The New York Times Reveals the Predatory World of Child Influencers

[frejasface]

Seeking online stardom for their daughters, many mothers create Instagram profiles for them. The parent-run accounts can descend into a dark underworld dominated by men who admit on other platforms to being pedophiles, a New York Times investigation found. https://t.co/As0ZRNZRGt
- The New York Times (@nytimes) February 23, 2024
The New York Times

Comments

[goldenhera]

A couple years ago the NYT did an expose of pedophiles who were using comments and timestamps to circulate inappropriate images of children on Youtube. These "influencer" parents simply do not care about protecting their kids.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/world/americas/youtube-pedophiles.html

[la_petite_singe]

On the one hand I no longer trust the NYT to report honestly, esp on kids' issues, given their obsession with "are too many trans kids transitioning too fast?!?! There's no proof, but ARE THEY?????" pieces...but also the whole child influencer thing is so clearly a bad idea for many reasons and I have no doubt there are many provable horror stories. I hope someone screencaps so I don't have to give em a click.

[mayjailer]

there are literally screenshots in the tweet? i get being critical of the nyt, but this seems like an odd story to cast doubt on.

[la_petite_singe]

I'm not? As I said, this one's sadly very believable even if they write a lot of other trash these days. And I meant screencaps as in somewhere to read the whole piece without giving NYT a click.

[mayjailer]

my bad, then

[mayjailer]

that second bullet point made me want to jump into oncoming traffic

[goldenhera]

I cannot imagine how you rationalize turning your child's used clothing over to pedophiles. Just deranged and disgusting.

[artsyfartsy01]

i remember reading an article abt a year ago abt some mom selling pictures of her daughters (both under 10) in swimsuits and stuff and selling their old clothes and I just thought what the everloving fuck is wrong with this woman, but somehow I had not figured that more parents would be doing that. I just thought she was an extreme outlier. that'll teach me to have minimal faith in parents, I guess

[spellgabbana]

i wish i'd never learned to read because of that sentence.

[afeelingunacted]

influencer parents know about pedophiles following their children, but do not care because they are raking in six-plus figures.

God help us.

[varioussaints]

there's one woman whose entire tiktok account is about raising awareness of these issues (I'm so sorry but I cannot remember her username right now). it really hit me when she said that a lot of the preferred content is of children (especially young girls) eating things like ice cream, bananas, and popsicles. no one's image should be shared online until they're 18, imo. it's too much. we were not built for this.

[afeelingunacted]

I think I know who you're talking about and she does such a good job, and censors the faces of the kids.

[varioussaints]

yes she does! I did some googling and I believe her username is mom.uncharted. honestly, every time I see a filter/censor bubble applied over a child's face that didn't exist on the original I feel a bit sick. how can total strangers care more about a child's well being than the child's own family?

[varioussaints]

I was just watching this the other day. I cannot wait for parents to stop showing their children online. especially parents who are half-assing their "protectiveness" over their child's image. Julie and Camilla come to mind. a researcher found their son on the dark web and instead of thanking the researcher they blocked her.

[goodnightsong]

Omg I love her.

I don’t know if I am familiar with Julie and Camilla but uh, excuse me?!

ETA to look them up: oh wow, them, really?!

[varioussaints]

post with the comment from the researcher:
https://www.reddit.com/r/julieeandcamilla/comments/1acel0q/hey_julie_and_camilla/

post about someone sending Julie the UNICEF guidelines about children online:
https://www.reddit.com/r/julieeandcamilla/comments/1abfjx4/sent_julie_guidelines_by_the_norwegian_unicef/

post from Julie and Camilla responding:
https://www.reddit.com/r/julieeandcamilla/comments/1ad9d4e/statement_about_sunny_s_pics/