The Truth Revealed: Part III
Part III: Why Kids and Teens Need An Alternative To Social Networking Sites Created By Adults For Adults
To Avoid the Promotion of Child Prostitution And Creation of Child Pornography.
As a reminder, it's not all doom and gloom. I recently shared that social media does have many positive benefits for our children when they participate in social media/social networking sites and it's an essential part of youth culture.
The problem is no one has set out to protect minors from what happens when children participate in online communities created by adults for adults. It's time to make change happen.
Take for example, "Brand A" and "Brand C*". Brand A says: More Friends Mean More Fun. Brand C, before their demise, had a tagline: America's High School online.
I joined both. To verify that "I was a high school student" at Brand C, I just need to know what time first period started.
Brand A and Brand C have created a social media culture that:
1. Promotes child prostitution (and easily allows an adult to search for a minor).
Monetizes itself by providing adults direct access through it's search feature to find minors to "meet".
Where when there isn't a computer involved is this "interaction" legal or acceptable?
2. Brand C encourages the creation of child pornography. Sad as this profile photo is. I shared with my team, that I could log in, and in less than 10 seconds could "search" and find this same type of profile image on multiple teen pages. Posting nude photos seems to be the norm; the acceptable behavior in the cultures of these sites to which members try to conform.
3. Exposes kids to a negative culture and content they'd likely never have seen prior, if at all.
4. Allows minors to be in danger of losing their true selves.
Everything about this is simpy wrong. We as parents have to help change things for our kids.
The statistics that come have come to life:
- The new "phenomenon" sexting. I've said before in this blog post on sexting, based on what I've seen over the last three years, this is what's been going on, online. Using the phone is just an extension of the behavior, and now because parents or other adults see the phone conent, kids are getting caught.
- 1 in 25 of our kids get "aggressive sexual solicitations that include attempts to meet offline**. (Do we wonder why?)
- 20% of teens have electronically sent or posted online, nude or semi-nude pictures of video of themselves***.
Why is this happening?
- 44% of both girl and boy teens have said they sent messages or images in response to such content they received.**
- Almost half of all teens have received sexually suggestive messages.**
Brands profit:
- AT&T and Blizzard care about their brand image. Seems like just as parents have no idea what's going with kids in social media sites, neither does AT&T or Blizzard. Clearly the CEO of both companies really wouldn't want to associate with the promotion of child prostitution and the sexual solicitation of minors.
Without a computer involved, this activity would be illegal: creation of child pornography. It degrades and devalues.
Please don't run and unplug your computer or eliminate internet access. Instead use your knowledge to spread the word and create positive change for our kids. We have to do this together.
If you missed Part I and Part II please check them out. Look for Part IV that shares how "Brand D", thought of as "safe" by millions of parents, participates in this culture.
I hope the facts that I reveal in this series help you understand why I've committed myself, (including the entire Yoursphere.com team) to changing the environment our kids socially network in.
Mary Kay Hoal
*Brand C thankfully closed its doors. I hope it was because advertisers were concerned with the user generated content.
**Crimes Against Children Research, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 2005
**The National Campaign.org/Sex and Tech CosmoGirl, 2009
Oct
17
