Manipulation and FB slacktivism.
Change your profile picture if you want but be aware of the motives behind the meme.
The original motive started and ended with the cartoon profile pics and "invoking memories of childhood" Harmless enough and would have gotten a decent response just for nostalgia's sake.
Then some random user with the morality of a marketing executive tacked on that bit about "this is for violence against children." and since this has been the version that gets the most positive response then this is the message most people see.
Think about the 1st time you saw the message before people who really cared about the addendum portion started responding with "How does this help?"
There was no content in the post, no information about child abuse, no links to helpful sites or organizations, no definition of what abuse is, nothing, nada. No one has even stepped forward to claim ownership of the meme and then advocate for donations, action or volunteers.
The only thing that's being asked of the FaceBook user is to change their profile picture. They're given nothing else to work with or follow up on.
This is what should have raised a red flag for anyone who gave it more than a second thought.
It's an appeal to pity, emotion and exploiting people's parental instincts.
"What's the harm?" some people say. The harm is that people think this actually does anything to help the issue of child abuse. The harm is that people think they've done their bit for the cause already and don't give it another thought.
This is relatively harmless and may even benefit the appended cause in the end but that is merely a side effect and not the goal. The goal has already been achieved. We're all of us looking at pictures of Snoopy, Shaggy, He-Man, Rocko, Belle, Daria, et al.
Always know when you're being manipulated, managed or influenced.