This document discusses the issues of cybergrooming and internet drug trade on platforms used by youth. It provides details on cybergrooming such as the goal of establishing confidential relationships to later exploit victims, mostly children. Famous cases from the Czech Republic are described along with characteristics of both victims and perpetrators. The document also discusses how online games are used to anonymously sell illegal drugs or expose children to sexual predators, using Roblox as a specific example where moderation challenges still exist.
2. BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT
CYBERGROOMING
• Malicious behavior of users of Internet communication tools, thanks to which they can
establish a confidential relationship with people who later become victims of ulterior
motives
• The majority target group of cyber groomers, who in many cases show pedophile
tendencies, are children
• However, this is not always the case, cybergrooming can also be a form of cyberbullying
• After the groomer and the victim become close and friendly, the victim will often share
intimate information or secrets with the groomer, which will then serve as « leverage »
for the groomer.
• The perpetrators very often consume substances to cope with guilt or those that give
them courage, and disinhibit their behaviour
3. THE MOST FAMOUS CASES OF
CYBERGROOMING IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC
• One of the most famous cases of this phenomenon in the
Czech Republic is the case of Pavel Hovorka from 2009
• Pavel Hovorka abused 21 boys in this way with the help
of manipulation through social networks
• Czech law often does not recognize this term as such,
but it does recognize its subsequent criminal
manifestations, which can make sentencing a grommer
easier than in the case of an aggressor in long-term
cyberbullying. (e.g. a similar crime as in this case is
regulated in § 193b of the Criminal Code)
• However, these criminal manifestations tend to be more
far-reaching than in the case of cyberbullying.
4. CHARACTERISTICS OF VICTIMS
• The highest victimization rate is observed mainly in:
• Children aged 11 – 17 years
• Lonely and easily vulnerable people in difficult life situations
• People with a low level of critical thinking or overly trusting people
• Easily manipulated persons with little self-confidence
• People with various types of addictive behavior
• The victims often don’t stand a chance to defend themselves, the perpetrators apply
illegal substances to facilitate the rape
5. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
PERPETRATORS
• In the vast majority of cases, the perpetrators are men, especially single or divorced
men
• The perpetrators themselves often do not feel comfortable communicating and
establishing relationships with other adults, they communicate far more often with
children, so in some cases, ulterior motives may arise only later
• Most offenders were diagnosed with a pathological interest in children (but not always
only of a sexual nature) only 10% of perpetrators suffer from pedophile deviance
• However, the paradox and little-known information is that the vast majority of people
with pedophilic preferences do not harm children and this is non-criminal pedophilia, in
the case of perpetrators it is mainly a combination with socially pathological behavior
6. • In some cases, the perpetrator with psychopathic tendencies does not objectively
show purely pedophilic preferences, but nevertheless the victim becomes a child,
mainly due to the fact that these victims are more easily manipulated
• According to a study by Peter Weiss, children are paradoxically abused by non-
pedophilic perpetrators in up to 90% of cases
• Unfortunately, 22% of pedophile respondents in Karel Žák's study think that
voluntary and consensual sexual contact cannot harm a child
7. • According to the cybergrooming.cz
portal, the latency of this
phenomenon is so high that only 10%
of victims report this behavior
• The platforms on which
cybergrooming is recorded most often
are different from those that lead the
cyberbullying charts.
• This mainly includes Snapchat,
TikTok, Skype, Instagram, but also
Discord or even communities on
some computer games that are
popular especially among younger
children, for example Roblox
8. VIDEOGAME DRUG
TRADE
• Many different videogames often
become a very popular platform to
sell illegal substances in an «
anonymous way », this is the case of
MMORPGs with many players as
well as the cases of games for
children
• Games which contain virtual
currency that can be converted to
real money are most often associated
with these illegal activities, mostly
EVE Online, some MMORPGs and
Second Life
9. SPECIFIC CASE - ROBLOX
• In addition to popular computer games among young people,
such as Minecraft or Fortnite, we also find Roblox. However,
unlike these named games, it offers greater freedom of own
virtual creation, which unfortunately also increases the risk
• In some cases, young children were approached by predators
who invited them to sexually oriented rooms. Another time, a
predator raped the player avatar of an Australian girl.
• In the UK in 2020, a predator threatened an 11-year-old boy
to harm his family unless he sent him a sex video
• Moderators are trying to censor this content and prevent
these cases, but this is still a difficult challenge, with which
nowadays not only parental control settings help, but also
artificial intelligence, automatic recognition of avatars and
inappropriate text, etc.
10. • For example, during the years 2020-2021, the
previously mentioned consultation center of the
E-Safety project of the Palacký University in
Olomouc recorded a number of cases in which
parents caught suspicious communication of
their child with an unknown Roblox user
• Among the Czech Roblox player community, for
example, a certain user XY provided money to
children in the form of the in-game currency
«Robux» in exchange for nude photos and
videos.
• In the Czech environment, a case was also
reported when another person, pretending to be
a «policewoman», wrote to a boy that she
wanted to have sex with him and that if he did
not obey, she would cause trouble for him and
his family
