Someone had posted the user name of a twitter user, and asked that people take part in reporting the user to the powers that be at twitter.
Now, the tweet did not give any information as to why this account needed to be reported, so I clicked on the user name to see what required my immediate attention and participation, not expecting it to be anything remotely important...
I will admit that I was shocked, when right on this users profile page, he/she/it had openly posted child pornography. Once the shock had worn off a bit, I also saw that this user had nearly 200 followers! Nearly 200 people were following an account that was set up for the sole purpose of exploiting children. That was all I needed to know, and backed out of that page just as soon as I finished copying the account URL so that I could report it to the authorities. Reporting things like this to twitter is great, but reporting it to a cyber crimes task force in addition to twitter is even better.
I am not naive, I know that the Internet has dark corners where things like this are stored and shared, but one assumes that the people responsible for distributing it prefer to hide in the shadows, away from prying eyes and the cyber arm of the law. But this account was not protected, not in any way kept a secret from the general population.
Thankfully, there are a few unwritten rules on the Internet and one of them is not harming or exploiting children. As a whole, that which "is" the Internet has no love or compassion for those that would harm a child, and the account was reported to twitter and the authorities in short order. Hopefully, those responsible for these accounts will be found and hauled off for some alone time in a dark, cold holding cell.
As a parent, it breaks your heart to see things like this, and if you ever run across this yourself, please report the site, account, person, or place to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, your local police force, the FBI, or your countries child exploitation task force.
I can't believe this happens, but then again I love my kids and would do anything to protect them.
ReplyDeleteI can't understand why people would create something like that and then have 200 followers? It's messed up.
You did the right thing and from one father to another, I thank you for reporting it!
Hey Keith, thanks for stopping by!
ReplyDeleteI followed up on the accounts via a child protection org in the UK. It looks like they found more twitter accounts that were posting pictures, and law enforcement in various countries had gotten involved in tracking down the account owners.
It's a sad day when predators become this bold.
Unfortunately it does happen. The boldness is new, but I believe a tool. I think the creeps are using it to maintain anonymity and deny-ability. If it is all open, free and easily accessed both upload and download then they may hope to deny ownership. I don't know. It is very sad and angering to see children harmed. Hopefully something can be done.
ReplyDeleteLike you said report it quickly and allow the law to hopefully catch them.
The saddest part of the whole post is the 200 followers. What does that say about people. There are a lot of sick &*^#'s out there.
I agree John, the number of followers was pretty astounding. And since the account was not protected, there was nothing stopping those followers from saving copies of the pictures and keeping the chain of distribution growing.
ReplyDelete