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Tag: Child Safety

Colorado Gets $615 Million in Meta Child Safety Settlement, but Polis Says Parents Remain Essential
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Gets $615 Million in Meta Child Safety Settlement, but Polis Says Parents Remain Essential

By Thelma Grimes | The Denver Gazette The parent company of Facebook and Instagram will pay hundreds of millions of dollars to Colorado, part of an $18 billion multistate deal, in which the company also agreed to adopt extensive child-safety changes to its operations. The settlement ended a trial over teen social media addiction and settled claims filed by nearly every state. It resolved a pivotal case years in the making that sought to hold the tech giant accountable for the role its platforms played in allegedly undermining children’s mental health. The effort targeted features designed to hook young people’s attention. If approved by the court, the deal will stop an avalanche of litigation by states against Meta, although the company still faces lawsuits from indivi...
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Former Durango Teacher Gets 40 Years For Sex Crimes Against 37 Teenage Boys
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CBS Colorado, Approved, Local

Former Durango Teacher Gets 40 Years For Sex Crimes Against 37 Teenage Boys

By Logan Smith | CBS Colorado A former Durango middle school teacher who obtained sexual images from more than three dozen teenage boys by pretending to be a 16-year-old girl on social media was sentenced last week to four decades in prison.  Benjamin Smith was sentenced in a Denver federal courtroom Tuesday. The judge ordered lifetime supervision, too, once Smith is released from prison.  Smith, 30, posed as "Kristin" on Snapchat under the username "MTNCHICK69," according to evidence presented by federal prosecutors. Behind that identity, Smith reached out to boys in the Durango area as young as 12. He started conversations, sent out photos of a naked girl, then asked the boys to send back photos of themselves in return, prosecutors stated. Smith ...
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Colorado Strengthens Criminal Investigations With New Social Media Warrant Law
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado Strengthens Criminal Investigations With New Social Media Warrant Law

By: Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics A law requiring social media platforms to respond to search warrants within 72 hours goes into effect on Aug. 12. Senate Bill 011 also requires platforms to create a staffed hotline for Colorado law enforcement agencies to contact regarding pending search warrants. The bill is a pared-down version of last year’sSenate Bill 086, which also included provisions related to violations of social media policies and minor users. While the bill passed through both the House and the Senate, Gov. Jared Polis vetoed the legislation, expressing worries about requiring social media companies to enforce state laws and about the measure’s data-collection requirements. The Senate voted to override the veto, but efforts sta...
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Report Finds Millions In Improper Payments At Unregulated Colorado Autism Centers
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CBS Colorado, Approved, State

Report Finds Millions In Improper Payments At Unregulated Colorado Autism Centers

By Shaun Boyd | CBS Colorado A new report by the Colorado Department of Human Services says a lack of oversight at facilities that provide therapy for kids with autism has resulted in dozens of complaints of child abuse. It comes after a federal audit found the state Medicaid program made at least $78 million in improper payments to the facilities, some of which are owned by private equity firms that the state agency overseeing Medicaid says have exploited the lack of regulations to maximize revenue. Pam Bisceglia has dedicated her life to improving the lives of people with disabilities as Executive Director of Advocacy Denver and parent of a daughter with autism. She says the facilities sprang up across Colorado when the state and federal government began requi...
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FBI Reports Fivefold Surge in Arrests Tied to NVE Networks Exploiting Children
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Daily Wire, Approved, National

FBI Reports Fivefold Surge in Arrests Tied to NVE Networks Exploiting Children

By Mary Margaret Olohan | The Daily Wire “This FBI is fully engaged in dismantling NVE networks and violent groups like 764." WASHINGTON—The Federal Bureau of Investigation says it has seen a dramatic 490% increase in “Nihilistic Violent Extremism” arrests during the past fiscal year, The Daily Wire can first report — an almost fivefold increase in the 2025 fiscal year. These arrests are mostly associated with 764, an online network that preys on young children, The Daily Wire has learned. “Members of ‘764’ use known online social media communications platforms as mediums to support the possession, production, and sharing of extreme gore media and child sex abuse material with vulnerable, juvenile populations,” the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland ...
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Unsealed Filing Says Meta Misled the Public and Endangered Children
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TIME, Approved, National

Unsealed Filing Says Meta Misled the Public and Endangered Children

By Charlotte Alter | TIME Sex trafficking on Meta platforms was both difficult to report and widely tolerated, according to a court filing unsealed Friday. In a plaintiffs’ brief filed as part of a major lawsuit against four social media companies, Instagram’s former head of safety and well-being Vaishnavi Jayakumar testified that when she joined Meta in 2020 she was shocked to learn that the company had a “17x” strike policy for accounts that reportedly engaged in the “trafficking of humans for sex.”  “You could incur 16 violations for prostitution and sexual solicitation, and upon the 17th violation, your account would be suspended,” Jayakumar reportedly testified, adding that “by any measure across the industry, [it was] a very, very high strike threshold.” The plaintiffs claim th...
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Illegal migrant accused of raping child repeatedly had Obama-era entry, Biden-era protections
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Approved, National, National Review, Rocky Mountain Voice

Illegal migrant accused of raping child repeatedly had Obama-era entry, Biden-era protections

By James Lynch | National Review Two illegal immigrants were arrested last week after being accused of repeatedly raping an unaccompanied migrant child who was illegally brought to the U.S. during the Obama administration. Felix Bustillo Diaz, 49, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, and Jose Gerber-Rivera, a 45-year-old Salvadoran illegal alien, are suspected of repeatedly raping Bustillo’s 12-year-old grand niece. The girl was smuggled into the U.S. by her Honduran mother in June 2014, according to federal authorities. The child’s mother was herself an unaccompanied minor at the time and brought the girl, then an infant, with her. The child was then left alone with Bustillo, a convicted criminal who ended up being her sponsor after he claimed to be her great uncle, marking a s...
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FBI Expands Probe Into Aurora Police Officer Accused of Exploiting Minors
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DENVER7, Approved, Local

FBI Expands Probe Into Aurora Police Officer Accused of Exploiting Minors

By: Sydney Isenberg | Denver7 The FBI alleges that Sergeant Aaron Jacob "Jake" Bunch may have "sought out minor victims while serving in a position of trust" from 2005 to October 2025. DENVER — The FBI field office in Denver is looking for potential victims of an Aurora school resource officer (SRO) supervisor accused of sexual exploitation of a child. Aurora Police Sergeant Aaron Jacob "Jake" Bunch, 47, was arrested on Oct. 8 and charged with sexual exploitation of a child (sell/ publish), sexual exploitation of a child (possession), and sexual exploitation of a child (video) - extraordinary risk. Bunch served as an SRO supervisor in multiple schools in Aurora, according to the FBI. The agency alleges that Bunch may have "sought out minor victims while serving ...
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Colorado Supreme Court to decide if state wrongly denied child abuse hotline data to media orgs
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Colorado Supreme Court to decide if state wrongly denied child abuse hotline data to media orgs

By Jennifer Brown | The Colorado Sun The news agencies wanted to know the number of times child residential treatment centers had called the child abuse hotline but were denied by state human services officials A legal battle over child abuse hotline data requested four years ago by The Colorado Sun and 9News has reached the Colorado Supreme Court.  The case centers on the news organizations’ joint request under the Colorado Open Records Act for the number of calls made to the state child abuse hotline from three child residential treatment centers in the Denver area from 2018 to 2021. Journalists sought the information while investigating the safety of children in residential centers, including the death of a 12-year-old boy who ran away from Tennyson Center and...
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Guilty plea exposes scale of child exploitation by Colorado predator
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Fox31, Approved, National

Guilty plea exposes scale of child exploitation by Colorado predator

By Heather Willard | Fox 31 DENVER (KDVR) — A 31-year-old man from Colorado pleaded guilty this month in Indiana to dozens of counts related to sextortion of at least 68 children through social media and sex trafficking of at least five of those children. Ryan Austin Lauless, 31, of Colorado, pleaded guilty on Sept. 4 to 21 counts of sexual exploitation of a child, five counts of sex trafficking of a minor, two counts of noticing and advertising child sexual abuse material and possession of child sexual abuse material, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana. Prosecutors say that Lauless used social media apps between late 2019 and May 19, 2023, to coerce, sexually exploit and threaten at least 68 minor victims into producing thousands of sexua...
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