Social media is the breeding ground for child exploitation and has been since its inception. From inappropriate photos being sent to unsuspecting minors to social media pages profiting off of videos of violence, children and teens have always been the target. It’s unrealistic to expect all teens to go offline, but students should be educating themselves and report signs of grooming, violence, and radicalization when they see them online.
Groomers
Predatory behavior on sites frequented by minors, such as Roblox, is a serious risk for teens and children. Adults who pose as peers on games and social media use chats to build trust with the minor before attempting to exploit them. What may seem like harmless fun can quickly become dangerous.
According to Our Rescue, a mission to end sex trafficking and child exploitation, one in seven minors gets asked for sexual images by strangers on a daily or weekly basis, and 46 percent have shared intimate content with people they have met online.
A chat can shift from casual messaging to adults trying to request personal information in ways chat filters or moderators don’t detect. They might try to isolate and threaten the minor, taking them away from a supportive community and creating an individual easier to manipulate.
Through a process referred to as grooming, these conversations quickly escalate into requesting personal information or contacting outside safe platforms. Predators rely on secrecy and manipulation to target vulnerable users. Ensuring that minors are aware of this manipulation and that harsher regulations are put on this platform can keep online spaces safe.
Violence
There are many other threats to teens’ well-being than predators on social media. On Sept. 10, Charlie Kirk was shot at Utah Valley University. As a major political figure, his death sent shock waves through online communities, but many were shocked to see his uncensored murder while scrolling through TikTok, Instagram Reels, and X.
Students saw it, some wanting to; some not. The event was livestreamed, but even after the fact, the video of the violence was spread all over social media, gaining millions of views. But this was not a one-off occurrence. Videos of the Evergreen High School shooting that same day were plastered all over online platforms. Furthermore, in 2014 ISIS shared a video of the beheading of a British aid worker and a live-streamed video of a mass shooting in 2019.
Even CBS has reported how accounts with names like @deadshootingcrew amass hundreds of thousands of followers per post. Being a participating member online, teens have always been under a constant threat of accidentally seeing violent videos and pictures.
Though Instagram Reels have made attempts at banning inappropriate content from infiltrating online spaces. Their restrictions are easily evaded and don’t even touch accounts that are posting violent content. According to CBS, violent content that is restricted is only banned advertisers like “gambling sites, crypto apps, porn agencies.” Minors and adults alike should be advocating for tighter restrictions and a larger separation of violent content from diverse social media sites.
Radicalization
Lone wolf terrorism, an ideology motivated act that is done by one individual alone, has become the most prominent form of terrorism in Western Countries, equally about 93 percent of total terrorism.
This is because adolescence is a critical phase of identity and community development. Teenagers have a greater sense of emotional reactivity due to brain development and hormonal fluctuations. Social media facilitates the radicalization and normalization of extremist ideology. In 2016 alone, social media factored into the radicalization and mobilization processes of 88.23% of the lone actors in the PIRUS data. It begins with innocuous memes perpetuating biases.
Rather than creating tense filtration, teens should be dusting off their media literacy tools and taking control of their online experiences. Taking control can be diversifying your news and reporting false or misleading posts. Misinformation will spread the longer it is online, so it’s important to quickly shut them down.
The Solution
Official classes that face inappropriate and violent content have been failing, so it’s time for teens to take a step individually to educate themselves. Teens who notice violence or inappropriate content on their page should notify trusted adults, teachers, and parents. To be educated further on media literacy and relationships with online space, Common Sense, a non-profit focused on educating a protect teens online, has a good high school digital literacy course, among others. Teens can fight online epidemics of online predators, violence, and manipulation if they attempt to educate themselves.
