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How do we keep our kids safe online? How do we protect our children in an overexposed, sexualized culture?
How do we have real conversations about real issues our kids are struggling with?
Join Mandy Majors (award-winning author of "TALK" and "Keeping Kids Safe in a Digital World") and Kim Elerick (former radio morning host) for practical parenting stories! nextTalk is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization keeping kids safe by creating a culture of honest conversation in families, churches and schools.
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AI, Deepfakes & Nudes
Many are talking about how AI is leading to deepfakes and misinformation, but how is AI affecting the way we talk to our kids about nudes? AI has shifted the conversation about nude photos. We’ll explain that shift in this show and give you practical ways to parent this evolving situation.
KEEPING KIDS SAFE ONLINE
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Welcome to the Next Talk podcast. We are passionate about keeping kids safe in an overexposed world.
Speaker 2:It's Mandy and Kim and we're navigating tech, culture and faith with our kids.
Speaker 1:Today we're doing a show about AI deep fakes and news.
Speaker 2:Now, before we get into it Big topic, big topic. Yeah, no, we got to take a second and talk about these flowers.
Speaker 1:Somebody came to an event and brought three different jars of flowers from her garden. Beautiful, someone is growing these. I know it's gorgeous. It was the sweetest gesture.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so fun to now have a YouTube channel because we can share things like this. You can see behind the scenes what we're doing flowers, and so it's great to listen to the podcast. But this is another option to listen on YouTube, so you can see what's going on. Watch on YouTube.
Speaker 1:You said listen, watch on YouTube. I said this see, I'm a creature of habit, you can actually watch on.
Speaker 2:YouTube. I mean you could listen to it now. Yes, you can watch too.
Speaker 1:So on today's show. Earlier this year, taylor Swift nudes were released right and caught the internet by storm. Yeah, can I say the internet. It sounds like an old lady. It sounds like an old lady, but supposedly they were AI generated, so it raised this question. If it can happen to her, what about our kids?
Speaker 2:raise this question If it can happen to her, what about our kids? Yeah, I mean the way the AI has allowed and created a space for these deep fakes that looks so real. It's so hard to tell the difference. It could happen to anyone and I think you know thinking through that, and then the vulnerability of our kids and how much they're online, it kind of made everybody feel like nervous about that space.
Speaker 1:Well, and let's be real, If you don't know what a deep fake is, I want to define it for you. It's any kind of picture or video that is depicting you doing something that you didn't do. So basically, it's fake news, any kind of fake news. And if you think about it, I could be put on a video saying something I didn't say, or it could be a pornographic, like any of us could have a sex tape now. So the AI generated stuff is so good that it looks real.
Speaker 2:You can't tell that it's fake. Well, and it's getting better every day, like my kids and I actually just recently were looking at some pictures and it was like this test, which one is AI generated and which one's not. And most of them we couldn't tell. Yeah, it was pretty cool, yeah, but pretty scary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and I feel like everybody is talking about Taylor Swift and deep fakes and everything like that. But I'm looking at it from a different perspective, because I'm thinking how does this shift conversations with our kids about certain topics that we've covered for over a decade now, and so that's kind of what I want to dive into, because I haven't seen anybody really covering this, and so that's going to be the first part of the show, and then the second part of the show we're going to talk about practical ways that we feel like you now have to parent this because it has shifted.
Speaker 2:And we do want to say, as always, we don't have all the answers. You know we are not experts we are parenting along with you but there's some ideas and some things that we want to present that we think will be helpful with having these conversations with your kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so first let's talk about how AI is shifting, how we parent this whole thing. So the first thing that I think about is bullying. Yeah, and so kids may not have a sex tape or may not share nudes, but somebody creates it of someone and then spreads it, and so then that person is bullied. I've heard a lot of mean girl stuff happening with this. That is my first concern that pops in my mind, and I really believe that it's going to happen in friend groups, but also online predators are going to grab pictures and then put it on and use it to blackmail kids and say hey, if you don't give me this money, this is a nude of you, and so we need to make sure that our kids are aware of this. So same with online predators.
Speaker 1:My prediction is this, and I could be wrong I think this is going to get really bad at first, and then I think deep fakes and nudes are going to become so normalized that it won't be as big of a deal. But I think this first wave is going to be bad and we need to be very careful with our kids, who may get bullied by this, because you guys know we always give out this stat, kids who are cyber bullied are two times more likely to die by suicide. So this is a very important point that we cannot miss that if these kids are starting to be bullied by this, we know how to parent it.
Speaker 2:Well, and with you saying that, you know that becoming more normalized and just so rampant. On the flip side of that, you know, sometimes out of something bad kind of good things can happen, like thinking about Walker's story. We've done shows with his dad and talked about how this extortion case, how that developed. And you know, if this is something that's running rampant, then perhaps kids won't feel as threatened. If they're shown like pictures or video of themselves, they won't panic because they'll know it really isn't them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think that may be an actual flip side, that we actually there's so much AI generated, deep fakes and nudes that if kids are being blackmailed or or you know what we call sextortion, they may just roll their eyes because it's no big deal, because it's like, well, everybody knows it's AI generated.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to, I'm not going to be as panicked, as we are seeing kids right now who are losing their lives because of this. And if you haven't heard Walker's story, go to our podcast page. We have his dad's show featured at the top. You got to listen to that show if you don't listen to any of our other podcasts. You got to listen to that show if you don't listen to any of our other podcasts. But just to hear dad, in his own words, talk about Walker and his story, it's a powerful thing, and then you know.
Speaker 1:This last thing is what I'm most concerned about, honestly. This is why I wanted to do this show, and I hate putting this information out there publicly because I don't want kids to hear it, but I feel so strongly about it that we need to warn parents that I'm going to say it and this is it. This is the shift that I think is going to happen. We are going to have kids now sharing nudes and there's no way to determine if they're actually sharing or not, so they can lie to our face and say it's AI generated. I didn't do that and there's literally no accountability, no thought process of. I just shared my sacred private parts with the world Like there's nothing. It just becomes numb to them because there's no accountability whatsoever. So that shifts then the conversation about nude photos that we've always had here at Next Top.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, because of things like this, where it could completely be false or it could be real and we have to depend on our kids and our relationship, we can really only parent. The heart, I mean that is. The bottom line is there is no 100% way to know the truth unless you know your kid and they are honest with you.
Speaker 1:Well, parent the heart more than the behavior. We say that a lot about just different topics. I mean masturbation and sharing nudes, just this, having integrity, this personal accountability that we have to God, between me and God, and that wrestling of is this the right thing to do or not, parenting that heart is where it's at amongst all these topics, and so we want to kind of share with you how this starts from a, from a four-year-old perspective. How do you start parenting the heart about this conversation?
Speaker 2:I know when we started, when my kids were little and I have some of the youngest kids on the team it started with real simple phrases, you know, just teaching our kids about their body being sacred and your private parts are private and just basic guidelines in our household. That it gave them a sense of understanding how important being able to talk about anything was like our private parts, like what they're seeing on a screen, like what they're hearing on the playground all of those things creating those base level ideas when they were little so we could grow upon it when they got older.
Speaker 1:Little phrases, little phrases. We also have our red flag alert system and one of the things in there that for little kids, what we say is we want you to report anybody in a bathing suit or less. That doesn't mean we believe bathing suit pictures are bad Not all bathing suit pictures are bad but when they're little we're just trying to create that threshold that you really shouldn't be seeing naked people on a screen. The other thing and so, kim's right, just create those little phrases. Private parts are private. Report to me anyone in a bathing suit or less. And then the other thing is you have to look for teachable moments to instill foundational truths about nude photos. So I remember when we first started on this journey, my son. He was young at the time, like five, and he came into the bedroom while I was changing. Now old Mandy was like get out of here, shoot, I need privacy to get dressed right. New Mandy didn't do that, because new Mandy was looking for intentional conversations with my kid about the online world and new Mandy immediately went to here's my son, my five-year-old, with an iPad that takes pictures. I'm not dressed.
Speaker 1:My mind goes to all the research that I was learning about nude photos, all the cases. We were working at Next Talk with nude photos, and so I thought, oh my gosh, this is a teachable moment. So in that moment I was able to cover myself and say to my son hey, baba, you see that iPad, it takes pictures. What if you accidentally would have taken a picture of mommy without clothes on? Without clothes on, baba, we never take pictures of people without clothes on. So today, from now on, we're not going to bring any screens into the bathroom. I did that because I want to create a clear boundary in my kid's brain. When I'm undressing, when I'm going to the bathroom, when I'm taking a shower in the bath, we don't need screens here because we don't take pictures of naked people. So that is how we start parenting, this early parenting.
Speaker 2:The heart, the integrity of this is just not okay to cross that boundary and, as you're teaching those things, it's really great to see your kid taking them on as their own. So there's been many times, as my kids have gotten a little bit older, I'll walk by and I'll see their phone, or I'll see the iPad sitting outside of the bathroom, because it's just normal operating procedure for them. It's not new anymore. It's something that they realize. I want to protect my heart. Mom taught me how and now I'm doing it because I see the importance of it. There's just a clear boundary. There's a clear boundary and it also helps them in conversation with their friends when they're saying, hey, please leave your phones on the table. Or when they come over and things are a little bit different, they get to have that conversation with their friends about why they don't want to have screens in private places, and so it kind of has a ripple effect also to keep our kids safe.
Speaker 1:Well, and even though I implemented that guideline when he was five, I remember a couple of years later he was having a bad day and I said let's just take a bubble bath to reset the day. You know kind of thing filled the bubble bath and he was covered, you know, completely bubbles, other than his face. But I took a picture to text to my husband and immediately when I did, he called me out. He was like mom, we don't take pictures of me in the bathtub, right? And so then he became an advocate for himself because of this clear boundary I had put in place. You guys, we are.
Speaker 1:When you don't do this, when you're not intentional about these foundational seeds planting. When they're younger, what happens is they grow up, they get a phone, they walk in school locker rooms, school bathrooms and they don't even think twice about it. So they're taking selfies. People are undressing behind them. We've worked cases before where a kid's taken a selfie. That kid ends up being body shamed because this has been Snapchatted out. This person didn't mean to bully that person or didn't mean to body shame that person, but they're caught in the back because there's no boundaries or even a thought process, no red flag that says you know what people are changing in here. I shouldn't be taking pictures, so that's what we mean when we're like parenting the heart, instilling foundational truths.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we want them to hear us, but then take it on as their own and really process it. And then, like you said, it's a wrestling with their own understanding of what's best for them. I mean wrestling with Jesus. You know, when they're making decisions, when they're in situations we don't want them thinking like, oh, mom would be so mad at me. You know, you say that all the time Mom's going to kill me. We don't want that. We want them to think is this what's best for me, for my body, for this situation? And that's that foundational truth.
Speaker 1:Is this good for me?
Speaker 2:I love how you say it.
Speaker 1:You say what is the motivation behind this picture? You know asking yourself and instilling that in your kids. The other thing is with teenagers. When your kids are older, you know straight up asking what do you think about deep bakes and nudes? Create a conversation, tell me what's going on in your world. But also, you know, share the stories with them. Share Walker story with them. You know they're old enough now they're, they have a phone, they have social media, they're exposed. So then you can actually share the stories with them. So talk about the Taylor Swift deep fakes.
Speaker 1:And we also worked a case at next talk and this is a great starter conversation for your teenagers where a kid received an email just randomly that said here's a link to your nude photo. If you don't pay this amount of money, we are going to, you know, send this to everybody that's on your friends list. And he had his Instagram or whatever. And this was actually an actual came through as an email, which is weird because a lot of times we see it as like a DM and stuff like that. The conversation through that.
Speaker 1:But anyway, this teenager knew he had not shared a nude, so he knew it was fake. He knew they had some fake picture that they were trying to get money out of him. But guess what? We had that family called local law enforcement. Local law enforcement came out and said oh my gosh, this happened just a couple blocks over to another kid a couple hours ago. So here's the thing If that kid had been taking nudes and had him on his phone, he would have been more likely to pay and fall susceptible to that scam. So I think that's the teachable moment here If you've done nothing wrong, then you won't get roped into this extortion scheme.
Speaker 2:I love this point because I hadn't really thought of it when my kids were younger, because you're not thinking in that direction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's so true to be able to say to my kid your honesty and integrity, here's the fruit of that, because it's hard as you're a teenager and as you're growing up and the pressure, and oh, my friends are doing this and that it's easy for us just to say don't do it, the big, big conversation is when we can say here's why, here's a tangible reason why, here's the fruit, here's the piece that we're talking about, that you can have because of your choice to live in a life of integrity, and so that's one of my favorite talking points with teens, absolutely.
Speaker 1:A few other practical tips too, because you know that is a lot of the foundational stuff that we talk about with kids, and even also when they're little. You know when, when they do start to notice people. You know you're in the grocery store and maybe your young boy notices a woman and can see his the bra color, you know. Maybe the woman is dressed in a way that it's it's out in the open.
Speaker 1:But, that is a great teachable moment. You know, if your kid brings it up to you and says, oh my gosh, they were wearing this color bra, whatever, then you can say, okay, yeah, she was. But guess what, just because she was dressed like that, it doesn't give you any permission whatsoever to stare disrespect, take a picture or whatever. Again, you're creating this boundary that, no matter what that person is doing, I don't care if somebody walks naked in front of you it doesn't give you permission to take a picture, touch, stare, disrespect in any way. And so it's like taking those thoughts captive, right? No matter what that person is doing over there, it still does not say that I can do whatever I want to this person, exactly, and we still need to respect this person and we still don't need to be mean to this person. And so all of those teachable moments are good. It's about parenting that heart, yeah, but we also have some like practical things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know some other things that really come to mind, especially with teenagers. You know they're always taking pictures of everything. They're always documenting things, and one of the things Mandy has always said is your phone is not a diary. And one of the things I never really thought about until I had a kid with their first phone was they're always like grabbing each other's phones and they're taking pictures. You know they're sharing, they're like look at this and so even if you're not sending a nude or even if you're not posting a picture, if it's on your phone it can still get out there. It's still not private. And so it's really important to teach your kids about that your phone not being a diary, that if it's on your phone, whether you share it or not, it's still possible that it will get out there somewhere. So you got to be really careful with what you put on there.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 1:The other thing is, from a practical standpoint, you need to make sure your kid is aware of the legal consequences.
Speaker 1:So a lot of times, if you ask an AI bot is it okay to share nudes, it'll say, well, it's up to your personal opinion if you want to, but it won't sometimes lay out the actual legal consequences of this. When Snapchat rolled out their AI bot, I asked them this the very first day and there was no legal ramifications there, and so we need to educate our kids on this. And so if your kid has a picture of a nude child on their phone, they can be charged with possession of child pornography if they are sharing it. So say, they get a nude photo right and then they distribute it, they airdrop it, they group text it, whatever they do, that is, then, distribution of child pornography. So you need to be telling your kids, like just practically, whether it's AI generated. You need to be telling your kids, like, just practically, whether it's AI generated, deep, fake or real, you shouldn't be having it on your phone and you should not ever, ever be distributing it, because that's an additional charge that they need to know about.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think also we need to talk a little bit about digital footprint, and so we discussed it before on different shows, and some of the angles that we've taken is letting your kid know, like when they are getting ready to apply for college or for a job, people can look back at their history and their digital footprint and see what they've done. You know where they went, all of those things, and so we've talked about I think the show we did was consent, yeah, and talking about it from that angle also that you know when you're taking pictures of your kid and posting them, they don't necessarily get consent. You know, and so you're creating a digital footprint for your kids. So, on two different levels one, your kid talking to them about their future and their future wife, their future life. What are they putting out there that could be used against them or exposed? That would make them uncomfortable? Then yourself, as a parent, what are you putting out there of your kid? You can be an example for your kid too by not always posting everything you do.
Speaker 1:Well and I'm going to challenge you on that on the flip side of that, because the digital footprint is is extremely. It's been a conversation starter and kind of a parent to heart conversation since the beginning. Like, right, what you'd say in sixth grade may affect you getting into college. Right, you know they will follow you and we've we've constantly drilled that into our kids. You have a digital footprint on the flip side of that now, because there's no accountability.
Speaker 1:The more AI, fake, deep fakes that are out there whether they're porn or just talking videos of us saying something we didn't say that is going to matter less and less, because kids are going to roll their eyes and be like it doesn't matter what's on, what's what's in my history, because I can just say to the college it's AI, a bully did that to me in high school and they generated that and that was not me. So it's almost like we're going to need to and I'm sure there's companies out there. Now we need to figure out a way that we can readily and easily determine is this real or not and be able to trust that technology. And again, this is evolving situation. There may be something already out there, but, but this is the reason why, as kids, just there's no accountability. That's my biggest concern with this. They're not going to care about their digital footprint, they're not going to care. If they're sharing nudes, they're. They're not going to care because they can roll their eyes and say, oh, that was AI.
Speaker 2:Well then that, like you said, that circles back to the bottom line is we have to parent the heart. We have to create these guidelines when they're young, or have these ongoing conversations. Maybe we didn't start having those conversations when they're little. It's not too late to have those conversations with your kids and share some of these practical things so that they understand how important it is that they protect their own heart and mind. It's gotta be between them and Jesus. At the end of the day, the bottom line is to have the conversations. It's just important to create that culture in your home where you can talk about anything, including deep fakes.
Speaker 1:Talk to your kids. Parent the heart. This podcast is ad-free because of all the people who donate to our nonprofit.
Speaker 2:Make a donation today at nexttalkorg. This podcast is not intended to replace the advice of a trained healthcare or legal professional, or to diagnose, treat or otherwise render expert advice regarding any type of medical, psychological or legal problem. Listeners are advised to consult a qualified expert for treatment.