This is Nina Rodriguez' Facebook profile.
This person had three different profiles
and 890 kids between 9 and 13 years old on their list of friends.
These are parts of a chat with one of those kids.
This is an exact copy of the chat
and it's part of the case file.
This kid started sending private photos
until his family noticed it.
The police report and investigation lead to a house.
This was the girl's bedroom.
Nina Rodriguez was actually a 24-year-old man,
that used to do this with lots of kids.
Micaela Ortega was 12
when she went to meet her new Facebook girl friend
of her same age.
"Rochi de River," was her name.
She actually met Jonathan Luna, who was 26 years old,
who, when he was finally caught,
confessed that he killed her because the girl didn't want to have sex with him.
He had four Facebook profiles
and 1,700 women on his contact list.
90 percent of them were less than 13 years old.
These are two different cases of grooming:
an adult contacts a kid through the Internet,
and by manipulating or lying
leads that kid to sexual fields.
From talking about sex
to sharing private photos,
recording the kid using a webcam
or arranging a meeting.
This is grooming.
This is happening and it's on the rise.
The question is, "What will we do?"
because, in the meantime, kids are alone.
They finish dinner, go to their rooms,
close the door,
take their computer, their cell phones
and get into a bar,
into a club.
Think for one second about what I've just said;
they are in a place full of strangers
in a uninhibited environment.
Internet broke physical boundaries.
When we are alone in our bedroom,
and we go online,
we're not really alone.
There are two reasons why we are not taking care of this
or at least not in the right way.
Firstly, we're sure that everything that happens online is "virtual."
In fact, we call it "the virtual world"!
If you look it up,
something virtual is something that is not real
and we use that word to talk about the Internet;
something not real.
And that's the problem with grooming.
It is real.
Adults, perverts, use the Internet to abuse boys and girls
and take advantage of the fact that the kids and their parents
think that what happens there actually doesn't happen.
Some years ago, we founded a NGO, "Argentina Cibersegura"
that works on bringing awareness about online safety.
On 2013, we attended meetings
at the Chamber of Deputies
to discuss a law about grooming.
I remember that most people thought
that grooming was just the previous step
to arrange a meeting with the kids and have sex with them.
But they didn't think about what happened with kids
that were exposed to talk about sex with an adult, without knowing it,
sharing private photos thinking only another kid will see them
or even worse,
exposing themselves using their web cam.
Nobody saw this as raping.
I'm sure lots of you find it weird to think that one person can abuse another
without physical contact.
Our mindset is built this way.
I know, because I used to think the same.
I was just an information technician
until this happened to me.
By the end of 2011,
in a little town in Buenos Aires,
I heard about a case for the first time.
After giving a talk,
I met the parents of an 11-year-old girl who had suffered grooming.
An adult had manipulated her
into masturbate in front of her web cam
and had recorded her.
And the video was on several websites.
That day, her parents asked us, in tears,
to tell them
how to delete those videos from the Internet.
That broke my heart,
and changed me forever,
being their last disappointment, telling them it was too late.
Once content is online,
we've already lost control.
Since that day, I think about that girl
waking up in the morning, having breakfast with her family,
which had seen the video,
and then walking to school, meeting people
that had seen her naked,
arriving to school, playing with her friends, who had also seen her.
That was her life.
Exposed.
Of course, nobody raped her body,
but hasn't her sexuality been abused?
We clearly use different standards to measure physical and digital things.
And we get angry at social networks
because being angry with ourselves
is more painful and more sincere.
And this takes us to another reason why we don't take good care of this topic.
We believe kids
don't need our help,
that they "know everything" about technology.
When I was a kid,
my parents at some point started letting me walk to school alone.
After walking with them for many years,
one day they talked to me,
gave me the house keys
and told me: "Be very careful with them, don't give them to anyone,
take the road we showed you, be at home at the time we said,
cross the street at the corners and look both ways before you cross,
and, no matter what, don't talk to strangers."
I knew everything about walking,
however, there was a responsible adult
taking care of me.
Knowing how to do something is not the same
as doing it safely.
Imagine this situation:
I'm 10 or 11 years old, I wake up in the morning,
my parents give me the keys and say:
"Seba, now you can walk to school alone."
And when I come back late,
they say, "You should arrive at the time we said."
And two weeks later,
they say, by the way, "You know what?
You have to cross at the corners
and look both ways before crossing."
And two years later:
"And also, don't talk to strangers."
It sounds absurd, right?
We have the same absurd behavior in relation to technology.
We give kids total access and we see if one day,
sooner or later,
they learn how to take care of themselves.
Doing something is not the same
as doing it safely.
When we talk to parents,
they often say
that they don't care about technology and social networks.
I always ask them if they care about their kids.
As adults, getting in touch or not with technology,
means getting in touch or not with the kids.
Internet is part of their lives.
Technology makes us rethink the relationship between adults and kids.
Education was always based on two main concepts:
experience and knowledge.
How can we teach to be safe online
when we don't have either?
Today, as adults, we have to guide kids
on fields that sometimes we don't know,
and that are more friendly to them.
It's impossible to find an answer
without doing new and uncomfortable things,
things we're not used to.
A lot of you may think it's easy for me,
because I'm quite young,
and it used to be like this.
It used to.
Until last year,
when I felt the weight of my age on my shoulders
the first time I opened Snapchat.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
I didn't understand a thing!
I found it unnecessary,
useless, hard to understand;
it looked like a camera!
It didn't have a menu!
It was the first time I felt the gap that sometimes exists
between kids and adults.
But it was also an opportunity to do the right thing
and get out of my comfort zone.
I felt I would never use Snapchat,
but then I asked my teenage cousin,
to show me how she used it.
And also why she used it.
What was fun about it?
We had a really nice talk,
she showed me her Snapchat and talked about things,
we got closer, we laughed.
Today, I use it.
(Laughter)
I don't know if I do it right --
but the most important thing is that I know it and I understand it.
The key was to overcome the first impression,
and do something new;
something new.
Today, we have the chance to create new conversations.
Which is the last app you downloaded?
Which social network do you use to contact your friends?
Which kind of information do you share?
Were you approached by any stranger?
Could we have these talks between kids and adults?
We have to make ourselves do it.
Today, lots of kids are listening to us.
Sometimes when we go to schools to give our talks,
or through the social networks, kids ask or tell us
things they didn't tell their parents or their teachers...
They don't even know us.
Those kids need to know
which are the risks of being online,
to take care of themselves
but also that, as almost everything else,
they can learn this from any adult.
Online safety has to be a topic
in every house and in every classroom.
We did a survey this year that showed
that 15 percent of schools said they knew cases of grooming
inside the school.
And this number is growing.
Technology changed every aspect of our life,
including the risks we face
and how we take care of ourselves.
Grooming shows us this in the most painful way,
messing up with the kids.
Are we going to do something to avoid this?
The solution starts with something very easy:
Talking about it.
Thank you.
(Applause)