My cohost is here bringing in social media. When a child goes missing, its terrifying. Viewers are keying into the thousands of kids that go missing and are considered dangerous. Everyone seems to be aware of amber alerts. Back in the day it was photos on the back of milk cartons. Leah says zane, i hope you are watching. Charles on Facebook Says easier said than done. Signs reading, one more angel in heaven, a little girl abducted from her neighbourhood and killed. Hayley reminded her nation that a block from home a child is vulnerable. Hundreds of thousands are reported each year. Most do no meet the same grim deaths. Many argue that search methods are behind the times. Amber alerts lack urgency, and some go so far as to say the alert is for show and spreads unnecessary fear. In canada an organization may have tapped into a way to turn the fear into community organization, called milk carton 2. 0, using social media tools to make search parties go viral. The digital innovators are bringing kids home, and it is transforming how they search for missing kids. With advancements at our disposal, is it time to rethink how we search for missing children. Patty, from the missing and exploited children foundation. Her son jacob was kidnapped. The search to bring him home has never anded. And the director of the missing childrens society, her group launching mill carton 2. 0. And a profess sore who has down research on the amber system. Welcome to the stream. October 22nd, 1979, your son jacob is kidnapped at gun point. I am sure you and your family went into shock. Can you walk us through the moments. The minutes, hours, days, in terms of Law Enforcement response . Right. We had a babysitter at the house, who called her father, and he called 911. Within six Minutes Police arrived at a corn field in the middle of nowhere. The response was immediate. But it was 1989. It was not quite 25 years ago. They didnt have there was little or no training for missing and exploited children or the training partias just beginning. We had there was a man who did fundraising to make sure all the Police Agencies had fax machines, they didnt have that. We didnt have a cell phone at all. Didnt you set up a second phone line in the backyard. They had to drop literally a cord. Technology has changed drastically. Its phenomenal. Regardless, we called the tv stations and the radio stations and they they rallied because everybody wanted to help. They still want to help. Thats the beauty of the amber plan, its voluntary, was the best we didnt have an amber alert, but we had the collaboration of the local media, and thats what we had at the time. Its been building, changing and growing since. Everyone stands on the shoulder of who came before them. Skip, in the 25 years sips jacobs gone missing, you look at the criminal Justice System and Law Enforcement. What would you say has been transformative since 1969 in i weigh we search for kids. You look at the jacob winterly act and the am ber system. A lot of hello a lot of legislation has been driven by extraordinary awful event such as what happened to jacob. You would consider the amber alert transformative . Well it depends what you mean by transformative. Its effects on public perception, im not sure. Its effects on Law Enforcement im not sure. It constitutes a significant transformation. Going the way lea enforcement Law Enforcement operates is part of. You want them to have tools. And its been growing and growing. Thats what the goal is. The community tuned in about the topic. If its a known kidnapping or younger kids, it should be sent out in minutes. Missing we had good procedures, training, technology. We need to make more and better use of them. The sooner the better. Nothing says i hate the amber alerts on my phone. Its invase inva invasive. Amber aletters claimed to find nearly alerts claimed to find 675 kids. A lot of people say theres a lot of draw backs and criticisms to the current model. Would you agree . I would say that it is a tactical tool. One that shows Law Enforcement faces termination to use. So while i dont think its the only tool, and i think we are at a time and place where technology affords us the opportunity to bring more tombs, its one its a powerful fool for Law Enforcement. How quickly are traditional Law Enforcement resources used up when a child goes missing . Well, in canada Law Enforcement it is immense, the demand. The idea that they are able to access other tools beyond what is available to them immediately that benefits them, and can be instrumental in bringing Children Home and finding missing children. You have a considerable amount of research. Thats something americans are familiar with. What have you found . What i found is that in my view the system may be oversold in terms of what its achieving. A man is familiar with this. One of the things that motivates this desire to involve the community is the knowledge that children who suffer the worst fate after an abduction are dead in a few hours. Therefore the idea is to get the information out to the public so the Rapid Response can prevent the worse things happening in a short period of time. While the amber alert system is successful, and bringing Children Home is notuably happening within the narrow time frame considered crucial in the worst cases. Youre saying that the kids in the most danger, the most likely kids to be murdered by their abductor are the ones not affected by the amber alert and more for the kids. Taken by a noncustody yol parent or runaway child. This is my view. We have a lot of people that respect the amber alert. How can we be made better. If only the amber alerts were received for incidents near enough to warrant my vigilance. Id pay is lot more attention . This is the amber alert facebook page. They are on twitter. We are seeing apps here. I want to go back to you with this. Is amber alert using social media and technology in the best official way or is it lagging behind . I think the amber alert programs are working hard to keep up with technology, including media. I know that Law Enforcement across our country utilizes social media and has pages that are active and encouraging individuals to like the pages and to be inclusive of their network. I know they are working hard to use social media as a powerful tool. In minnesota, they adopted technologies to advance the amber alert. On their phone we had a case where a young teenager was sitting doing homework. Saw the car, and that taps into a new group of volunteers, 15yearolds were not always following the amber alert. Its a great tool. I want to correct the stat. Of the children murdered, they are murdered within the three hours. Theres a lot now, more and more the kids are out there. Its Law Enforcement doing the best they can to discern a rise to this level. They are not issuing it all the time. It saved 678 kids, 679 children. Its a great tool, not the only. They are using social media. Once again, you dont want it all over the planet. You want to start where the child recently was. Thats the beauty of the milk carton. Well get into that when we come back from the break. Many of us saw posts on missing kids. The question is should social media use be part of protocol. Law enforcement is playing catchup on technology, evolving so quickly. We are thinking of it six months to a year. What will catching up look like. Keep tweeting us. In 1979 ayton was the first child to be put on a milk carton. Missing kids on milk cartons are no more. Still 50,000 children are reported missing in canada. We created the new milk carton for the digital aim. Sh 3sh we are talking about how to take the search to the next level. I hear the word Ground Breaking. What are you doing that people think qualifies it as Ground Breaking . Well, it is what search parties, in our country, its revolutionary because it is allowing individuals to be immediately part of a Rapid Response network. We have Community Coming in through the break talking about kids that may be minority, not getting the mainstream attention and jess tweeted we can. Stacy we have here natalie wilson, the cofounder of the black and missing foundation who shared her throughouts about the benefits of using social media to help find missing minority children. Give it a listen. Minority families or children face a number of issues when they go missing. For instance, Law Enforcement treat many of these cases as run aways. If you are a run away you dont receive the amber alert. Thats where social media plays an important role, because we do not wait for the normal news cycle and social media is instantaneous, getting the information out so the public can be alert and aware. Is social media bypassing Mainstream Media gatekeepers and kenning find minority missing children . I dont think its bypassing. Its supporting, working together. Social media is the opportunity to allow us to be significantly connected with information. And what is there more powerful information to be connected to than playing a role in helping to save the life of a missing child . Skip, you know, whether its amber alert or milk carton 2. 0 how do you keep people from feeling inundated and how do you prevent the volume of this information from desensitising people and working against the objectives. Is it a concern of yours . It is a concern of mine. Its not being well studied. Theres a presumption that it could never hurt to issue an amber alert. I see evidence in these cases that Law Enforcement defaults to issuing just in case. Its not really a wellstudied issue. Its been dubbed alert fatigue, that if seeing a lot of these alerts might make people think they are not important. Are you worried about alert fatigue. No, im not. For us, having the ability to be geographically specific, that really helps to mitigate that. To be honest, we have not had feedback from on individual participating in our program, asking us not to send out as many alerts. You hit on an interesting point. Are people participating in your program. What you are asking people to do is volunteering. To receive the information. I think the power of that is people are there and waiting and ready to have that information. Be a part of their social media, allow their friends to be a part of the network. May i comment quickly, is that okay . Go ahead, tim. I like that idea. Actually. The notion that you would receipt people as part of i call this the electronic posy who are attentive to the issue. The question with alert fatigue doesnt come when you look at people volunteering, to geographically target. The concern is when everyone receives the alerts on their smartphones, highway signs, thats where it comes in. Its definitely different from what milk carton 2 is teaming. Can i comment . I have to take issue. Sorry if our missing children upsets some people. What we should be fatigued about is that it happens, people we should be mad are as taking our children and we should engage everyone in the milk cardon plan. Do not take children. You will get court, Law Enforcement will respond. And stand up as a nation for our children. How do you deal with the human response to when you see the amber alert sign, you are like, another one, minnesota does a good job of discerning what rise to the level. The disparities is something the National Senator has been striving to work with media, but theres way too many minority children that are not primetime tv stories. Its tragic. We should alert we should engage community and child protection. Our community mentioned social media has a lot of positive effects. Theres a lot of negative consequences. Tim was talking about the electronic pose. Theres lots of false reports by asking people to call. I would be worried about a mob mentality. And skip, i want to you respond to a negative consequence of false reporting when it comes to finding missing children . Certainly. Any time you have a false report, its a bad thing. This is part of the amber alert system i would like to see studied more extensively. There are potential consequences and the contributor hit on one. When you alert everyone through an amber alert, the information that you know about where the perpetrator and the child were last seen, you have potentially alerted the abductor. There are other issues such as can excessive information serve as a distraction. In the recent case in california, we had where the abductor took the victim to idaho, there were thousands of people calling in to Law Enforcement. Some were psychics. My question, and its a question, is can this become a distraction . Amanda, do you want to jump on that. My response to that would be that this is happening, right. An amber alert doesnt create the missing child, the missing or abducted child creates the am ber alert. Its a system to bring awareness. Its something we have seen in terms of social media. People resharing information that is not correct and people posting on cases that are hoaxes or old cases that have been resolved. Thats important we saw that happen on a regular basis and had feedback about that. Its important for people to get their information from the right source. Right. Thats why i encourage people to donate the networks and be part of milk carton 2. 0 and check out your local Law Enforcement, making sure you are connected into the right source of information. When people look to the right source of information and can be part of that First Responders group in terms of getting that information, well see a difference. Part of that is Law Enforcement using social media. It may not need to work harder, just smarter. Next, what it will take to roll out the tools. Is it time to challenge that dont talk to stranger. We weigh in on that. Twenty five years ago, pan am flight 103 exploded in the skys above lockerbie. Only one man was convicted of the attack the major difficulty for the prosecution, that there was no evidence. Now a three year al jazeera investigation, reveals a very different story about who was responsible they refuse to look into this. So many people at such a high level had a stake in al megrahis guilt. Lockerbie what really happened . On Al Jazeera AmericaAl Jazeera America. With. Way with the streams Second Screen app. Get exclusive app content, receive graphs quizzes and guest information. Interact with other app users in real time. You can be our third cohost. Vote tweet and record video comments and well feature them on air. Use the app and drive our communitys discussions on live tv. This literally puts you in the control room. Download at aljazeera. Com ajam app and use it every stream show. Bringing missing Children Home act, aimed at improving response procedures in cases of missing children. Patty is news legislation a part of this process . I think it is a parts, whatever builds what we have learned along the way. Now we learn about children who are still out there, there is a great amount of hope and we have got to be responsive to new tools and new information, i love social media and the connection it brings in but i also like working with Law Enforcement so they can sort out leads. They are better at that. Also working with parents. Peter mckenna, how about parents keeping a better eye on their kids and people responsible for parents keeping an eye on them as well. Stranger danger. Thats what weve all been told. What are proactive measures for parents in dealing in these situations . So i think the number 1 opportunity parents have is to have the conversation. This is a conversation thats hard for parents, some parents, and it can be challenging. But it is important to have those conversations, and empower our children with knowledge. I would one of the examples we give and its actually saved the life of a child and she prevented her own abduction here in our country was she had a passports. Her parents had had this conversation with her and she had a passport that they had said if someones telling that you they want to pick you up after school or were not coming, this is the word that they need to say to you. She asks that stranger immediately, what that was the first thing she asked, what was the password, that individual does not know, she immediately made sure that she was causing a lot of attention and ran away. That literally saved saved herself. So the number one thing i would encourage families and prairnts to do is start this conversation with your children. Good advice. Patty its been almost 25 years since jake ondisappeared. In fact we have an ageenhanced picture of him, he would be 35 years old. You havent lost hope. He would be 35. Your mission is not going to change, youre not going to leave the be missing and exploited children foundation. How are we raising our boys so they learn to respect other people . Girls as well. But its usually men who are victimizing, and we need to spend a lot of attention into the norms that are contributing to it, some of the video games can be very harmful and disrespectful and were teaching that. Brain development, these kids are not knowing how to sort through that. My hope is to build a world that values its children, thats is worthy oits children. Until next time waj and i will see you at aljazeera. Com ajamstream. Planes looking for a malaysian airliner find nothing, despite this clue from a chinese satellite. Hello, welcome to al jazeera live from doha. Also israel bombs 29 sites in gaza after being hit by dozens of rockets. The most pressing challenge that ukraine faces at the moment, however, is the threat to its territorial integrity and