NYT article about Instagram accounts for minors

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a dance kid and this seems like the natural progression of dance moms. Little kids in scantily clothed wardrobes is nothing new and of course it would eventually go online. Let me ask the moms who are “paralyzed sick” over it: do you buy your underage daughter two-piece swimsuits? Let her wear crop tops and booty shorts? Do you let her shimmy during dance practice because “it’s just a normal dance move”? If you do please shut your mouth, you’re doing the same thing. The women in this article were just thinking ahead enough to monetize the pedophiles fawning over their daughters.

Not a dance mom, have no idea what "shimmy" is, but thinking ahead and monetizing pedophiles' interests is much worse than having your DD wear a two-piece swimsuit (what?). There is nothing natural or inevitable about making those additional steps; it's like saying pinching someone is the same as murdering him, just a few steps ahead.

I was a dance kid too and don’t mind two-piece swimsuits, but the PP is primarily right. It’s not “pinching someone vs. murdering him”, it’s “severely beating someone up vs. murdering him.” The outraged “cool moms” are just a step behind.

So wearing a two-piece to a pool is almost the same (severely beating vs. murdering) as photographing your child in suggestive poses to attract male attention, then send additional photos for money? I mean, are you insane?

What is the purpose of a 3 year old in a bra? So you believe a child wearing next to nothing in public is fine, as long as it’s not on social media?

Not in public - at the pool. You know, where it's appropriate.

And yes, that is very different from being photographed for social media, and different still from making suggestive poses there, and different still from offering subscriptions to additional photos of said child. One wonders why you feel the need to equate all these.

No, it’s not appropriate. Children have been increasingly sexualized for years, it wasn’t long ago that manufacturers didn’t even make two pieces in toddler sizes. Now the same people criticizing social media images are defending behavior that 10 years ago wasn’t defensible. *You’re* the problem feeding these monsters, it’s astonishing you don’t realize that.

I am 50 years old and wore two piece swimsuit as a child. I don’t have social media, much less post my kids pics on it. Please stop making ridiculous comparisons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a dance kid and this seems like the natural progression of dance moms. Little kids in scantily clothed wardrobes is nothing new and of course it would eventually go online. Let me ask the moms who are “paralyzed sick” over it: do you buy your underage daughter two-piece swimsuits? Let her wear crop tops and booty shorts? Do you let her shimmy during dance practice because “it’s just a normal dance move”? If you do please shut your mouth, you’re doing the same thing. The women in this article were just thinking ahead enough to monetize the pedophiles fawning over their daughters.

Not a dance mom, have no idea what "shimmy" is, but thinking ahead and monetizing pedophiles' interests is much worse than having your DD wear a two-piece swimsuit (what?). There is nothing natural or inevitable about making those additional steps; it's like saying pinching someone is the same as murdering him, just a few steps ahead.

I was a dance kid too and don’t mind two-piece swimsuits, but the PP is primarily right. It’s not “pinching someone vs. murdering him”, it’s “severely beating someone up vs. murdering him.” The outraged “cool moms” are just a step behind.

So wearing a two-piece to a pool is almost the same (severely beating vs. murdering) as photographing your child in suggestive poses to attract male attention, then send additional photos for money? I mean, are you insane?

What is the purpose of a 3 year old in a bra? So you believe a child wearing next to nothing in public is fine, as long as it’s not on social media?

Not in public - at the pool. You know, where it's appropriate.

And yes, that is very different from being photographed for social media, and different still from making suggestive poses there, and different still from offering subscriptions to additional photos of said child. One wonders why you feel the need to equate all these.

No, it’s not appropriate. Children have been increasingly sexualized for years, it wasn’t long ago that manufacturers didn’t even make two pieces in toddler sizes. Now the same people criticizing social media images are defending behavior that 10 years ago wasn’t defensible. *You’re* the problem feeding these monsters, it’s astonishing you don’t realize that.

What are you talking about? They always had 2 piece swimsuits for little girls. There’s pictures of me and my cousins in 2 piece swimsuits in the 80s.

The parents in this article were clearly mostly awful and doing it on purpose. but regular people should be able to make REGULAR posts of their girls at dance, swim, cheer, and certain sports without the pervert army descending just because they’re wearing tight clothing that’s typical for the activity at hand. Regular parents just want to brag a little bit about their kids activities, no matter if the kids are doing robotics club or dance team. And gross men need to keep it in their pants for once in their miserable little lives.

It sounds like not all the parents in this article even started out doing it on purpose. They started out just wanting to brag about Larla’s gymnastics show and maybe give her a chance at a modeling career and then slid into what they are doing. Which, yes, is terrible and they shouldn’t be doing and I really appreciate all the interviewees who said straight up that it was wrong and they regretted it — hopefully moms of younger kids wondering if having their kids be influencers would help pay for college will think again! But I doubt any of these moms sat down and said to themselves, “how can I use my 6yo to make money off perverts.”

Yeah, there was at least one mom in the article who’s daughter involved in dance was a small time influencer for, basically, a discount on costumes, which can be pretty $$$. So I get the appeal, financially, because kid activities do get really pricey, so any opportunity to offset the cost is something that people ultimately do look at. and then ultimately it becomes a question of “is it appropriate for a 10 year old or whatever to make money as a social media influencer, can they consent to this, etc.” And she even said in the article that she lost some IG privileges because she had blocked so many gross guys. I guess where I see it is, even if your daughter was making some money influencing for, I don’t know, chess apps or cooking classes or costume designing … there would STILL be gross guys. And there would still be the same women on here making excuses for them and “oh your pretty blonde 13 year old is on Insta with her cute desserts, of COURSE she’s going to get pervert comments, you should have expected this …” which I see as basically the same as “of COURSE you’re going to get cat call and sexually harassed in public, don’t go out in public if you don’t want to be harassed.”

Right, yes, thank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a dance kid and this seems like the natural progression of dance moms. Little kids in scantily clothed wardrobes is nothing new and of course it would eventually go online. Let me ask the moms who are “paralyzed sick” over it: do you buy your underage daughter two-piece swimsuits? Let her wear crop tops and booty shorts? Do you let her shimmy during dance practice because “it’s just a normal dance move”? If you do please shut your mouth, you’re doing the same thing. The women in this article were just thinking ahead enough to monetize the pedophiles fawning over their daughters.

Not a dance mom, have no idea what "shimmy" is, but thinking ahead and monetizing pedophiles' interests is much worse than having your DD wear a two-piece swimsuit (what?). There is nothing natural or inevitable about making those additional steps; it's like saying pinching someone is the same as murdering him, just a few steps ahead.

I was a dance kid too and don’t mind two-piece swimsuits, but the PP is primarily right. It’s not “pinching someone vs. murdering him”, it’s “severely beating someone up vs. murdering him.” The outraged “cool moms” are just a step behind.

So wearing a two-piece to a pool is almost the same (severely beating vs. murdering) as photographing your child in suggestive poses to attract male attention, then send additional photos for money? I mean, are you insane?

What is the purpose of a 3 year old in a bra? So you believe a child wearing next to nothing in public is fine, as long as it’s not on social media?

Not in public - at the pool. You know, where it's appropriate.

And yes, that is very different from being photographed for social media, and different still from making suggestive poses there, and different still from offering subscriptions to additional photos of said child. One wonders why you feel the need to equate all these.

No, it’s not appropriate. Children have been increasingly sexualized for years, it wasn’t long ago that manufacturers didn’t even make two pieces in toddler sizes. Now the same people criticizing social media images are defending behavior that 10 years ago wasn’t defensible. *You’re* the problem feeding these monsters, it’s astonishing you don’t realize that.

What are you talking about? They always had 2 piece swimsuits for little girls. There’s pictures of me and my cousins in 2 piece swimsuits in the 80s.

The parents in this article were clearly mostly awful and doing it on purpose. but regular people should be able to make REGULAR posts of their girls at dance, swim, cheer, and certain sports without the pervert army descending just because they’re wearing tight clothing that’s typical for the activity at hand. Regular parents just want to brag a little bit about their kids activities, no matter if the kids are doing robotics club or dance team. And gross men need to keep it in their pants for once in their miserable little lives.

It sounds like not all the parents in this article even started out doing it on purpose. They started out just wanting to brag about Larla’s gymnastics show and maybe give her a chance at a modeling career and then slid into what they are doing. Which, yes, is terrible and they shouldn’t be doing and I really appreciate all the interviewees who said straight up that it was wrong and they regretted it — hopefully moms of younger kids wondering if having their kids be influencers would help pay for college will think again! But I doubt any of these moms sat down and said to themselves, “how can I use my 6yo to make money off perverts.”

Yeah, there was at least one mom in the article who’s daughter involved in dance was a small time influencer for, basically, a discount on costumes, which can be pretty $$$. So I get the appeal, financially, because kid activities do get really pricey, so any opportunity to offset the cost is something that people ultimately do look at. and then ultimately it becomes a question of “is it appropriate for a 10 year old or whatever to make money as a social media influencer, can they consent to this, etc.” And she even said in the article that she lost some IG privileges because she had blocked so many gross guys. I guess where I see it is, even if your daughter was making some money influencing for, I don’t know, chess apps or cooking classes or costume designing … there would STILL be gross guys. And there would still be the same women on here making excuses for them and “oh your pretty blonde 13 year old is on Insta with her cute desserts, of COURSE she’s going to get pervert comments, you should have expected this …” which I see as basically the same as “of COURSE you’re going to get cat call and sexually harassed in public, don’t go out in public if you don’t want to be harassed.”

The number of perverts on a teenager's baking page is orders of magnitude smaller than on a page with a girl modeling swimwear in poses that, if done by an adult, would look sexual. How do you not understand that? There's a reason why Molly Yeh has fewer creeps on her page than Sumner Stroh.

Child predators want material that looks like adult sexual material but that involves children. There's a reason why the language they use mimics the language adults use to describe sex.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting how just about all the discourse on this article is about policing women and girls behavior and not the pedos.

Cut the crap.

It’s not policing women’s bodies. These are parents who put up their little daughters like meat platters, and they don’t care if men are jacking off to them because as long as they make a buck then they’re OK with prostituting their little girls. Yeah there are creeps out there. Yeah, there are parents who need to quit making a little girls look like sex bunnies.

And most rational people know there’s a difference between a bikini at the pool, and want to be baby playboy model.

Yeah but you're telling me to cut the crap and not the person saying letting your kid wear a bathing suit or dance in public is also pedo bait

[Anonymous]

Some people really don't deserve children. Maybe a lot more than some.

[Anonymous]

I think that social media amplifies pre-existing problems. Lots of parents have pimped out their daughters, but now there is a massive platform for doing so so we are getting more and more victims. I seriously, seriously hope we get legislation on this soon. I don't love the idea of breaking up families but for now these sicko parents have every incentive to keep doing what they are doing.

[Anonymous]

I made an instagram account several years ago because I wanted to follow some of my friends. I posted two (completely nonsexual) pictures of my 8 yo daughter with her pets. I did not realize that the default setting on instagram was public. Within an hour, I had multiple comments from strange men posting hearts and commenting that my daughter was "so beautiful" and "yummy." There are sickos lurking all over that website.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting how just about all the discourse on this article is about policing women and girls behavior and not the pedos.

Good point. It’s like we’ve come to expect a subset of men will behave like this. And it seems more prevalent than I had ever imagined. It sucks, but how do we lock them all away?

Also, I don’t understand the men who are so brazenly open about finding young girls sexy. Like to actually take the time to comment is just bleghhhh. But it also makes you wonder how many are “smart” enough to be covert about it and that these creeps commenting may be the tip of the iceberg. It’s terrifying that these men are just out there in our communities and we have no idea.

They ARE out there, and they don't look like you think they do.

I was just reading an article yesterday about Eliot Cutler, a lawyer from Maine who is now disbarred after conviction for possession of child pornography to the tune of 80,000 images of child sexual abuse downloaded on his devices. Here is his Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Cutler

So far his wife has remained married to him despite the overwhelming evidence of his guilt and the reality that he is now a disgraced, disbarred lifetime sex offender registrant.

One of my very best friends growing up confided in me years ago that her husband had a thing for child pornography. She was considering leaving him and I urged her strenuously to do so, ASAP. She decided not to, and then our friendship was over - I guess she didn't want to live with knowing that I knew and that she'd chosen to remain in a marriage to a sick pervert (her own description of him) despite them having no kids. He made a much better salary than she did, so I guess it came down to her wanting the lifestyle that being with him could afford her.

During my time as a prosecutor I saw a range of unimaginable things done by men who you would never guess by looking at them were sick freaks. People tend to think of child sex criminals (and yes, viewing it makes you every bit the criminal as the one who made it) as nasty identifiable losers just like they tend to think of rapists as big scary (black?) men who grab a victim and drag her into a dark alley. The truth is that the majority of rapists and child molesters and pedophiles look just like the all-American husband next door, the colleague in the next office, etc.

I haven't read all of the article yet but what I read made me sick to my stomach. Some people shouldn't be allowed to breed, and I would include any parent who puts their child's body on display this way while knowing that thousands if not millions of sickos are wanking off to the image of their child online. Never mind that meta data could assist someone in finding and snatching one of these Insta kids and selling them into a short and miserable life being raped and brutalized for the pleasure of other sickos.

We can rail about the safeguards that Meta and other companies should put in place, but the primary safeguard is a responsible parent and these parents are disgusting - they not only aren't safeguarding their kids, they are intentionally expoiting and trafficking them.