Behind the Games: Protecting Children from Online Predators

Ty Bowden: Any online game that has the ability to talk to other players, there's gonna be some risk of exploitation there.

Travis: In 2023, they caught over thirteen thousand cases where there was this child exploitation. These attempts happened. Like, what are the big video games now that you're seeing where there's this overlap with the sexual predator world?

Ty Bowden: Roblox, by far and away number one, Minecraft in Fortnite. There's 85,000,000 daily users on Roblox, and the estimate is that 40% of them are 12 or under.

Travis: That's just a recipe for disaster.

Ty Bowden: Yeah. I I think one of the biggest misconceptions that parents have today is that if my kid is at home

Travis: Right.

Ty Bowden: They're safe. Yeah. The vast majority of exploitation in any form, whatever you wanna talk about, you know, from actual sex trafficking to sextortion where people are being exploited for money because of the things that they posted online, all of it is starting online today.

Travis: We're overprotecting our kids in the real world, underprotecting them in the digital world. Our current

Ty Bowden: online environment is like having a shark in your swimming pool. There's no amount of risk mitigation that you can do where you would let your kid Swim with a shark. Swim with a shark.

Travis: Hey there. I'm Travis Patterson, and welcome to Driving Change. Here, you're gonna find unfiltered insights and hard hitting questions that challenge the status quo in law and in life. As a personal injury lawyer in Fort Worth, Texas, I see firsthand how challenges like distracted driving and other just general family safety issues really impact our community every single day. But I refuse to accept these problems as inevitable.

In this podcast, we're gonna dig deep into real world problems, bringing you practical solutions from my experiences in practicing law, raising a family, and running my own business. I'm not here to preach to anybody. I'm here to simply ask questions and start conversations that make you think differently and provide you actual advice that you can use right away in your own life. So welcome to Driving Change. Let's get to it.

Travis: Alright, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Driving Change podcast. I am Travis Patterson, joined today by a special guest, a friend of mine, mister Ty Bowden. How are doing, Ty?

Ty Bowden: Doing alright. Thanks for having me.

Travis: Thanks for coming over.

Ty Bowden: Yeah. Excited to talk to

Travis: out of the office for a few hours.

Ty Bowden: That's right.

Travis: Ready to talk video games and sex predators?

Ty Bowden: Yep. That is how I spend a lot of my time. So right in my wheelhouse.

Travis: Yeah. So believe it or not, Ty does this stuff for a living. Ty is the director of an organization here in Tarrant County called MACE, which stands for the Man Against Sexual Exploitation.

Ty Bowden: That's right.

Travis: Kind of a mouthful, but

Ty Bowden: That's why we say MACE.

Travis: MACE sounds MACE sounds good. Yeah. Which is part of the NET, which is a big organization that helps victims of sex trafficking. Ty, I'll let you explain Mace and the NET more and what kind of work you're doing.

Ty Bowden: Yeah. So the NET is an anti trafficking organization here in Tarrant County, primarily serving adult female survivors of trafficking and exploitation. So we could spend the whole podcast talking about all the services that Yeah. Our awesome team provides to them. But primarily, we provide kind of wraparound holistic support as women are recovering from exploitation and trafficking.

So we do that. We have a social enterprise called the Worthy Co that provides job training, living wage, dignified employment while women are kind of closer to the end of that of that, you know, launch back out into the real world for lack of a better term. Got a store in Clearfork that is a

Travis: Which is amazing, by way. That Yeah. That's a new thing. Right? It used to be somewhere else.

Ty Bowden: Yes. So we have a like, our HQ is right off Magnolia. It was over there. And then at Christmas time last year, we got over into Clearfork, which is pretty cool to have a full boutique, you know, right there in the heart of Right. Of, you know, big time retail in Fort Worth.

And then our third program is the MACE program. So men against sexual exploitation. 2025 is our tenth year of doing this, which is kinda crazy. Started with, you know, kinda three guys who had no idea what they were doing, trying to figure out a way to reduce the demand for commercial sexual exploitation. Primarily here in Fort Worth, we worked all over the state and even all over the country now.

But the goal there is basically to provide community education. So help other men in the community recognize what's happening, how they can, you know, do something about it, basically. So today's gonna be a great kind of Yeah. Conversation that we have a lot about that, about how being, you know, a dad and a husband can contribute to a culture where people aren't exploited. Whether that's because you're raising kids that, you know, are taking care of other people or you are proactively keeping your own kids safe, we have a role to play in creating a safe community for for our kids.

So we do community education, and then we actually also do direct buyer engagement. So working with law enforcement and doing some of the some some online civilian stuff where we are actually talking to men who are attempting who are attempting or have been arrested for purchasing sex. Like you you have

Travis: been in active, like, sting operations. Correct? Were you intervening and you talked to these guys?

Ty Bowden: Yeah. Correct. So they they get arrested by our awesome law enforcement who says, hey, we're gonna prioritize this. We recognize that these men are driving these issues just like the guys that we're gonna talk about today. Like, the people who are willing to actually perpetuate the exploitation are the the root cause of all this.

So while you can have you obviously have victims, you have, you know, traffickers and people who are willing to kinda be the intermediaries, the people who are willing to actually, you know, commit those acts are the ones who are at the root of all of this. And that's the heart of Mace, you know, is is to get to that and change that so that there's not you know, so that kids can be safe online because there's no one actually perpetuating these things.

Travis: Right. Unfortunately, there are people perpetuating these things right now, especially online. And that's what I wanna talk. There's a lot you and I could talk about. There's there's several episodes here for sure.

But today, wanna do my best to hone in on the the digital aspect of things.

Ty Bowden: Yep.

Travis: Because, you know, this this episode is mainly for parents of young kids or teenagers who kids are thinking about playing video games or they're already playing video games a lot. I wanna really dial down into that, drill down into that. And, you know, look, I mean, young males, especially, they're playing a lot of video games these days. I mean, that's like two to three hours a day. Now we can talk a lot, and I've talked to other guests about just that in general, the time aspect and the other things you more probably more productive things that your kids could be doing than video games.

But but that in and of itself, that's a parent decision. Like, if that's what you wanna do, go for it. I certainly played Madden with my buddies too long some days when I was a kid. But what I wanna talk about today is the dangers of the online video gaming. Because the online aspect is the part that's completely different than when I played video games Right.

When I was a kid. We weren't chatting with other people. Yep. Especially not strangers. But you're seeing that a lot now.

So let's talk about, like, what are the big video games now that you're seeing where there's this overlap with the sexual predator world?

Ty Bowden: Yeah. So baseline, any like you just said, chatting. Any online game that has the ability to talk to other players, there's gonna be some risk of exploitation there. And that's you know, like you said, I'm a little bit younger than you. I grew up, you know, Call of Duty.

You could talk to other people, but you were basically you're talking to your friends, and then you had, like, five minutes where you could talk to a stranger, but it was just over your headset. You know, you're not engaging in this long term relationship with those people, which is what is so different today. Yeah. So any any game that has that chat feature and kind of the three big ones are gonna be Roblox, by far and away number one, Minecraft, and Fortnite. Mhmm.

And those are for a couple of reasons. One, because they emphasize player to player interactions. Two, because they are even Fortnite, you know, is really aimed at teen and preteen audiences. Like, that's what it's built for. And Roblox, especially so there's 85,000,000 daily users on Roblox, and the estimate is that 40% of them are 12 or under.

Travis: Oh my gosh.

Ty Bowden: And so that is that is why it's, again, so far and away number one is it's it's literally designed for kids that aren't even close to being able to make, you know, safe decisions totally on their own.

Travis: Brain's not even close to being developed yet. And they're spending three hours a day in these online worlds. Let's okay. So what just so people can understand, like, what is Roblox exactly? Because I I've kinda see people playing it here and there, like, but I've never done it, and it just kinda looks weird to me.

It's it's not like fancy graphics or anything like that. Like, what are they doing? What kind of game is it?

Ty Bowden: Yeah. As this you know, in recent years, as we have really started talking about this online stuff, I had to look that up too because I it wasn't around when I was growing up, and it doesn't look like the video games that I played.

Travis: Yeah. It doesn't look exciting. There's no fancy graphics or anything.

Ty Bowden: Right. So it is I think something that is that is really different and that is more prevalent today than ever is games like Roblox that are essentially a metaverse. Like, it is there isn't a narrative storyline. So it's not like it's not like a sports game or it's not like Halo or something where, you know, you're working your way through a preset story. Roblox is its own universe.

They have games that you can play, but there's also, like, its own economy. And that is another big piece of why it is so dangerous to at times is everything that you do in the game costs money. And you have to get Robux in inside the game and you can earn those or you can just pay for them or other players can give you them. And so you're creating already this economy where a 12 year old the, like, famous line in a lot of these lawsuits that I think we're gonna talk about is player you know, 12 year old kids telling other random strangers on the Internet, I will do anything for Robux. Oh my god.

And so it's created this, you know, this economy, this marketplace because you need those things to spend in the game, whether you're playing games with your friends or you wanna change what your character's wearing, that sort of thing.

Travis: So that yeah. That digital currency aspect of it, that that's gotta be a key difference between this game and, like, playing Madden online with somebody. Right. Or I don't know what Minecraft and Fortnite I don't even know, like, what those are, but I guess those don't have the digital currency aspect to it or do they

Ty Bowden: They do. So especially Fortnite, like, wearing what your player wears and things like that. I'm not sure exactly how the exchange between players goes. I do think that that's emphasized more in Roblox, which is why, again, it it goes to the highest level. But Minecraft is a little bit of the same way.

I think it is a little bit more closed. In Roblox, you can be kind of a developer. So you can build your own experience. Yeah. And I and and that has been one of the things that they've really come under fire for is, you know, you'll have kids that'll build, you know, games that are yeah.

I'm trying to think of some of the names of some of them, but like, oh, it's a it's a game where you and your friends are, you know, like a Mario Kart. You're like racing or or something like that. But then you have games where in in some of these lawsuits, they're citing that there's games where adults have built a bathroom, a public bathroom, and they're inviting young kids to come into their public bathroom. And then they're simulating, you know, inappropriate sexual things that are happening in that bathroom. And so that's the the danger is like, oh, you have something that's built.

Oh, this is a game where I can adopt a dog and raise a puppy. It's like, awesome. That's something that a 12 year old should be playing. And then five minutes later, they can get invited into this game where it's a a nightclub, you know, in the same in the same universe, in the same platform by just talking to to one person that, you know, invites them into this experience.

Travis: I have so many questions. Yep. I first of all, it's hard for my brain to, like, understand what Roblox is. But like you said, it's like this meta universe where you can create whatever scenario you want. A day at school, a business, bathrooms, and stuff that you would never see in the real world gets normalized, I assume, in this metaverse.

And then you have an exchange of currency. That's just a recipe for disaster when it comes to this the kind of work that you do. Right, Ted?

Ty Bowden: Yeah. The we we know that it's 2025. Yeah. The vast majority of exploitation in any form, whatever you wanna talk about, you know, from actual sex trafficking, like, by the definition letter of the law to sextortion where people are being exploited for money because of the things that they posted online. Whatever that broad range, this this giant messy Venn diagram, all of it is starting online today.

And primarily, it's starting online with teenagers, 13 is kind of the average range, who have some sort of unregulated access to the Internet, whether that is social media or a game like Roblox that feels safer. Yeah. It feels safer than traditional social media because I think from, you know, my generation, I have two young boys. We're growing up. Like, I I grew up with some early aspect of social media, and I know, oh, hey.

It's really easy for someone to message me on Instagram, I don't want my kids to experience that. And so I think we are aware of that, and we're not aware of these kind of newer dangers

Travis: Right.

Ty Bowden: Like something like Roblox. Because as we've just spent ten minutes talking about, we don't understand it.

Travis: No. We don't. We don't. And we had nothing like that when we were kids. And, you know, it kinda goes back to, you know, the anxious generation idea of, you know, we're overprotecting our kids in the real world, but underprotecting them in the digital world.

100%. I think that applies to a great extent when we're talking about roadblocks.

Ty Bowden: Yeah. I I think one of the biggest misconceptions that parents have today is that if my kid is at home

Travis: Right.

Ty Bowden: They're safe. Yeah. So, you know, I don't want them riding around the neighborhood on their bike because I don't know what's going on down the street, and there are valid fears there. But then the like you just said, the overprotection is, oh, well, if they're in their room or even if they're in the living room playing this video game, I can be doing laundry in the other room and everything's totally fine because they're inside my house.

Travis: And they're entertained and they're being quiet and So all this okay. These lawsuits. There's been a bunch of lawsuits that have popped up against Roblox. The the biggest one that caught my attention I mean, there's been families suing Roblox, you know, for the past several years on individual cases. Right.

But, you know, bad stuff, you know, actual abductions, actual abuse. I mean, things that happen happen in the real world that started in the meta universe of Roblox. The one that caught my eye the other day was the Louisiana attorney general Yep. That sued Roblox. For an attorney general of the state to sue a private company like that, you know, that that's not a one off incident.

They they see something systematic going on. Yep. It's my understanding that they also have some whistleblowers and some internal documents. So so what are you saying with that lawsuit?

Ty Bowden: Yeah. It's it's basically the the state of Louisiana is telling Roblox, you have intentionally created an environment that puts youth at risk. Yeah. You know it. Like you said, the whistleblower documents, there there were internal documents that came out where Roblox had internal discussions about if we put more safeguards on this, age verification and things like that, we will have fewer users.

And users equals profit. And so they made an intentional decision of it maximizes profit, it maximizes player time on the game, It maximizes overall user base if we don't do these things. And that is not unique to Roblox. All the giant tech companies are basically being exposed to that to some degree. Sure.

You know, we had the the big famous senate hearings at the beginning of this year where all the big tech execs were having to testify of, hey, if Instagram knew that this was harmful, the more a 13 year old girl spins on it, then why are they not doing something about it? So this is the theme that we've that we've seen across all tech is we're gonna prioritize profit over safety.

Travis: Right. Profit over safety. I mean, that's been the theme of every personal injury lawsuit that has ever happened. I mean, I can't tell you how many times that phrase has come out of my mouth. But to see it at a wide scale with something that has, by my last count, 380,000,000 monthly users.

You said 80,000,000 daily users. I assume a lot those kids are getting on every single day. Probably. 380,000,000 unique monthly users. That's a huge population.

Yep. And then you have what the Louisiana attorney general is describing as a basically a hunting ground for child sex predators.

Ty Bowden: Yep.

Travis: I saw that the Roblox what's the owner of Roblox called? Is it Discord or something like that? I don't know. But the Roblox company, they've started to self report some of this stuff

Ty Bowden: Yep.

Travis: That they've caught. In 2023, they caught over 13,000 Yep. Cases where there was this child exploitation, these attempts happening. Thirteen thousand. Okay.

That's a big number. But then we also have 380,000,000 active users. Yep. So how many of those cases are not being caught and not being reported?

Ty Bowden: Yep. The vast majority. Right. And and the only reason that they are reporting more is there's been more federal pressure to do it. Right.

It's not like They didn't

Travis: do that just from the start.

Ty Bowden: No. And even we saw an almost 100% jump from 2023 to 2024 in reports. And again, it's not because there's double the amount of cases. It's, oh, wow. We're feeling a little bit of the heat, and so we better start.

Travis: The lawsuits are coming and the pressure is coming. Yep. But I also saw though that there's these vigilantes that go into Roblox, which is really interesting where, you know, it reminds me of the movie Boondock Saints. Right? Where it's these guys who are posing as children to go and then cut and catch predators.

There's I think the most well known one is a guy named Schlepp. Schlepp. Schlepp. I don't know. But he's caught, like, six real bad guys, and Roblox banned him.

They have come out and said no more vigilantism on our platform. Why would they do that?

Ty Bowden: I think it exposes how easy it is to find them if they actually wanted to. And again, that's a theme across all of, you know, current tech is it's not that hard. It just takes money and it's gonna reduce some of your you know, you're gonna have fewer 13 year olds on the platform because they're gonna be more safeguards and that costs them something. And they're not willing to do that until their feet get held to the fire.

Travis: And then, you know, when their feet get held to the fire, whether it's by the government or by these lawsuits or whatever, you know, they're always gonna say some say just enough to hopefully make it go away. Well, we're gonna institute this safeguard. Like, we're gonna disable chatting if you're under the age of 13 or, you know, no more like friend requests if you don't know the like, they're always gonna come up with like new like, hey, here here's what we're doing so now we're safe. Should parents buy that or are these can these predators get around that kind of stuff?

Ty Bowden: So the first thing I would say is if it was that easy to implement it, you made a conscious choice not to the first time. And so that tells you, again, their motivation and their general philosophy. And two, there's a guy named Chris McKenna who runs an organization called Protect Young Eyes whose whole thing is about keeping kids safe online. And the analogy that he uses is that our current online environment is like having a shark in your swimming pool. And you would never let your kid there's no amount of risk mitigation that you can do.

You can't give them floaties. You can't have a lifeguard where you would let your kid Swim with the shark. Swim with the shark. Interesting. And so until there are fundamental like, systemic changes, there's a shark in the swimming pool.

Yeah. And that doesn't mean that every gaming platform and every, you know, all digital exposure is is that to that level of of danger. But I think that's a really great way that we should view it is like, we better we gotta get the shark out of the swimming pool Mhmm. Before we let our kids go in. And that there's a lot of practical ways that that we can do that.

But in general, that is the the kind of waters that we're we're swimming in with with kids in online technology.

Travis: Yeah. What would it take, I mean, to do that, to to get the shark out of the pool? I mean, to to make our kids safer online. I mean, you can go and pull up tips. Right?

Like, if your kid's playing Roblox like and, you know, I think Roblox has issued some of the stuff like parental supervision. Like, play the games. Like, who's gonna play Roblox with their kids? Who's got time for that? Like, some of the stuff is not practical.

Right. You have multiple like, I got better things to do with my time than play video games with my kids. But, like, these parental safeguards and other passwords and check their chat histories and, like, all this stuff. I mean, it's it'd a full time job Yep. To do what they say I need to do to monitor my kids online.

And that's just one game. Right? Right. You and I talked about this the other day. Like, there's all these different access points for our kids if you just let them have everything.

Right? So there's Roblox and then you have Fortnite, these other video games. And then you got social media and then you got YouTube and, you know, you gotta do a phones and iPads and computers and all this different stuff. Yep. Each one of them saying, yeah, you just gotta be a responsible parent and monitor it.

Well, when you add them all up, it's physically impossible. Right. That's kinda why I'm against school issue iPads because I I just can't do that. So practically speaking, what would it take to make these digital online video game worlds safer for our kids?

Ty Bowden: So I think you can approach it two ways. First would be a systemic kind of legal framework, and there are things out there. There are pushes that would hold these companies accountable. There's a without getting too into the weeds, the Communications Decency Act that has kind of governed the Internet for the last almost thirty years has a section in it called section two thirty that has largely provided content hosts with yeah. It has kept them from being culpable for what happens on their websites.

And Gotcha. There are a lot of competing ways to to all the way from, hey, let's sunset that and let's repeal section two thirty to, hey, we can modify and amend it for a modern digital environment. Not gonna weigh in on on that what's the right way to do it. But there are ways that the government can legislate and mandate safety protocols for these tech companies. But, again, kinda like you said, that doesn't it's never going to be the complete right answer.

And so then when you have tech companies, they need to then take those things on themselves, provide clearer safety protocols, create a culture of the, you know, app or game or whatever it is that says, hey, we actually do prioritize safety over profit. And so we are going to build our thing in a way that sacrifices some of this to make sure that kids are safe online. But again, with all of that, it's still not foolproof. And so I think the best way actually for parents to go about this is the number one multiple studies have proven that the number one thing that reduces online risky behavior in kids is a stronger relationship with their parents. Mhmm.

And so it's it's both it's an all of the above. Right? It is it is knowing what they're doing online, and it is, you know, having device rules and limits and and understanding the games that they're playing. But it's also recognizing that we're never going to be able to do that to a 100%, you know, accurate way to keep them safe. It's just impossible.

Like you said, there's too many access points all the way down to even if your kids devices are perfectly dialed in, what happens when they go to school? Right. And their buddy in the locker room shows them something that they shouldn't see. And so the number one way to make sure that your kids are gonna make safe decisions, that they're gonna talk to you is to build strong relationships with them and talk to them about it. And that seems sometimes I think that seems like, oh, this can't possibly be enough.

But then you realize, oh, it's probably actually easier if I just make sure their parental controls are set than sitting down and talking to my eight year old son about things that he's gonna see on the Internet.

Travis: Yeah. So okay. So what would those conversations look like, Ty? Like, I'm not talking about just having a great relationship with your kids. Obviously, I agree with that.

But that specific relationship on, you know, hey, buddy. Here's what's going on out there. And I I agree. At the age of eight, seven, like, we're talking about early ages now. Like, these are early conversations now.

Yep. And and even if you keep your kids off of some of these things, like like Ty said, there's gonna be other access points that you don't know about yet. So we need to start having those conversations with our kids early. Yep. So, like, practically speaking, like, Ty, like, what are the words that you recommend?

Like, what's that conversation look like?

Ty Bowden: Yeah. So, again, ages and exactly what content you're comfortable talking to your kids about is a parent by parent decision. But in terms of general theme of the conversation, it needs to be something about, hey. Here's some things that you might see that, you know, are out there on the Internet that will probably make you feel weird, you know, or you'll know that something's not right. And there's a really good book called Good Pictures, Bad Pictures that there's the junior version and the bigger version.

Great way to start kind of prompting these these conversations. And there's a couple things that I would say is first, make sure the most important thing is that they know that you are a safe place Yeah. If or when they mess up. Yeah. Or if or when they see something that makes them feel uncomfortable or ashamed.

Even if they didn't you know, even if it was shown to them, if they feel ashamed and that they're going to be in trouble, they're not gonna come back to you. And so first is building that trust of you can tell me anything. You won't be in trouble. You know, might be there might be consequences, but you're not gonna it's not gonna change the way it feels about

Travis: And Yeah.

Ty Bowden: Correct. So you have to build that trust. And then two, I think you need to give them an an exit strategy and a practical reporting plan. Mhmm. So I think something that maybe my generation grew up with is, hey.

When you put something on the Internet, it's there forever. Right. That's the worst thing we can tell our kids today because when they hear that, there's no hope. If if they think that they've done something irreversible point of no return. They're not gonna come tell you.

Yeah. Because then they say, well, what am I gonna tell mom and dad? There's nothing mom and dad can do about it. Yeah. And so I'm gonna try to cover this up or get out of this mess on my own.

And so I would say we really need to avoid those kind of absolute languages. Yep. It is really hard to get something off the Internet that's been on there. Right. At the same time, there are ways that we can make it better.

And so maybe let's not promise the world, but let's share. We are gonna do everything that we can to to make this. So don't minimize the consequences of, hey, it's no big deal. But at the same time, hey, we will work on this together. And so you have a plan of if this happens, if you see this, if, you know, God forbid, something about Mhmm.

A picture of you gets out there, You have to come tell mom and dad first, and we're gonna be on your team. We are going to support you, and we're gonna figure out how to, you know, minimize this damage together Mhmm. Not you doing it on your own because that's unfortunately where we see really dire consequences of kids making, you know, life altering decisions

Travis: Yeah.

Ty Bowden: Because of something that happened online.

Travis: And in these online universes, it's it's a process. Right? It's not like they meet a stranger for the first time and all this bad stuff just happens. There's this period of grooming Yeah. That takes place.

Right? And so, like, what are the common grooming tactics that these bad guys use? And how can we educate our kids on how to recognize those and and and run from them?

Ty Bowden: Yeah. So it's a it's kind of a classic grooming scenario where they're gonna make the person trust them. So, you know, in an online gaming platform that might be, hey, I'm just gonna give you a few of these Robux or whatever the currency is. And now you think I'm your friend. You're gonna come you know, you're gonna come back to me.

Yeah. Then they're probably going to try to move them to a different social media site. So I think that is the biggest, biggest red flag and the ease probably the easiest one actually to see is, hey, if somebody asks you to get off this game and go to something else, that should be a 100% deal breaker. Right. You know, move them to Snapchat, move them to Discord, something where there is less monitored communication

Travis: Yeah.

Ty Bowden: And less of a a, you know, an an electronic paper trail if that eventually happens. But if they do get them at whether it's in a private chat in the game or to a different site, then they're going to erode boundaries is is probably the best way to put it. They're gonna start saying suggestive things, maybe sending suggestive pictures, you know, in dire more extreme cases, they might actually share pornography Mhmm. Eventually to to to get erode boundaries and kind of normalize some sexual behavior. And then eventually, they're going to start asking the kid for content or meeting up in person or or something like that.

And grooming can happen over the course of weeks or months for sure. But at at the speed these things move these days and how often kids can be in contact with people, I think that's another thing is, you know, again, when I was growing up, even if I was talking to someone online, I had to be sitting down at my Xbox, you know Right. In the den at my parents' house. Now if a kid has their phone on during the day and they've moved to, you know, a messaging thing or Snapchat, they can be talking to this person for eighteen hours a day. So it can happen really quickly where it went from, hey, we met on this gaming site, and now we've developed this history in three days where I feel comfortable or I feel pressured into sending x, y, or z to that person.

So, yeah, I'd say general red flags are obviously if the person is clearly older, most people that are doing this on, you know, Roblox, something like that are making a childlike avatar. So that's not as easy to see. But Right. Any sort of agent appropriate language, moving to a different website, or obviously asking for pictures or personal information. And those are things that we should be able to safeguard our kids against of, hey.

Here are some, you know, like I said, some some hard and fast rules. You don't go to another website. You don't ever share your real name, information, pictures of you, period. And that's gonna nip a lot of that in the bud.

Travis: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's so good for parents to hear is that practical advice. Because, like, you know, my kids are young. Like, my older ones, it's kinda getting up to this age like you talked about, which makes me nervous.

This kinda age bracket of nine, 10 Yep. Comes at you fast nowadays. But your kids are still young, you know. But so for the parents listening who, you know, the cat's out of the bag. Yep.

Right? It's like it's hard to go home based on one podcast and say, okay, Johnny, you're done playing Roblox. Because so much of their social experience is based around that. Yep. Like, they're playing with their friends a lot.

I mean, I when I I don't know if you ever spend time around high school students, but I see them all the time on their laptops. And they'll be in a group in person, but they'll all have their devices out Yeah. Playing these stupid games with each other. Yeah. And it's just you know, I get it.

I'm not trying to be like, you know, some old guy being like, what are y'all doing? Y'all should be outside just in the dirt all the time. Like, I understand that, you know, I used to sit around with my buddies and play Madden too. So the cat's kinda out of the bag for a lot of these families and it's, you know, it's it's hard to to go back and just say no no more roadblocks. So the more practical advice that, you know, they can hear, I think, really really helps by having those conversations.

And just because your kid is older, you know, a teenager high school student, these conversations are still worthwhile.

Ty Bowden: Very much so.

Travis: So your kid what obviously, your kids are three and one. Still early.

Ty Bowden: Still a little early.

Travis: Will you eventually let your kids go into these digital worlds, play these games, or what's your plan with with your family?

Ty Bowden: Yeah. I I will. I think it will be so this this is a great quote that heard at a conference that I went to last year for this that talked about when stream screens are used for consumption only is when we really get into trouble. But when used for creation, competition, and curation, they actually add to our human experience. Those are things that we were designed for.

The competition, sitting around with your friends, you know. Yeah. I still play. You know, every once in a while, still spin up a, you know, NCAA college football game

Travis: Mhmm.

Ty Bowden: With my buddies, and it's a great time that we can you know, kids are asleep. We're hanging out together. Right. So I I will. I'll do it obviously with with guidelines.

So some very practical things, I think, is one. You know, as soon as my oldest is is old enough to understand what this means, we will have a tech contract in our family of this is what devices are used for. This is what they're not used for. This is what mom and dad get to do. You know, these are all of our these are all ours.

Yeah. And so these are the things that we will do routinely. And again, it's not gonna be perfect and it's not gonna be all encompassing, but it's setting expectations. And so I think that's good. Right now, you know, we have Friday night movie night.

And so when he comes home from, you know, daycare on Wednesday and says, hey, dad, can I watch trash truck? I just have to say, hey. Is it is it Friday? Yeah. And he's like, no.

It's not Friday. And he's he's he's turns three in two weeks. And so he, at that age, already understands. And so when you set those expectations of, hey, here's what screens are used for. Here's how we engage in our family.

Mhmm. When you set those early, I think it really helps kind of shape those digital rhythms. And so we we will, you know, enter in. I imagine in five years when he's ready to start picking up some of this stuff, it's gonna already look different. And so it's hard to Yeah.

Exactly predict. With, you know, families that have older kids or kids who are already engaged in this stuff, the cat's out of the bag as you put it. I think there's a couple of things is, one, I would say find your yeses first. Mhmm. So right.

Maybe you're learning about this for the first time and your kid does spend a lot of time doing these things. And now you're nervous. And I think that's the this is probably the hardest part of of these online safety trainings or talks that I do is looking a parent of a 15 year old and guy who says, hey, my kids had a smartphone for three years and plays video games all the time. Mhmm. Have I already lost it?

Right. So I'd say first find your yeses. Figure out, hey, what can we keep of of what you're already doing?

Travis: Yeah.

Ty Bowden: What maybe patterns can we shift that maybe I can sit down and play. You know, I'm not gonna sit here and play Roblox with you for a couple hours, but maybe we can play, you know, a game of Madden, you know, a couple nights a week that is time with dad or whatever. So find your guesses. And then two, understand that I I think in my personal, you know, in professional opinion, it's worth the fight. If you take your kid's phone away at night that, you know, this this kid has always had access to his phone in his room or he's always had kind of he can play video games until whenever and you restrict that, your kid's not gonna be happy about it in the short term.

And I think it's worth the fight. I think it is worth the short term, you know, pain and and Yeah. Fighting that's gonna happen there as long as you're willing to enter in relationally to kind of bridge that gap. Because I do think that long term, our kids will recognize when we are acting out of their best interest. And so replacing those things with, yeah, let's go be outside in the dirt a little more.

Yeah. Absolutely. Let's create some family time. Maybe and maybe it is like, hey, instead of just maybe it is as small as instead of you just playing video games by yourself, I'll sit down with you or we're gonna watch a family movie and you get to pick. Yeah.

And so finding those things to shift patterns and recognize that even in the the short term tension and anger and slamming of doors that's gonna happen, you being the parent and protecting your kid's childhood by setting boundaries is worth the long term gain of at the most extreme, keeping your kid from being exploited online. Mhmm. And at the very least, you are helping create, you know, a human who is more fully rounded and has a better relationship with you.

Travis: 100%.

Ty Bowden: And so that would be the the two big practical things that I would share.

Travis: So your kid might be pissed in the short term, but they'll be grateful in the long term. Yeah. I like that a lot, Ty. We you know, for on Amazon for, like, I think it's, like, 30 or $40. You can buy, like, those old retro Nintendos.

Anne and I have one of those, and we play Super Mario, like the old school one.

Ty Bowden: Love it.

Travis: Yeah. You know, with the music. Yeah. It's a blast. The kids play and, you know, we try to beat Bowser and we're all laughing and it's just family video game night or whatever.

Ty Bowden: And there's nothing inherently wrong about that just because it's on a screen. There's nothing, you know, better about playing Monopoly than playing that. You're together. You're building experience. You're curating relationship.

And that's that's the point, I think, ultimately.

Travis: Yeah. But if your kid is in the dark, in the room by themselves playing Roblox for three hours, we gotta we gotta look at that. Yeah. We start having those hard conversations. Do you do you have an opinion about it's kinda going on a tangent here.

And a lot of our conversation too reminds me of my conversation with the Batons Yeah. On social media. And the family contract, for example, that was a common theme with them having a contract with devices with social media. But there's no reason you shouldn't loop in video games and other, you know, things you do online into that kind of contract. I think Protect Young Eyes, that organization, think they have an don't they have a kind of an example

Ty Bowden: They do. Yeah. They

Travis: have. Contract?

Ty Bowden: Yep. So I came back from this conference that I was at last summer that was all about digital safety and online exploitation. And all my friends in our community group were kinda thought I went crazy because, you know, the oldest kid was like four at that time. And I created a full document in Protecting Our Eyes has a great template of, hey. And it's not just for our family, it's for our community because my kids are gonna spend a lot of time at your house.

So we need to have some baseline rules together. So, yeah, that's a great great place to to start.

Travis: Yeah. That's it's and that's a good point. And, you know, and the Batten's talked about that, about the power of community and getting your parents, you know, of your kids, classmates together and be like, hey, let's all withhold cell phones and social media together. Because because if we do it if we're the only family doing it, my kids gonna get left on an island. Correct.

So, you know, based on that conversation last year with the Bettens, Anna and I did that. We went to our our schools and rounded up a bunch of parents and it's been awesome. And everyone's standing tight. I mean, it's easy right now. Right?

Because we got second graders and third graders. So the social media thing isn't really popping up. But what is popping up is this, the video game thing. Yep. The video game thing comes earlier than typically the, you know, Instagram, Facebook stuff.

Not that much earlier, but it seems like it's the first thing that comes. And so I think parents just need to keep their guard up with this. And you talked about like, you need to know, like, if your kid's doing a sleepover, kids spending time over like, what's their policy on online video games? And, of course, if you educate them, like like Ty said, and give them that practical tips, maybe they can be strong and withstand some of that stuff. But you still wanna know what your kid's being exposed to when they're with other families.

Ty Bowden: Yeah. And I I think it sounds you know, I think parents can be like, I don't wanna be overbearing. I don't wanna be the weird parent in the group. But to me, it reminds me of of, like, my parents knew, you know, what what movie ratings my friend's parents would let them watch. And so I was like, hey.

If you're going to spend the night at Johnny's house, his parents let him watch r rated movies. Yeah. And so you can't do that. So you can tell them you can't do that or we can come pick you up. You know, that, like Yeah.

That's not a new concept. It's just a new format.

Travis: It is a new format. Yeah. You're right, man. I'm thinking back to my high school days, and you always know some some parents were cool with some things and others weren't. And you always wondered what parents knew and but, you know, that was different stuff that you were just doing at your buddy's house.

Now you're talking about the online super dangerous stuff. Right. So I think that's great. Alright, Ty. Anything else you want listeners, parents to know about kind of the work you're doing or about the the digital stuff?

What's a key to kind of takeaway you'd like folks to know?

Ty Bowden: Yeah. I think that key takeaway would be that it's not about never letting your kids play video games, have social media, have a smartphone. Yeah. It is about training them to use those things in a wise way that is going to both keep them safe and help them flourish later in life. Just like, you know, we wouldn't want our kids to never drive with us with their permit and just give them the keys at 16.

We don't wanna kick them out of the house when they're 18 and then have social media for the first time because they never got to learn to use it while someone who cared about them and loved them and was in charge of them Mhmm. Was walking with them through it. And so Bark Technologies, another great resource, talks about locked, limited, and light moving through. And I think it's just a great framework for anything that kids are doing online is first, locked. So, hey, video games locked would be that Nintendo 64 that dad pulled out of the attic where there's no online connection.

We're gonna play video games together. We're gonna learn, what the point of this is, what are healthy boundaries. You don't do this for six hours a day by yourself. Then limited might be, hey, we're gonna let you get on one of these online games. Mhmm.

But we're gonna sit down with you. We're gonna set up your account and make sure you know, it's got these things.

Travis: Make sure we know the actual people that you're connected to.

Ty Bowden: Correct. And, you know, maybe it's just a game like Madden where there isn't this interpersonal Yeah. Character relationship. And then light would be, hey, you're 16. You're 17 years old.

You are almost an adult. We're gonna give you a lot more freedom. And then again, here are still the boundaries. And so you can apply that to anything with being online technology. I think that's a really great framework to walk through.

Travis: Yeah. And we had a very similar conversation with the social media stuff about, you know, that, you know, that scaffolding that's around and then slowly removing the scaffolding. You don't want to do it all at once. They're gonna leave the house and all of a sudden, oh, there's this new world of social media and there's so many different things out there. Like, no, there's there's a way to ease into it and train them.

Just like you teach them how to use power tools or riding a bike or whatever it is in life that's dangerous. We just ease them into it. Yep. I think that's great. If folks wanna reach you and get more involved with Mace, Mace is an awesome organization.

Obviously, you guys are always doing cool stuff and helping out in the community. How can folks find you and hear more about Mace and The Net?

Ty Bowden: Yeah. Easiest way would just be go to our website, thenetfw.com or @thenetfw on Instagram. That's where we post a lot. You get to see a lot of the highlights and some of the work that we're doing and especially hear some some Mace stories we we share often about operations that we've been on or, you know, things that are are happening in in the Mace world. So, yeah, those two places.

Travis: Awesome. Great work, Ty. Thanks for coming on.

Ty Bowden: Great stuff. Thanks for having me.

Travis: Alright. Thanks.

Travis: If you like today's episode, please subscribe to the podcast, and don't forget to leave us a review. It really does help us get the word out. As we dive into these important conversations about safety and about community, I'm reminded of why I became a personal injury lawyer in the first place. Every single day, I see people whose lives have been turned upside down because of some accident in one form or another. It's a confusing and overwhelming time, and it can feel impossible for folks to know where to turn.

If you or someone you love have been in an accident like that and you need honest guidance, give us a call. We'll get to know you, get to know your story, and we will be with you every step of the way. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time.