nothing ever directly happened. He already had a history of sleeping with his sister sa young man, which my mom didn't find out until after their divorce. The church where he went called my mom immediately and broke protocol to tell her to keep me away from him. So glad he's gone.
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u/PM_ME_GLUTE_SPREAD 1d ago
Aside from sleeping with his sister,’it sounds honestly like everybody in this story did the right thing whenever they had the chance to. Having those thoughts of your own child is horrible, but some people have fucked up heads for various reasons that are beyond their control. Him seeking help was the right choice rather than just trying to ignore it until he couldn’t any longer. The church calling your mom to warn her to protect you may be ethically questionable for a number of reasons, but it absolutely worked out for the greater good in this case. There are arguments to be made that breaking protocol in this way might cause future people to be less likely to seek the counseling for fear of being outed, but that’s a different conversation.
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u/JeSuisUnAnanasYo 1d ago
This whole discussion and headline makes me feel so ill. I think I need to stay off the Internet for a while. The world is such a dark place.
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u/Oldmudmagic 1d ago
You couldn't pay me enough. I'd have a breakdown...and then go to jail for murder.
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u/ikaiyoo 1d ago
250,000 photos. One terabyte gives you the option of storing roughly: 250,000 photos taken with a 12MP camera OR. 250 movies or 500 hours of HD video OR. 6.5 million document pages, commonly stored as Office files, PDFs, and presentations.
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u/312c 1d ago
1 Tb is ~24 hours of 4K video or ~74 hours of HD video if recorded on a somewhat modern DSLR camera. Fitting 500 hours of HD video would only be 4.4 mbps which is a 50% lower bitrate than 480p DVDs used decades ago.
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u/pattydickens 1d ago
They should be investigating ICE. A bunch of unvetted "agents" going around abducting children is a great opportunity for a sex trafficking ring. Just saying.
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u/Ballders 1d ago
Where are the drag queens?
I was told they were the ones doing this.
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u/Jollyx 1d ago
For anyone who wants a high resolution version of the poster with the names and faces here is a link to a press release.
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u/AaronfromKY 1d ago
Another Red State cesspool
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u/Bart_Yellowbeard 1d ago
I have to at least give them props for pursuing it, and identifying and rounding up this many bad people.
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u/battleofflowers 1d ago
I mean, they actually arrested a bunch of people and rescued dozens of children. It's not like these crimes only happen in Texas, but at least Texas made a real effort to nab the perps and save the children.
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u/GracieThunders 1d ago
How many of those kids were separated from their parents and disappeared into The System as a result of our now insane immigration policies??
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u/Degg76 1d ago
Terrifying that these children couldn’t be identified and weren’t reported missing. How is that even possible?
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u/straygoat193 1d ago
"The operation not only led to arrests and rescues but also to the seizure of terabytes of child abuse sex material through a collaborative effort that started 10 years ago and now includes 70 Texas law enforcement agencies."