First, she was asked to share photographs. Then she was coerced into torturing and killing her cat. Finally, the directives turned on her. She was ordered to inflict physical harm on herself.

The 13-year-old girl complied with every demand.

Had the US Federal Bureau of Investigation not flagged the activity and alerted Pakistan’s National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA), this story would almost certainly have ended in tragedy. Her family remained entirely unaware of the nightmare unfolding in their Karachi home until law enforcement officers, tracing an Internet protocol address, arrived at their front door.

It is a chilling account of digital exploitation, and one that has stayed with me not only as a journalist reporting on crime, technology and security, but as a father.

According to Tariq Nawaz, additional director and head of the NCCIA’s Sindh region, the girl had first opened an account on Instagram. Over time, her online interactions migrated to Discord, a platform popular among gamers. These platforms became the gateway through which she was drawn into and trapped by an online violent extremist network known as 764. The group specializes in sextortion, cyberbullying and manipulating vulnerable minors into committing acts of self-harm, animal cruelty and violence on camera.

As Nawaz recounted the details of the case to me late that night, my own 11-year-old daughter was sitting just a few feet away, quietly painting a landscape. The proximity of the threat felt suffocating. I knew then what many parents realize far too late: we are fighting an asymmetrical war against algorithms and digital networks designed to bypass parental authority entirely.

The Karachi case is not an isolated incident. In March 2025, the FBI warned of escalating activity by 764 and similar violent online networks operating globally, targeting victims between 10 and 17 years old. The following month, the US Justice Department charged two alleged leaders of an international child exploitation enterprise tied to the group. Perpetrators operate across borders with impunity: a suspect in one country, a victim in another, on a platform headquartered thousands of miles away.

This tragedy also exposes a persistent myth: that parental supervision alone is a sufficient shield. Even well-educated, engaged parents may not recognize the predatory tactics unfolding behind encrypted private messages. Fear, shame and the dread of punishment keep children silent, which is precisely what exploiters rely on.

Pakistan must now confront an urgent question. Should children under 16 be barred from social media, or should the government continue to rely on piecemeal age restrictions and self-regulation?

In October, Pakistan’s National Commission on the Rights of the Child, in a written report submitted to the Islamabad High Court, called for stronger legal frameworks, better investigative capacity and accountability for tech companies. However, the commission stopped short of supporting a blanket under-16 ban, arguing that restrictions should be calibrated to age and specific risks. Meanwhile, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) told the court it lacks the legal mandate to enforce such a ban under current laws.

We are fighting an asymmetrical war against algorithms and digital networks designed to bypass parental authority entirely.

Naimat Khan

A regulatory gap is a reason for lawmakers to act, not an excuse for inaction. If the PTA lacks enforcement powers, Parliament must grant them. If it lacks the technical capacity, it must be equipped.

Critics of strict age bans often argue that restricting social media denies young people access to vital information and digital connectivity. But this argument conflates two fundamentally different spaces: the Internet and social media.

Children benefit immensely from online research tools, educational platforms and digital classrooms. They do not need targeted algorithms, encrypted direct messaging or public social networks to learn. Protecting children does not mean severing their link to the digital world. It means distinguishing access to knowledge from access to platforms built around hyper-engagement and unvetted contact with strangers.

Pakistan should establish a clear statutory prohibition on social media access for children under 16, while explicitly safeguarding their access to essential educational services.

Pakistan would not be the first to try. Australia’s ban, the world’s first, took effect in December 2025, and its early results are instructive. Platforms removed about 4.7 million suspected underage accounts within weeks, yet the country’s online safety regulator found that the share of under-16s with a social media account fell only from about 52 percent to 42 percent in the first three months, as children bypassed age checks or moved to services outside the ban. Canberra’s response has been to tighten enforcement, not abandon the law, and countries from Malaysia to Britain are moving in a similar direction.

The lesson for Pakistan is that a ban must be built around how children actually use the Internet. The Karachi case began on Instagram but moved to Discord. Australia’s law excludes gaming platforms, yet that is increasingly where grooming happens. Any Pakistani law must cover the chat and community features of gaming services, or it will simply push predators and children there.

There is also a legitimate fear that new powers will be misused. From the months-long shutdown of X to sweeping content blocking under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, Pakistan’s record gives digital rights advocates reason to worry that child protection could become a cover for surveillance and censorship. That is an argument for a narrow, carefully designed law, not for doing nothing. The burden of compliance should fall on platforms rather than handing the state new powers to block content.

Enforcing such a policy requires rigorous, privacy-preserving age verification that does not collect or store children’s identity data, strict definitions of exempted platforms, independent oversight and real legal accountability for tech companies that fail to keep minors off their services. Companies must also face penalties if they fail to disable accounts used for grooming and extortion.

At home and in schools, we must also rethink digital safety. Children must be taught to recognize the warning signs of online manipulation and to understand that asking for help will be met with support, not punishment. Parents must build trust so that a child in distress does not stay silent out of fear of losing their device.

But parents cannot fight this battle alone. The state must step in. We cannot afford to wait for cybercrime officials to knock on another family’s door before we recognize the danger lurking inside our children’s pocket screens.

Naimat Khan is a member of staff. X: @NKMalazai