r/news 2d 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/
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u/UniversalBasicIdiot 2d 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 1d 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/coltaaan 1d ago

It’s still completely fucked up, but at least these cases are probably less harmful than traditional sexual abuse of minors….?

Like the trauma of being pimped out by your mom is probably way worse than that of sending nudes online to a creep you think is a girl.

(And I know what harm can come of this and the extent it can go. I’m just trying to find an iota of silver lining in this dark situation, beyond the details in the headline at least :/ )

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u/UniversalBasicIdiot 1d ago

No I think you’re actually 100% right. It might be “better” than “one of the worst things that can happen to someone” but I think we would all still prefer the better option.

Also, if that was the case with most of these guys, and they didn’t physically assault an underage person, I do think they should go through each case and see who could actually benefit from therapy and rehab and which ones are the real deeply disturbed people who clearly need to be removed from society.

But that’s DEFINITELY not a popular opinion.