Citing a crisis marked by a large increase in sextortion cases in recent months, Bucks County law enforcement, Republican state lawmakers, and local officials gathered Monday to address the growing online dangers facing children and explore legislative solutions.
The field hearing, titled “Protecting Bucks County Students Online: A Field Hearing on Solutions and Legislative Action,” was hosted by Bucks County Sheriff Fred Harran, a Republican, and held in Northampton Township. It brought together officials and expert witnesses to discuss the urgent need for protective measures against online exploitation.
“Our kids live online. They learn, they socialize and play in a digital space powered by smartphones in their pockets. But this constant connectivity comes with significant risk,” Harran said during the hearing.
Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn, a Republican, echoed Harran’s concerns.
“As district attorney and a prosecutor in this county for 25 years, I can honestly say it’s a crisis right now,” said Schorn. “The danger to our children, the sextortioners exploit our children.”
The hearing highlighted concerning statistics about children’s online habits.
According to Harran, studies show teenage girls spend over five hours daily on social media, while boys spend more than four hours. The average child creates their first social media account at age 13, with nearly one in five children between 8 and 12 already using social media daily.
Mary Worthington, the director of prevention for the Network of Victims Assistance (NOVA), outlined the stages of online predatory grooming, which progresses from friendship to exploitation. She noted that according to the Journal of Adolescent Health, 20 percent of teenage internet users report being the target of unwanted sexual solicitation.
Worthington clarified the distinction between sexting, the sharing of sexually explicit content, and sextortion, which involves using threats to expose such content to coerce victims for more.
“We have seen firsthand technology’s role facilitating sexual violence and its impact on victims and their families, from online grooming and sextortion to the alarming increase in AI-generated child sexual abuse images,” Worthington said. “The internet is an ever-changing landscape and presents significant risks. We must prioritize educating our youth about these risks and harms. We strongly advocate for legislation that requires continuing online safety education programs.”
Graeme Page, a board member of the Safe Surfing Foundation and founder of Skyll, an AI company focused on online safety education, shared that a personal tragedy that fueled his advocacy.
A number of years ago, Page’s 17-year-old girlfriend died by suicide after being a victim of sextortion.
“It opened my eyes to the fact that social media is not a safe place,” Page said, describing a “negative underbelly.”
Page stated that organized crime groups, primarily from Nigeria, use algorithms to target American children, posing as peers to encourage sharing nude photos and then blackmailing victims with threats of distribution.
“There have been articles in Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal going through some of these messages between the blackmailers and the children. And many times they will say things along the lines of, if you don’t pay me, you deserve to die. You should kill yourself,” Page said.
In response, Page developed a program called Deputy, an AI-based “internet 9-1-1” that allows children to describe their online crises and connect with resources to combat sextortion attempts.
West Virginia State Sen. Vince Deeds, a Republican, joined remotely to discuss his state’s Senate Bill 466.
The bill mandates social media safety education in public schools for grades three through 12.
“We wanted to legislate this statewide,” Deeds said. “It addresses an issue that ties into reaching out to our children who feel like they have no place to go.”
The bill requires the West Virginia Board of Education to develop programs addressing cyberbullying, sextortion and other online dangers.
Harran announced plans to launch a pilot program as soon as this fall in Bucks County in partnership with the district attorney’s office, state legislators, and an unnamed area school district.
“The first of its kind, a pilot here in Bucks County will explore and implement enhanced safety measures in digital education,” Harran said.
The hearing also acknowledged the 2016 case of Lindsey Piccone, a 21-year-old from Bensalem Township who died by suicide after being a sextortion victim. Her story contributed to the passage of Act 75 of 2022, a criminal enhancement sponsored by State Rep. K.C. Tomlinson, a Republican from Bensalem Township.
Northampton Township Police Chief Steve LeCompte noted his department sees increasing incidents of teens sharing nude photos, often without parents’ knowledge. “When we investigate, the parents are shocked that this is going on, but the kids in the middle schools and the high schools, they know what’s going on,” LeCompte said.
State representatives Joe Hogan and Kristin Marcell, both Republicans from Lower Bucks County who attended the hearing, expressed interest in developing Pennsylvania legislation modeled after West Virginia’s approach, while acknowledging the challenge of Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts compared to West Virginia’s 55.
“We are working on legislation, we’ve sent some drafts, we’re trying to find a model that works for Pennsylvania, given our differences with some other states,” Hogan said.
Officials stated that while legislation is key, education and prevention remain vital components in protecting children from online dangers.
During the hearing, a woman stood up and asked Harran if he planned to “round up immigrants,” citing Harran’s application to a program to allow deputies to have some immigration authority.
The woman called Harran a Nazi and warned him to “stay the hell out” of the community.
“I’m so sick of you Nazi pigs,” she shouted before being removed by police.
Schorn responded to the woman that the hearing was related to the safety of kids.
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