Latest news with #onlineabuse
Free Malaysia Today
2 days ago
- General
- Free Malaysia Today
Govt reviewing laws, focus on role of parents to prevent child abuse
Law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said with her Uzbek counterpart, justice minister Akbar Tashkulov, signing the memorandum of understanding on the exchange of legal expertise, among others. (Facebook pic) PUTRAJAYA : The government is reviewing several existing legal provisions to introduce clearer and stronger obligations for parents and guardians, in its effort to prevent abuse and sexual assault of children. Law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said said the move would include proposing amendments to make it mandatory for parents and guardians to monitor their children's online activities, as well as to participate in digital safety awareness and education programmes actively. 'This approach reflects the principle of shared responsibility in safeguarding future generations from the growing threat of sexual crimes in the digital age,' she said in a statement issued today. Azalina said this in her keynote address, titled 'Creating a Safer Digital Future: Malaysia's Legislative Approach to Online Child' on the first day of the Tashkent Law Spring International Legal Forum 2025 in Uzbekistan, where she is currently on an official visit. In her address, Azalina also highlighted Malaysia's legislative initiatives aimed at strengthening online child protection laws and called on the international legal community to embrace a shared moral duty in addressing crimes against children. She emphasised the importance of ensuring that perpetrators of such offences are brought to justice without exception, underlining that protecting children in the digital space requires global cooperation and collective will. During the visit, Azalina also had the opportunity to hold a bilateral meeting with her counterpart, Uzbek Justice Minister Akbar Tashkulov, on May 30, with the meeting yielding meaningful results when both parties agreed to sign a new memorandum of understanding (MoU). 'This MoU will be in effect for three years and covers important aspects such as the exchange of legal expertise, cooperation in the reform of justice institutions and strengthening the capacity of the judicial systems of both countries. 'This move is very significant in supporting efforts towards a more responsive and dynamic legal system,' she said. In addition, Azalina also received a courtesy visit from the Head of Division and Senior Counsellor, Directorate of Public Governance, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Dr Tatyana Teplova. She said the meeting marked the beginning of strategic cooperation between Malaysia and the OECD, particularly in the aspects of strengthening the justice system, upholding the rule of law and improving the country's digital governance. 'I also expressed my desire for Malaysia to obtain the support of OECD expertise in implementing legal harmonisation with international standards, without disregarding local realities and the government's aspirations for sustainable institutional reform,' she said.
News.com.au
2 days ago
- Health
- News.com.au
Nigerian sextortion ring allegedly linked to NSW teen's death smashed by AFP, 22 arrested
A Nigerian sextortion ring – which is linked to the death of an Aussie teenager – has been smashed by Australian Federal Police (AFP) and international police. The joint operation was led by the FBI, AFP, Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, who were tasked with 'dismantling' an alleged organised crime network responsible for a wave of online sextortion crimes targeting teenagers all over the world. It is alleged the network coerced victims into sending sexually explicit images before threatening to share them unless payment was made. 22 men were arrested as part of the joint police operation, titled Operation Artemis. Two of the 22 were Nigerian-based offenders who are alleged to be linked to the death of a 16-year-old boy in NSW, who took his own life in 2023 after they allegedly threatened to share intimate images with his family and friends if he did not pay them money. In the US, more than 20 teenage suicides were linked to the sextortion network since 2021. Two AFP investigators were sent to Nigeria to trace online activity, link digital evidence to suspects and assist in the identification of the perpetrators and the victims. Data seized by foreign law enforcement was also analysed by investigators from the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE), as well as supporting the process to avoid overlap with investigations. There has been a growing sophistication and volume of online abuse attempts targeting Australian children. Between the 2023 and 2024 financial year, the ACCCE received 58,503 reports of online child exploitation locally, including 1554 sextortion-related reports. AFP Acting Commander and leader of the ACCCE Ben Moses said the outcome was a result of international co-operation. 'This global operation sends a clear message to those who exploit children online. Law enforcement is united and determined to find you — no matter where you hide,' he said. 'These crimes are calculated and devastating, often pushing vulnerable young people into extreme distress. 'Thanks to the co-ordinated action of our partners, we achieved meaningful results including an immediate and significant reduction in sextortion reports across Australia.'
Associated Press
3 days ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
Lance McCullers gets 24-hour security after online death threats, some aimed at 5-year-old daughter
HOUSTON (AP) — Soon after Lance McCullers Jr.'s family received online death threats following a tough start by the Houston Astros' pitcher, his 5-year-old daughter, Ava, overheard wife Kara talking on the phone about it. What followed was a painful conversation between McCullers and his little girl. 'She asked me when I came home: 'Daddy like what is threats? Who wants to hurt us? Who wants to hurt me?'' McCullers told The Associated Press on Wednesday. 'So, those conversations are tough to deal with.' McCullers is one of two MLB pitchers whose families have received online death threats this month as internet abuse of players and their families is on the rise. Boston reliever Liam Hendriks took to social media soon after the incident with McCullers to call out people who were threatening his wife's life and directing 'vile' comments at him . Boston Red Sox pitcher Liam Hendriks celebrates after the final out of a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins at Fenway Park, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) AP AUDIO: Lance McCullers gets 24-hour security after online death threats, some aimed at 5-year-old daughter AP correspondent Mike Hempen reports two major league pitchers dealing with online abuse are taking action. The Astros contacted MLB security and the Houston Police Department following the threats to McCullers. An police spokesperson said Thursday that it remains an ongoing investigation. McCullers, who has two young daughters, took immediate action after the threats and reached out to the team to inquire about what could be done to protect his family. Astros owner Jim Crane stepped in and hired 24-hour security for them. It was a move McCullers felt was necessary after what happened. 'You have to at that point,' he said. Houston Astros starting pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. reacts after Athletics' Jacob Wilson's home run during the fifth inning of a baseball game, Wednesday, May 28, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren) Abuse increasing with rise in sports gambling Players from around the league agree that online abuse has gotten progressively worse in recent years. Milwaukee's Christian Yelich, a 13-year MLB veteran and the 2018 NL MVP, said receiving online abuse is 'a nightly thing' for most players. 'I think over the last few years it's definitely increased,' he said. 'It's increased to the point that you're just: 'All right, here we go.' It doesn't even really register on your radar anymore. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. You're just so used to that on a day-to-day, night-to-night basis. It's not just me. It's everybody in here, based on performance.' Milwaukee Brewers' Christian Yelich gestures after hitting a walk off grand slam during the 10th inning of a baseball game against the Boston Red Sox, Tuesday, May 27, 2025, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Aaron Gash) And many players believe it's directly linked to the rise in legalized sports betting. 'You get a lot of DMs or stuff like that about you ruining someone's bet or something ridiculous like that,' veteran Red Sox reliever Justin Wilson said. 'I guess they should make better bets.' Hendriks has had enough Hendriks, a 36-year-old reliever who previously battled non-Hodgkin lymphoma, said on Instagram that he and his wife received death threats after a loss to the Mets. He added that people left comments saying that they wished he would have died from cancer among other abusive comments. He later discussed the issue and his decision to speak out about it. 'Enough is enough,' he said. 'Like at some point, everyone just like sucking up and dealing with it isn't accomplishing anything. And we pass along to security. We pass along to whoever we need to, but nothing ends up happening. And it happens again the next night. And so, at some point, someone has to make a stand. And it's one of those things where the more eyes we get on it, the more voices we get talking about it. Hopefully it can push it in the right direction.' What teams are doing Both the Astros and the Red Sox are working with MLB security to take action against social media users who direct threats toward players and their families. Red Sox spokesperson Abby Murphy added that they've taken steps in recent years to make sure player' families are safe during games. That includes security staff and Boston police stationed in the family section at home and dedicated security in the traveling party to monitor the family section on the road. Murphy said identifying those who make anonymous threats online is difficult, but: 'both the Red Sox and MLB have cyber programs and analysts dedicated to identifying and removing these accounts.' The Astros have uniformed police officers stationed in the family section, a practice that was implemented well before the threats to McCullers and his family. Abandoning social media For some players, online abuse has gotten so bad that they've abandoned social media. Detroit All-Star outfielder Riley Greene is one of them, saying he got off because he received so many messages from people blaming him for failed bets. 'I deleted it,' he said of Instagram. 'I'm off it. It sucks, but it's the world we live in, and we can't do anything about it. People would DM me and say nasty things, tell me how bad of a player I am, and say nasty stuff that we don't want to hear.' Criticism is part of the game, threats are not The 31-year-old McCullers, who returned this year after missing two full seasons with injuries, said dealing with this has been the worst thing that's happened in his career. He understands the passion of fans and knows that being criticized for a poor performance is part of the game. But he believes there's a 'moral line' that fans shouldn't cross. 'People should want us to succeed,' he said. 'We want to succeed, but it shouldn't come at a cost to our families, the kids in our life, having to feel like they're not safe where they live or where they sit at games.' Houston manager Joe Espada was livid when he learned about the threats to McCullers and his family and was visibly upset when he addressed what happened with reporters. Espada added that the team has mental health professionals available to the players to talk about the toll such abuse takes on them and any other issues they may be dealing with. 'We are aware that when we step on the field, fans expect and we expect the best out of ourselves,' Espada said this week. 'But when we are trying to do our best and things don't go our way while we're trying to give you everything we got and now you're threatening our families and kids — now I do have a big issue with that, right? I just did not like it.' Kansas City's Salvador Perez, a 14-year MLB veteran, hasn't experienced online abuse but was appalled by what happened to McCullers. If something like that happened to him he said it would change the way he interacts with fans. Kansas City Royals designated hitter Salvador Perez, right, celebrates his RBI single against the Minnesota Twins during the fifth inning of baseball game Saturday, May 24, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Matt Krohn) 'Now some fans, real fans, they're gonna pay for that, too,' he said. 'Because if I was him, I wouldn't take a picture or sign anything for noboby because of that one day.' McCullers wouldn't go that far but admitted it has changed his mindset. 'It does make you kind of shell up a little bit,' he said. 'It does make you kind of not want to go places. I guess that's just probably the human reaction to it.' Finding a solution While most players have dealt with some level of online abuse in their careers, no one has a good idea of how to stop it. 'I'm thankful I'm not in a position where I have to find a solution to this,' Tigers' pitcher Tyler Holton said. 'But as a person who is involved in this, I wish this wasn't a topic of conversation.' White Sox outfielder Mike Tauchman is disheartened at how bad player abuse has gotten. While it's mostly online, he added that he's had teammates that have had racist and homophobic things yelled at them during games. 'Outside of just simply not having social media I really don't see that getting better before it just continues to get worse,' he said. 'I mean, I think it's kind of the way things are now. Like, people just feel like they have the right to say whatever they want to whoever they want and it's behind a keyboard and there's really no repercussions, right?' ___ AP Baseball Writer Mike Fitzpatrick and AP Sports Writers Jimmy Golen, Kyle Hightower, Larry Lage and Steve Megargee contributed to this report. ___ AP MLB:
CTV News
3 days ago
- Health
- CTV News
The face isn't real, but her story is: Why W5 used AI on an interview with a rape survivor
'Melanie,' a Canadian woman whose life was shattered by a Facebook message on the weekend of her bridal shower, speaks with W5. Warning: This story contains graphic details and allegations of sexual assault This series is part of an ongoing W5 investigation that has infiltrated a global online network of men who are secretly drugging, raping, filming and sharing the videos of their unsuspecting wives and intimate partners. Watch W5's full documentary, Sleeping with the Enemy, Saturday at 9 p.m. on CTV. In the opening minutes of our documentary, Sleeping With the Enemy, viewers meet 'Melanie,' a Canadian woman whose life was shattered by a Facebook message on the weekend of her bridal shower. Attached was a screengrab of her unconscious body being sexually assaulted. She would soon discover that an ex-boyfriend, someone she had dated as a teenager, had drugged, raped and recorded crimes against her for years, without her knowledge. Those videos, some showing sexual torture, are being traded like currency within an online network of men who secretly rape their wives and girlfriends and then share, trade and sell videos of their abuse with other men. Our investigation reveals this isn't an isolated case, but part of a sprawling, online community where rape and degradation is normalized, organized and commodified. The scale of the abuse is staggering. But how do you tell Melanie's story and those of other survivors we interviewed, when the people most harmed fear being seen? That question led us to the groundbreaking decision to use artificial intelligence to digitally reconstruct the faces of survivors. Not to distort the truth, but to deliver it. Beyond the blur Facial expression invokes empathy and yet survivors of sexual violence are usually shown in silhouette, with their faces blurred or pixilated. Viewers are asked to feel something for people they can't fully see. Our team didn't think that was good enough for Melanie or for the others we interviewed. Using AI, we were able to create new, fictional faces, mapped to their real expressions. Their actual face is never shown, but their digitally altered faces move with their words. Viewers can see emotion. Sadness. Anger. Fear. Defiance. It brings survivors out of the shadows. This technology, often maligned in the era of deepfakes, can be used for more than deception. It can be used for truth. We are transparent with our audience: what you're seeing isn't real. But what they are saying is. How safe is it? The AI-generated faces are built by blending the real face of the survivor with a computer-created synthetic face. The final image does not retain the original features in a way that could be reverse-engineered. You cannot use AI to 'unmask' the survivor, because the real face simply isn't there anymore. We have been completely transparent about our use of the technology, burning the words 'digitally altered face' onto the screen every time their faces appear. We also flagged, in voice-over, that their faces had been digitally altered. AI altered faces of W5 interviewees for 'Sleeping with the Enemy' Clockwise from top left: the AI-altered faces of people W5 spoke with for this investigation include 'Catherine' (stepsister of a convicted rapist from New Brunswick); 'Julie' (the ex-girlfriend of the convicted rapist from New Brunswick); 'Steve' (the husband of 'Melanie' and a medical doctor); and 'Rachel' (the ex-wife of Hamilton Ont. suspect Bryan Hayward) Groundbreaking decision The decision wasn't made lightly. We chose not to use the digitally altered faces in shorter news pieces that were broadcast on CTV National News over the last two weeks. But we believe it was the right technology outside of the news division. This has rarely, if ever, been done before in Canada. There are legitimate concerns in an age where trust in the media is waning. But in the end, the survivors gave us our answer. They feel seen, but not exposed. Their faces aren't real. But their stories are. The trauma is. The network is. And what was taken from these women — their control, their memory, their consent — is finally being reclaimed. More on this story:
CTV News
4 days ago
- Health
- CTV News
The face isn't real, but her story is: Why W5 used AI on an interview with a rape survivor
'Melanie,' a Canadian woman whose life was shattered by a Facebook message on the weekend of her bridal shower, speaks with W5. Warning: This story contains graphic details and allegations of sexual assault This series is part of an ongoing W5 investigation that has infiltrated a global online network of men who are secretly drugging, raping, filming and sharing the videos of their unsuspecting wives and intimate partners. Watch W5's full documentary, Sleeping with the Enemy, Saturday at 9 p.m. on CTV. In the opening minutes of our documentary, Sleeping With the Enemy, viewers meet 'Melanie,' a Canadian woman whose life was shattered by a Facebook message on the weekend of her bridal shower. Attached was a screengrab of her unconscious body being sexually assaulted. She would soon discover that an ex-boyfriend, someone she had dated as a teenager, had drugged, raped and recorded crimes against her for years, without her knowledge. Those videos, some showing sexual torture, are being traded like currency within an online network of men who secretly rape their wives and girlfriends and then share, trade and sell videos of their abuse with other men. Our investigation reveals this isn't an isolated case, but part of a sprawling, online community where rape and degradation is normalized, organized and commodified. The scale of the abuse is staggering. But how do you tell Melanie's story and those of other survivors we interviewed, when the people most harmed fear being seen? That question led us to the groundbreaking decision to use artificial intelligence to digitally reconstruct the faces of survivors. Not to distort the truth, but to deliver it. Beyond the blur Facial expression invokes empathy and yet survivors of sexual violence are usually shown in silhouette, with their faces blurred or pixilated. Viewers are asked to feel something for people they can't fully see. Our team didn't think that was good enough for Melanie or for the others we interviewed. Using AI, we were able to create new, fictional faces, mapped to their real expressions. Their actual face is never shown, but their digitally altered faces move with their words. Viewers can see emotion. Sadness. Anger. Fear. Defiance. It brings survivors out of the shadows. This technology, often maligned in the era of deepfakes, can be used for more than deception. It can be used for truth. We are transparent with our audience: what you're seeing isn't real. But what they are saying is. How safe is it? The AI-generated faces are built by blending the real face of the survivor with a computer-created synthetic face. The final image does not retain the original features in a way that could be reverse-engineered. You cannot use AI to 'unmask' the survivor, because the real face simply isn't there anymore. We have been completely transparent about our use of the technology, burning the words 'digitally altered face' onto the screen every time their faces appear. We also flagged, in voice-over, that their faces had been digitally altered. AI altered faces of W5 interviewees for 'Sleeping with the Enemy' Clockwise from top left: the AI-altered faces of people W5 spoke with for this investigation include 'Catherine' (stepsister of a convicted rapist from New Brunswick); 'Julie' (the ex-girlfriend of the convicted rapist from New Brunswick); 'Steve' (the husband of 'Melanie' and a medical doctor); and 'Rachel' (the ex-wife of Hamilton Ont. suspect Bryan Hayward) Groundbreaking decision The decision wasn't made lightly. We chose not to use the digitally altered faces in shorter news pieces that were broadcast on CTV National News over the last two weeks. But we believe it was the right technology outside of the news division. This has rarely, if ever, been done before in Canada. There are legitimate concerns in an age where trust in the media is waning. But in the end, the survivors gave us our answer. They feel seen, but not exposed. Their faces aren't real. But their stories are. The trauma is. The network is. And what was taken from these women — their control, their memory, their consent — is finally being reclaimed. More on this story:
