How Madeleine West found paedophiles in kids game Roblox
Madeleine West wanted to see what her kids were doing online — and she was confronted by something “no children should see”. Listen to the podcast. WARNING: Graphic
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Exclusive: A “predator” pressured actress Madeleine West for sex when they thought she was a seven-year-old child playing kids game Roblox.
Ms West wanted to see what her children were being exposed to online so created an avatar of a child on the game that has Australian kids obsessed.
She was lured into a chatroom and confronted with sex talk and urged to commit virtual sex acts by adults lurking in the anonymous online world.
“You need as parents to educate themselves about what the kids are doing. Roblox I think everyone with kids would be familiar with Roblox [they] absolutely love it. It seems so innocent, these cute avatars that run around building things, making things, having an adventure,” Ms West said.
“What I discovered going in as an avatar, pretending to be a seven year old was invitations to enact sexual activities and gameplay with other participants as my avatar in these game rooms.”
The Underbelly star, whose new podcast Predatory spells out the dangers of paedophiles, said what she saw amounted to sexual abuse because it couldn’t be unseen “and no seven-year-old should be exposed to it”.
LISTEN TO THE PREDATORY PODCAST BELOW:
“That’s just the beginning. As soon as they start asking you to switch over to other platforms, which might have location services enabled, it’s basically like giving a green light to predators,” she said.
She said parents needed to be educated about the technology their children were using because the online world was a haven for predators.
“Kids are terrified their parents are going to withdraw the technology if they say anything. And like any other victim out there, they’re not going to speak out because they’re made to feel that they are to blame because they interacted with these predators,” she said.
Parents shielded their children from watching violent movies to stop adult content being normalised and the same scrutiny needed to be applied to gaming, Ms West said.
“They’re going to Roblox, they’re going into Fortnite. They’re in chat rooms which encourage sexploitation … exposing them to imagery, conversations and content that is far more advanced than these kids should be exposed to it – and it normalises it. Then there’s a request in real time — IRL, as the kids say — and they will think ‘well, that’s normal that’s what I’m supposed to do.’ ”
The Australian Federal Police has already warned Australian children are being targeted by extremist groups, to expose them to unlawful content, including a teen who shared a recreation of the Christchurch terror attack in a game.
For more details about the Predatory podcast, go to predatory.com.au
If you have a story to tell, email us at crimeinvestigations@news.com.au
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