7 ms·

This article unfortunately doesn't cover a much darker part of the TikTok children: exploitation of the children for the titillation of online creepers. The Som

This article unfortunately doesn't cover a much darker part of the TikTok children: exploitation of the children for the titillation of online creepers. The Some Place Under Neith podcast goes into this extensively [their "Parasocial Pits Of Hell" series]. It's completely legal to vlog your children in swimming outfits or a similar level of skin exposure, have the children sing or perform for their "fans", and encourage their children to form participate in parasocial relationships with the audience. It nets mad money. https://www.stitcher.com/show/some-place-under-neith https://www.stitcher.com/show/some-place-under-neith

NotACop182 4y ago
Same can be said about child beauty contest.
- bcrosby95 4y ago
  My wife and I watched a season of this stuff just to gawk at how terrible/creepy it was. Then we felt bad about contributing towards its popularity and stopped.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  Child pageants are creepy AF. They are perfect targets for creeps - former President Trump, for example, got alleged by five women to have walked in on girls as young as 15 while they were changing [1] -, but even without that level of creepiness, the sexualization of young girls has been closely linked to mental health issues down the road [2]. And this legalized pedophilia industry makes 5 billion dollars a year[3]. Unbelievable. [1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kendalltaggart/teen-beauty-queens-say-trump-walked-in-on-them-changing https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kendalltaggart/teen-bea... [2] https://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report https://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report [3] https://truthout.org/articles/child-beauty-pageants-a-scene-from-the-other-america/ https://truthout.org/articles/child-beauty-pageants-a-scene-...
- ouid 4y ago
  Yes it can...
- mc32 4y ago
  Wholly agree and people do recognize it as such. Also child actors (though they don't have all things in common, one thing they often have in common is exploitation by their parents/guardians as well as industry).
- stametseater 4y ago
  And the movie and music industries. Humorous video about this serious topic, which outlines the problem of parents selling their kids to these industries in a palatable manner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJh6jgnqn_s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJh6jgnqn_s There should be a general blanket ban on parents monetizing their kids. We don't need child actors in movies, most stories can be written to avoid their necessity. And maybe very soon, it should be feasible to replace child actors with CGI.
snapplebobapple 4y ago
While I find parents doing this extremely concerning I am personally really hesitant to change anything because I can't think of any way to change it that doesn't seriously hinder normal and not creepy parental uses of images/videos of their children. We are already running into overreach problems trying to curtail the stuff we clearly need to curtail (i.e. that guy having to deal with the police for sending his kid's pediatrician a picture of some problem) I can't imagine what that would end up like if it happened on a large portion of videos shared with your kids in it.
- zirgs 4y ago
  That guy had to deal with the cops, because Google spied on him and didn't even bother talking to him first to find out why he took those pictures, but immediately assumed the worst. Thankfully the cops investigated the case and concluded that it wasn't a crime.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  For starters, zero monetization of any social media content involving children. Second step, zero public posts involving children, maybe with some narrow carveouts.
  - _trampeltier 4y ago
    In theory is already illegal, because it is child work. So I guess it is illegal in most countrys anyway.
  - mablopoule 4y ago
    Yes, let's narrow even more the kind of content allowed in platforms with draconian laws. "I'm sorry mister, but we can see chidren playing in the park at 44:28 in the hour-long documentary you've produced, so we had to remove the video." /s
    - Ekaros 4y ago
      I think it is entirely reasonable to totally ban any media that has any person who haven't given explicit release on their likeness. It isn't too much to ask for valuing everyone's privacy.
davidguetta 4y ago
I have weirdly mixed feelings on your comment. - I agree that parents who publicize their children on social media are massive creep in my opinion, who do a massive invasion of the child privacy. That should almost be illegal in my opinion since the child can't consent. - At the same time saying that no skin should ever be shown ever because "it titills sexual creeps" is a dark road that points in a direction which in some places ends up at covering the faces of women for the exact same reason. Should we forbid children to go to the pool because sexual creeps might go there ? On the other hand in many places of Northern europe nudity is more common even in public. That works because they don't culturally associate as much nudity with sex as americans or other parts of the world do.. (You'd obviously get beaten up for masturbating in these places especially with children around.). And that doesn't seem like so bad a thing to me
- isitmadeofglass 4y ago
  [dead]
- valarauko 4y ago
  > That should almost be illegal in my opinion since the child can't consent. Genuine Q: at what point can the child consent? A lot of people here are talking about a media blackout of their children since the child can't consent, but when does that end? Can a 5-year-old consent to have their pictures posted online? 10? 15?
  - blooalien 4y ago
    I've known 5 year olds who understood the world well enough to make such decisions about their own lives (and surprisingly enough make wise decisions about such things, and able to explain why they feel their choice is valid) but in my experience, that's always been due to good parenting giving the child early access to important "brain functionality" (logic, reason, slowing down and taking time to think before taking action and not just "freaking out" and jumping into a situation wildly, etc.) and those simply aren't skills a lotta parents teach these days (for wildly varying reasons I'm sure). Children like that are a ridiculously rare breed anymore. It'd be nice if the decision about such things depended upon the child being capable of such decisions, but how would one even determine let alone verify that a child's decision making skills were appropriate for that type of choice? Only truly caring parents, other adults who spend a lot of time around the family, and the child themselves could be really truly "in the know" about it…
BurningFrog 4y ago
AFAIK, it's empirically established that access to pornography lowers rape rates. So maybe access to videos of lightly dressed children, icky as it may feel, lowers the rate of pedophile rape.
- pfannkuchen 4y ago
  I think this assumes that pedophiles are born with an attraction to children, as opposed to somehow having formed a mental association between children and sex through environmental factors. I wonder if there is evidence in either direction? From an evolutionary perspective the latter would be my default assumption, as the postulated evolutionary rationales for, say, homosexuality, at least, would not really apply to pedophilia.
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  The concern isn't that these children will be raped or that pedophiles will rape them. It's much more subtle: these are children who are taught from a young age to be exploited. They are taught not to have boundaries with strangers, to tie self-worth and sense of self to external validation, and to squash down their own feelings of discomfort or even danger in order to placate authority figures around them. These are all things that they will have to spend a lot of resources and time unlearning to grow into healthy adulthood, hampered by the fact that videos of their exploitation will be continually on the internet for everyone to see for the rest of their lives.
bongoman37 4y ago
[dead]

NotACop182 4y ago

Same can be said about child beauty contest.

bcrosby95 4y ago
My wife and I watched a season of this stuff just to gawk at how terrible/creepy it was. Then we felt bad about contributing towards its popularity and stopped.
mschuster91 4y ago
Child pageants are creepy AF. They are perfect targets for creeps - former President Trump, for example, got alleged by five women to have walked in on girls as young as 15 while they were changing [1] -, but even without that level of creepiness, the sexualization of young girls has been closely linked to mental health issues down the road [2]. And this legalized pedophilia industry makes 5 billion dollars a year[3]. Unbelievable. [1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kendalltaggart/teen-beauty-queens-say-trump-walked-in-on-them-changing https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kendalltaggart/teen-bea... [2] https://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report https://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report [3] https://truthout.org/articles/child-beauty-pageants-a-scene-from-the-other-america/ https://truthout.org/articles/child-beauty-pageants-a-scene-...
ouid 4y ago
Yes it can...
mc32 4y ago
Wholly agree and people do recognize it as such. Also child actors (though they don't have all things in common, one thing they often have in common is exploitation by their parents/guardians as well as industry).
stametseater 4y ago
And the movie and music industries. Humorous video about this serious topic, which outlines the problem of parents selling their kids to these industries in a palatable manner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJh6jgnqn_s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJh6jgnqn_s There should be a general blanket ban on parents monetizing their kids. We don't need child actors in movies, most stories can be written to avoid their necessity. And maybe very soon, it should be feasible to replace child actors with CGI.

snapplebobapple 4y ago

While I find parents doing this extremely concerning I am personally really hesitant to change anything because I can't think of any way to change it that doesn't seriously hinder normal and not creepy parental uses of images/videos of their children. We are already running into overreach problems trying to curtail the stuff we clearly need to curtail (i.e. that guy having to deal with the police for sending his kid's pediatrician a picture of some problem) I can't imagine what that would end up like if it happened on a large portion of videos shared with your kids in it.

zirgs 4y ago
That guy had to deal with the cops, because Google spied on him and didn't even bother talking to him first to find out why he took those pictures, but immediately assumed the worst. Thankfully the cops investigated the case and concluded that it wasn't a crime.
colechristensen 4y ago
For starters, zero monetization of any social media content involving children. Second step, zero public posts involving children, maybe with some narrow carveouts.
- _trampeltier 4y ago
  In theory is already illegal, because it is child work. So I guess it is illegal in most countrys anyway.
- mablopoule 4y ago
  Yes, let's narrow even more the kind of content allowed in platforms with draconian laws. "I'm sorry mister, but we can see chidren playing in the park at 44:28 in the hour-long documentary you've produced, so we had to remove the video." /s
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    I think it is entirely reasonable to totally ban any media that has any person who haven't given explicit release on their likeness. It isn't too much to ask for valuing everyone's privacy.

davidguetta 4y ago

I have weirdly mixed feelings on your comment. - I agree that parents who publicize their children on social media are massive creep in my opinion, who do a massive invasion of the child privacy. That should almost be illegal in my opinion since the child can't consent. - At the same time saying that no skin should ever be shown ever because "it titills sexual creeps" is a dark road that points in a direction which in some places ends up at covering the faces of women for the exact same reason. Should we forbid children to go to the pool because sexual creeps might go there ? On the other hand in many places of Northern europe nudity is more common even in public. That works because they don't culturally associate as much nudity with sex as americans or other parts of the world do.. (You'd obviously get beaten up for masturbating in these places especially with children around.). And that doesn't seem like so bad a thing to me

isitmadeofglass 4y ago
[dead]
valarauko 4y ago
> That should almost be illegal in my opinion since the child can't consent. Genuine Q: at what point can the child consent? A lot of people here are talking about a media blackout of their children since the child can't consent, but when does that end? Can a 5-year-old consent to have their pictures posted online? 10? 15?
- blooalien 4y ago
  I've known 5 year olds who understood the world well enough to make such decisions about their own lives (and surprisingly enough make wise decisions about such things, and able to explain why they feel their choice is valid) but in my experience, that's always been due to good parenting giving the child early access to important "brain functionality" (logic, reason, slowing down and taking time to think before taking action and not just "freaking out" and jumping into a situation wildly, etc.) and those simply aren't skills a lotta parents teach these days (for wildly varying reasons I'm sure). Children like that are a ridiculously rare breed anymore. It'd be nice if the decision about such things depended upon the child being capable of such decisions, but how would one even determine let alone verify that a child's decision making skills were appropriate for that type of choice? Only truly caring parents, other adults who spend a lot of time around the family, and the child themselves could be really truly "in the know" about it…

BurningFrog 4y ago

AFAIK, it's empirically established that access to pornography lowers rape rates. So maybe access to videos of lightly dressed children, icky as it may feel, lowers the rate of pedophile rape.

pfannkuchen 4y ago
I think this assumes that pedophiles are born with an attraction to children, as opposed to somehow having formed a mental association between children and sex through environmental factors. I wonder if there is evidence in either direction? From an evolutionary perspective the latter would be my default assumption, as the postulated evolutionary rationales for, say, homosexuality, at least, would not really apply to pedophilia.
PuppyTailWags 4y ago
The concern isn't that these children will be raped or that pedophiles will rape them. It's much more subtle: these are children who are taught from a young age to be exploited. They are taught not to have boundaries with strangers, to tie self-worth and sense of self to external validation, and to squash down their own feelings of discomfort or even danger in order to placate authority figures around them. These are all things that they will have to spend a lot of resources and time unlearning to grow into healthy adulthood, hampered by the fact that videos of their exploitation will be continually on the internet for everyone to see for the rest of their lives.

bongoman37 4y ago

[dead]