Primary schoolboys ‘take porn on their phones to show classmates’

High school students are being raped, choked during sex and blackmailed by classmates for nudes, prompting calls for children to be banned from the “cesspit” of social media until they turn 16.

High school students are being raped, choked during sex and blackmailed by classmates for nudes, prompting calls for children to be banned from the “cesspit” of social media until the age of 16.

But cyber safety expert Susan McLean, who spent 27 years as a Victoria Police officer, said the majority of child-exploitation material posted online was “self-generated”.

Ms McLean said she had dealt with an eight-year-old boy who had voluntarily sent a photo of his penis to an entire class with the caption “suck on this”.

“I’m routinely dealing with boys in primary school bringing pornography to school on their phones and showing it to their mates,” she said.

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Detective Inspector Glen Donaldson, head of Task Force Argos. Picture: Liam Kidston

Queensland Police Detective Inspector Glen Donaldson said world-renowned Task Force Argos, which investigates online child exploitation, was increasingly concerned about “self-produced” material.

“The new material we are coming across is actually produced by children themselves, either voluntarily or via sextortion,” Inspector Donaldson said.

He said Argos often received referrals from the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children.

“We send (those files) out to local detectives, where a young child has filmed themselves dancing naked and then uploaded it to YouTube (or) sent a photo of themselves and their genitalia to another friend,” he said.

Inspector Donaldson said children who produced this material were often home alone or in their bedroom alone.

“Our kids are getting exposed to (sexualised content) more than we ever did when we were kids,” he said.

Ms McLean said she was also concerned about the content children might have accessed on play dates and likened the “self-regulated” porn industry to “putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank”.

“(Pornography) is the driver of sexual assaults on girls – almost weekly I will have a (high-school-aged) girl come and tell me that her boyfriend tried to choke her while they were having sex,” Ms McLean said.

“There has been a marked increase of (child-sex offenders), where (high school students) are clearly trying to copy what they have seen in (online) videos.

“I have seen girls go to GPs with internal tearing because the sex has been so rough that they have been injured.

“I know of a boy in Sydney – a 15-year-old boy – his father rang and told me that he had snapped the shaft of his penis while having sex with his girlfriend … that is a rapist in the making.”

Cyber safety expert Susan McLean. Picture: Toby Zerna

Ms McLean said an age-verification trial, where children would be locked out of social media platforms, would “absolutely help”, but described the issue of sexualised behaviours as “multifaceted”.

“It will help children from stumbling across (porn), it won’t stop it of course,” she said.

“We need parents to stop giving their kids devices with blind trust and absolute ignorance.

“If we could keep all the under-13s off (social media), we would get rid of 90 per cent of the harm.

“I’ve never seen a crime type in 30 years that is tipping mentally well young people into crisis as quickly as sextortion – nothing comes close.”

Cyber safety expert Susan McLean has worked with a 12-year-old girl who was targeted by classmates at a private girls’ school and coerced into sending nudes.

Ms McLean said she had also worked with a 12-year-old girl who was targeted by classmates at a private girls’ school and coerced into sending nudes, which were then sent around the entire school.

University of the Sunshine Coast psychologist and child welfare expert Dr Rachael Sharman said children were often influenced to share nude images or videos of themselves online because of the “pressure to conform”.

Dr Sharman said an age-verification trial was a step in the right direction to protect children from the “cesspit” of social media.

“You have to have proper, strict, enforceable laws with quite significant consequences and it might take 20, 30, 40 years for the culture to change,” she said.

“No child under 16 should be allowed to have social media … children and young teens are not capable of navigating social media safely.”

Inspector Donaldson said the reality of modern life was that children needed social media.

“That’s how kids socialise now, and if you don’t give a child access to the internet, that will severely limit social and educational opportunities,” he said.