How Predators Went From Playgrounds to Your Kid’s Phone

Mike Lemon investigates crimes against children for a living. He's done it for over 20 years. He trains 5,000 parents a year on what he's learned. He still built layered defenses for his own kids' devices, because he knows no child can handle a professional predator alone.

We talked for almost 90 minutes. AI sextortion, how Snapchat was really designed, the evolution from physical predation to online operations, his family's actual phone contract, and a conversation framework I keep coming back to.

0:00 Introduction

2:03 The man in the van

5:48 Computer forensics training

8:42 Physical abuse vs. online predation

11:41 The screams that stay with you

13:07 When predators face justice

20:03 Trust a predator to be a predator

23:09 From parks to phones

25:58 The "I'm Sorry" Scam

29:07 Sextortion at scale

35:24 Make your kids' accounts private

36:23 AI sextortion and Eli Hecock

40:07 The family contract

43:17 The whitelist approach

46:49 How Snapchat was really designed

56:16 Social media and suicide data

59:26 COPPA and enforcement

1:03:25 The one app for parents

1:09:59 Same side of the table

1:17:52 Every app is a new window

1:19:41 Advice for kids

Det. Mike Lemon | ICAC Detective, 20+ years | CyberSafeSchool.org https://www.cybersafeschool.org Family IT Guy: https://www.familyitguy.com

iPhone Setup Guide: https://www.familyitguy.com/iphone-setup-guide