Deconstructing the Online Grooming of Youth: Toward Improved Information Systems for Detection of Online Sexual Predators

The aggressive online solicitation of youth by online sexual predators has been established as an unintended consequence of the connectedness afforded individuals through social media. Computer science research that has focused on the detection of online sexual predators is scant and absent behavioral theory. We address this gap through examining what behavioral patterns emerge regarding how online sexual predators use language inside of social media to groom youth. Through a grounded theory analysis of ninety Perverted Justice (PVJ) transcripts, of conversations between convicted online sexual predators and PVJ volunteers who posed as youth, we identified five categories of online predator behavior inside of text during victimization of children. Those categories are: assessment, enticements, cybersexploitation, control and self-preservation. The aim of the research is twofold: (a) to improve pattern recognition programming for automated detection software, and (b) to improve educational tools for youth, parents, guardians, educators, and law enforcement.

[1]  L Alvin Malesky,et al.  Predatory Online Behavior: Modus Operandi of Convicted Sex Offenders in Identifying Potential Victims and Contacting Minors Over the Internet , 2007, Journal of child sexual abuse.

[2]  W. Orlikowski,et al.  Explicit and Implicit Structuring of Genres in Electronic Communication: Reinforcement and Change of Social Interaction , 1999 .

[3]  Ponnurangam Kumaraguru,et al.  Characterizing Pedophile Conversations on the Internet using Online Grooming , 2012, ArXiv.

[4]  E. Gilchrist,et al.  Current Responses to Sexual Grooming: Implication for Prevention , 2007 .

[5]  P. Parkinson,et al.  CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE, ACCESS AND THE WISHES OF CHILDREN , 1995 .

[6]  David T. Shannon,et al.  Online Sexual Grooming in Sweden—Online and Offline Sex Offences against Children as Described in Swedish Police Data , 2008 .

[7]  Ann Majchrzak,et al.  Comment: where is the theory in wikis? , 2009 .

[8]  April Kontostathis,et al.  Learning to Identify Internet Sexual Predation , 2011, Int. J. Electron. Commer..

[9]  Anthony R. Beech,et al.  Identifying Sexual Grooming Themes Used by Internet Sex Offenders , 2013 .

[10]  G. Gaskell,et al.  Classical Content Analysis: a Review , 2000 .

[11]  A. Beech,et al.  A review of online grooming: Characteristics and concerns , 2013 .

[12]  B. Cope,et al.  The Powers of Literacy: A Genre Approach to Teaching Writing , 1993 .

[13]  R. O'Connell,et al.  A typology of cybersexploitation and online grooming practices , 2003 .

[14]  M. Singer,et al.  Grooming the victim: an analysis of a perpetrator's seduction letter. , 1992, Child abuse & neglect.

[15]  Kevin Crowston,et al.  Genres of Digital Documents: Introduction to the Special Issue , 2005 .

[16]  R. Weber.  Basic Content Analysis , 1986 .

[17]  April Kontostathis,et al.  SafeChat: Using Open Source Software to Protect Minors from Internet Predation , 2011 .

[18]  Jonas Poelmans,et al.  Human-Centered Text Mining: A New Software System , 2012, ICDM.

[19]  J. Davidson,et al.  Protecting children online: towards a safer internet , 2008 .

[20]  Peter M. Briggs,et al.  An Exploratory Study of Internet-Initiated Sexual Offenses and the Chat Room Sex Offender: Has the Internet Enabled a New Typology of Sex Offender? , 2011, Sexual abuse : a journal of research and treatment.

[21]  Charles Felzen Johnson,et al.  Child sexual abuse , 2004, The Lancet.

[22]  Cathy Urquhart,et al.  Building social media theory from case studies: A new frontier for IS research , 2012, ICIS.

[23]  Sylvia Kierkegaard,et al.  Cybering, online grooming and ageplay , 2008, Comput. Law Secur. Rev..

[24]  Michele L. Ybarra,et al.  Online "predators" and their victims: myths, realities, and implications for prevention and treatment. , 2008, The American psychologist.

[25]  Cybergrooming: risk factors, coping strategies and associations with cyberbullying. , 2012, Psicothema.

[26]  A. Beech,et al.  Understanding online child pornography use: Applying sexual offense theory to internet offenders , 2009 .

[27]  Lois Ann Scheidt,et al.  Bridging the gap: a genre analysis of Weblogs , 2004, 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2004. Proceedings of the.

[28]  M. Williams,et al.  Public perceptions of internet, familial and localised sexual grooming: Predicting perceived prevalence and safety , 2013 .

[29]  José María Gómez Hidalgo,et al.  Negobot: A Conversational Agent Based on Game Theory for the Detection of Paedophile Behaviour , 2012, CISIS/ICEUTE/SOCO Special Sessions.

[30]  E. Gilchrist,et al.  Sexual grooming of children: Review of literature and theoretical considerations , 2006 .

[31]  Shanyang Zhao.  The Internet and the Transformation of the Reality of Everyday Life: Toward a New Analytic Stance in Sociology , 2006 .

[32]  V. Bhatia.  Applied genre analysis: a multiperspective model , 2002 .

[33]  April Kontostathis,et al.  Comparison of Rule-based to Human Analysis of Chat Logs , 2009 .

[34]  Paolo Rosso,et al.  On the Impact of Sentiment and Emotion Based Features in Detecting Online Sexual Predators , 2012, WASSA@ACL.

[35]  W. Orlikowski,et al.  Genre Repertoire: The Structuring of Communicative Practices in Organizations , 1994 .

[36]  Susan A. Brown,et al.  The Evolving Influence of Diversity and Media in Virtual Organizations , 2010, AMCIS.