SAFE BY DESIGN · EPISODE 18

I Clicked It. What Now?

Every child clicks something they shouldn't, sooner or later. What decides how it ends is the next five minutes.

Riya was on the balcony on a client call, the one she couldn't move, notebook on her knee. Inside, Arjun was playing. A message in the game chat offered to show him who had been looking at his profile. He tapped it before he'd really decided to.

The page looked like the game. It asked for his username and password, so he typed them and pressed the button. The page went blank.

That was when the sinking feeling arrived. He knew, the way you know you've dropped something, that the page hadn't been the game at all. He sat very still for a minute. Then he walked to the balcony door and stood there until Riya looked up. She held up one finger. He shook his head.

“Mumma, it's important. I clicked something.”

Arjun, 9