Guest interview with Christian Stanley
“If you give your kid access to the world, the world then has access to them…and the internet is gobbling up our teens.” — Christian Stanley
That sobering truth drives the life work of missionaries Christian and Rachel Stanley.
Unlike traditional missionaries, the Stanleys are on the front lines of anti-trafficking, working with NGO’s FREE International and The Shepherd’s Team at C2R Ministries to locate missing and runaway children and protect the vulnerable.
But their mission doesn’t stop with search and rescue.
The Stanleys are now on a second, urgent mission: training parents and communities to recognize the internet safety dangers of pornography, grooming, sextortion, and online predators.
Most importantly, the Stanleys give people who work with youth the tools to fight back with confidence instead of fear.
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Shocking Internet Safety Stats Every Parent Needs to Know
“So many teenagers in today’s world are being, for lack of better words, gobbled up by the internet”, Christian Stanley states, based on his mission and his personal story.
The Stanley’s nonprofit mission work helps law enforcement find missing and runaway kids – some who have become victims of sex trafficking.
Christian and Rachel go further by training communities to spot red flags and create safer online environments for their children.
Stanley doesn’t shy away from the brutal truth. Here are just a few alarming statistics he shared:
- 93% of teen boys and 62% of teen girls in the U.S. were exposed to pornography in 2023
Source: AddictionHelp.com - Introduction to pornography typically begins between ages 9 to 13. Often, it starts younger.
- One porn site alone racked up 4.6 billion hours of views in 2016. That’s equivalent to one person watching for 525,000 years without stopping, says Christian.
- There are an estimated 500,000 online predators active in the U.S. every day.
Source: FBI
“What I tell kids when I’m talking to kids about this — this is not their fault most of the time. 99.999% of the time, it is not their fault.
Somebody has led them into doing this, and if they’ve gotten addicted to it, they need help.”
Christian’s personal experience of childhood exposure to porn
“Personally, in my story I was introduced at seven years old, which is even before the average age. (see stat above)
Whether (a child) has been introduced involuntarily or whether it was voluntary and they looked it up, it doesn’t matter when you’re that young. Porn can begin to take over your life and it can take over your brain.
Like I said, I was introduced at seven, but I didn’t even know it was wrong until I was about 12 or 13.
So by the time that I got there, the issue was already at a point where I couldn’t say NO. My brain was already wired to look at these things.”
“If your kid has a fully open phone,
I’m not gonna try and beat around the bush.
Parental controls that come set directly on phones don’t work as well as you think.
Especially when it comes to certain phone products, every update that happens,
those parental controls get messed up.”
Take Action: Top 3 Internet Safety Tips for Parents
“Most parents…are a little more on the scared side of the internet… Our whole goal is to empower them to be confident and not scared anymore.”
1. Don’t Wait—Start Learning Today
You need to start conversations much earlier than you think.
Stanley urges parents to educate themselves before handing over devices or app access to their children.
“Instead of giving your child Instagram and not knowing how Instagram works… do your research.”
Even with a 9-month-old at home, he’s already preparing for the future.
2. Use Layered Monitoring Systems
Basic parental controls don’t cut it on modern technology. Stanley recommends both of the following steps:
- Monitoring apps on children’s devices
- Whole-home internet monitoring connected to your router
“If you don’t start today, you’ll be behind tomorrow,” Christian says.
These tools can catch what individual device apps miss—especially when a visiting friend’s device becomes the weak link.
“So a big problem that I see – and a big problem that happened in my story – is even though your kid has something that’s monitoring their device, if a friend comes over that you trust, you trust this friend.
So they come over and it’s late at night and they’re having fun and everything. That kid probably doesn’t have a monitoring thing on their phone.
If they go and they look up pornography… you will never know that ever happened.
But if you have a whole home monitoring system that monitors everybody who connects to your internet, you will catch that and you’ll be able to cut that off.”
3. Report Sextortion or Grooming Immediately
If your child is threatened, manipulated, or has shared sexual content, Stanley is clear: go to the police immediately. Waiting only gives predators more power.
“You have to get past [the embarrassment] and call the police immediately.”
Then Stanley’s team can help—but only after law enforcement is involved.
“We’re a nonprofit team that does these things. Once you start a police case on it, if you want to call somebody like me to help walk you through it and talk you through it, I am absolutely a resource. I talk to parents on a weekly basis.”
Apps to Watch: The Platforms Predators Commonly Use
Christian is constantly updating a list of risky apps based on his work in the field. The top offending apps commonly used for grooming and sextortion?
- Instagram
- Snapchat
- Discord
Secret internet danger zones parents shouldn’t ignore
Even seemingly harmless platforms can be misused. Here are a couple of recent unexpected places where predators and porn find teens, especially.
- Google Docs & Google Sheets (yes, really)
- AI chat tools like Character.ai
“I had a call where a 14-year-old girl was talking to a 40-year-old man through Google Docs.” says Christian, “I had to research that one myself.”
Building a Community Shield: Why Parents Can’t Do This Alone
“Small towns where particular things that I’ve mentioned have just been attacked seemingly.
We’ve had small towns in Tennessee that we’ve helped deal with (instances)…where multiple kids all at the same time were dealing with sextortion.
They had people threatening to kill their parents. Threatening to do these things if they didn’t send them money, or they’re gonna put their nude photographs out on the internet, too.”
Stanley emphasizes that one training isn’t enough—it takes a whole community to fight internet exploitation and trafficking.
“The community has to adopt the issue themselves… and say, we’re not gonna allow this in our town.”
The Stanley’s free internet safety trainings are open to churches, schools, and nonprofits nationwide.
- Training length: 1 to 1.5 hours
- Cost: Free (thanks to donor support)
- Request a training: thestanleys.co/training
Christian and Rachel Stanley are committed to helping families, because they see firsthand how challenging internet safety issues are for parents.
Christian wants you to know this in closing.
“It seems like a lot. It is a lot… but you don’t have to do this by yourself.”
Ever Accountable proudly supports and encourages affiliates like Christian Stanley who are actively working to fight pornography in different ways.
His story of finding porn shockingly young is far too common.
Prevention is hands-down the best internet safety tip of all.
If you found this article helpful, please consider sharing it far and wide with your community. The more parents and caring adults we help equip, the fewer children fall prey.
Watch Full Interview with Christian Stanley | Internet Safety Expert
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