E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Police in a small Massachusetts town are asking the FBI for assistance after photos of at least 17 high school girls turned up on pornographic websites, Boston's 7 News reports.
For the most part, the girls are fully clothed in the photos which were reportedly taken from Facebook and other social networks.
However, the images, repurposed on pornographic sites, are augmented with sexually suggestive headlines and captions, and interspersed with photos of semi-clothed and nude women.
Parents and guardians of the students, who all attend Bay Path Regional Technical High School in Charlton, received letters from the Charlton police notifying them of the ongoing investigation, news of which seemed to spread among students before law enforcement was notified.
"My friend called me and told me that I was on the website, and I was in shock because I kept checking it every day to see if I wasn't," one 18-year-old student told 7 News. "Being on that website and being on a child porn website just makes me look bad as a person."
Exploiting innocent photos taken from Facebook and other Internet outlets occupies a legal gray area and an ongoing practice called "image jacking" or "photo jacking."
Popular social news site Reddit recently banned such content after years of allowing users to post photos of minors scrapped from social networks in forums with such titles as:
- /r/jailbait
- /r/preteen_girls
- /r/jailbaitarchive
- /r/ truejailbait
- /r/GirlsinSchoolUniforms
Photos of fully-clothed minors generally don't constitute child pornography, even if those photos are accompanied by sexually suggestive text. Further, the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (10,000 B.C. in Internet years) protects the Internet service providers — including websites and blogs, in this instance — that host the purloined images.
Victims who want their photos removed have the option of claiming copyright infringement. Even then, the burden of proof remains on the plaintiff, as the copyright is generally owned by the person who snapped the image. And if the photo isn't considered child pornography, and the site is hosted on a server outside the United States, the feds can't do much to help.
What can be done? Not a whole lot.
Parents should both understand technology and monitor the personal information, photos and other content their sons and daughters post online, Charlton Police Chief James Pervier told 7 News. He added that even while children may have the safest privacy settings on their social networks, their information can still be accessed through the social network profiles of their friends.
Yet even if teens lock down their social network profiles, privacy settings are no longer enough. "When these things happen, the natural response is use your privacy settings," said Michael Fertik, founder and CEO of Reputation.com, a data protection firm.
But in cases such as the one in Charlton, "when all the victims are clustered in a single high school, (the perpetrator) is probably someone they knew, someone in their friends network. And for that, privacy settings don't work."
That goes double for adults, as the practice of exploiting photos online is not limited to minors.
Take for example amateur pornography site isanyoneup.com, which encourages users to submit nude photos of ex-lovers and the like, and then links those photos to the Facebook profile or other social network accounts belonging to the person in the photo.
Not only does it provide a direct path for any stranger to use, it almost guarantees the photos will turn up if any Google searches are done for the victim whose photo/s were exploited.
More on the annoying way we live now:
Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about privacy and then asks you to join her on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+. Because that's how she rolls.
Leave a Comment:
What have we learned?
Don't post images as 'public' or give people access who you don't trust / know. Once it's out on the internet, it's pretty much impossible to take it back.
Ruken - I learned something different.
I learned that ultimately, we dont really care to stop exploitation...we dont care to stop child pornography.
If we did, we'd pass laws that make this kind of stuff illegal...and then we'd have people monitoring the internet for sites like this, and we'd shut them down and toss the pornographers in jail if they did not have consent from every single person's image they used.
We've got all the time, money and human resources to hunt down adults who choose to consume drugs.
I think we could set better priorities and hunt down people who exploit children through pornography...
if we really cared...and ultimately, I dont think we do.
Especially not when our advice is to tell kids to do a better job on their privacy settings, when in reality...there is no way to set your stuff to 100% private. If a friend can see it, often times friends of friends can see it...even if you didnt allow for that in your settings.
When you try to comment on an article using facebook, you sign away your rights to your privacy - apparently adding commentary gives USA Today, or MSNBC or whoever to ues your photo's anyway they see fit...
and to me, thats flat out criminal...as such, I dont ever comment on articles using facebook. it's pathetic that I have to give up my privacy in order to say "right on, great article!"...or something equally as unimportant.
Jessica... tell it to Mark Zuckerberg.
Jessica, There are entire task forces dedicated to stopping child exploitation. It's a parent's responsibility to monitor how their child uses the internet. My children are not allowed to have a Facebook page. When they are 18 they can do as they choose.
The problem with passing laws like this is that they only apply when the infraction occurs in the US. A lot of this is done outside the US so the laws do not apply and can not be enforced.
The business of parenting has changed. Parents must add some new responsibilities to their already long list of child rearing duties.
We must MONITOR our kids' internet activity. That is the parent's job whether it's dating, drugs, driving fast, picking friends or internet activity. We must check their privacy settings. We must make sure they aren't trash talking. We must make sure they aren't being bullied or doing the bullying.
Kids are kids and are learning to do these things for themselves, but we have to show them first.
Just stay the Hell off of Facebook period. "Public", "private", either way stuff seems to end up available to anyone.
Its a dual edged sword here. Stop our kids from using the Net and you just breed rebellion. Yes, we have to teach our children and instruct them, in the end it is their choice to listen or not to listen and to choose and learn on their own as young adults. Ive got no problem with Facebook and their privacy restrictions as this is a matter of personal conduct and responsibility.
My daughter didn't do social networking til she was 18. She is an adult now and can do as she wants. My son is almost 13 and wants to facebook. I told him when he is 18 he can feel free to.
End of discussion unless you want a beating.
Problem solved for mom and dad once again.
You loser parents out there deserve what you get. Sad for the kids though. They are young and vulnerable and don't know any better via lack of experience in life. It is the parents' responsibility to watch after their kids, even if it upsets the child, you should do it anyway and if they fk with you, then jack them the fk up and remind them you love them afterwards (Hint: leave no bruises and don't do anything to make them bleed.) You want to discipline them and give them a taste of pain not put them in the hospital.
Jessica there is no feasible way to do what you are suggesting. The sheer volume of people that look at porn is astounding. I mean how do you think these pictures were found? Some kid was looking at porn and told them. A good portion of the the servers that host these sites aren't even in U.S. borders so there is no jurisdiction to shut them down. There are only 2 ways to actually stop this. The first is to be smart and not post things on the internet that you aren't willing to let everyone see. The second is to shut down the internet entirely. What do you think is the smart choice here?
Technically this is perfectly legal, as Facebook is a public domain and all user-posted content may be used for commercial purposes regardless of potential defamation.
Love our legal system B-)
It appears as though Jessica does not understand the first 2 letters in internet addresses.. it stands for WORLD WIDE.. which means NO one controls it in every country. If you would have actually read the article it clearly states there is NOTHING we can do for sites hosted OUTSIDE OF THE US.
Jessica, child pornography IS illegal. Well, at least here in the USA.
DO NOT POST PHOTOS ON THE INTERNET! ANYWHERE! PUBLIC, PRIVATE, OR WHATEVER! There is no way to absolutely secure any webserver and have it be useful. Posting personal (or proprietary, for all you businesses) information on any website or in a public cloud (web storage, web-served applications, etc.) is as good as telling the thieves to go ahead and steal your information. Do not ever send information in an eMail that could be compromising in any way--it will find its way to the surface at the most inopportune time. Do not post anything on the internet that you would not want the world to know--they will find out. Google is not your friend. Facebook is not your friend. Tumblr is not your friend. They are all businesses looking to capitalize on you and your information. Oh, yeah, lest we forget--the FBI, DHS and other agencies are scraping the internet as well. Facebook and other social networking sites are their prime targets. DO NOT GIVE THEM THE INFORMATION THAT THEY CAN USE TO PROSECUTE YOU UNDER THE PATRIOT ACT!
This is the tip of the iceburg folks. I use to moderate a chat server and myself and the other moderators did everything we could to keep the chat the cleanest possible but it was an endless battle.I would go into the room as a 14 year old girl (43 year year old man here) and bust pedos. I lost count over a 3 month period how many pedos i had to ban. The "webcam" porn sites for more than a year now have been featuring recorded private cams of girls, most of whom are underaged. It is a rampant ring of child porn on the internet, and the young women have no clue they are being recorded. Eventhough i have reported every site that have carried these recordings, nothing has been done. with the millions of video chat sites available they are a criminal play ground for pedos without concern of legal action. I had to quit the chat moderation, i just couldn't handle the stress and having no ability of preventing these kids becoming victims to so many pervs.
What an unfortunate name in the context of a story about fighting child porn . . .
Since when did porn become defined by what person thinks or uses it for, regardless of its content? The article states that in most of the pics the girls were fully clothed. They cannot suddenly be pornography simply because someone put them on a pornographic site. What you're suggesting is completely irrational. It would be easier to simply ban photography altogether because heaven forbid someone have an indecent thought while looking at a picture that is not pornographic in any way, shape or form. Better yet, let's ban pornographic thoughts. That would take care of all those dirty women undressing men with their eyes.
When I read the comment of the girl I was shocked that she would even consider the words "make me look bad" by what they did they used her in the worst possible way. She actually sees it as something that she has to be ashamed of, while the truth is, she didnt do anything wrong, they were the ones who commited a crime against her for nothing wrong she did. And then the cop reminds parents to moniter closely their teens online interactions which when it comes to timing for that reminder doesn't help this girl's situation. I agree that parents should moniter their teens for their safety, but this is an 18 year old girl who didn't do anything that could put her in that situation so that reminder would have worked better at a better time, don't you think?
Parents or School or rules can't get kids to learn lesson. Sadly, they learn only when something like this happen to them.
Learn what? Porn sites have been taking pictures of totally clothed females off of facebook and myspace for years and using them to entice guys to click on links to other porn sites. There's no lesson here. They're just regular pictures folks...regular pictures.
Z, who would click on a 'totally clothed female' picture on a porn site? Get real.
Don't waste your time trying to teach today's parents a thing. This generation of kids is lost just write them off, their parents spent more time trying to be their friend rather than being a parent.
RULE OF THUMB FOR THE INTERNET: Whatever you post be it a picture or a tweet.....would you want to see it on a roadside billboard? Then you probably shouldn't post it!!!!!!!!!!
Boy all this new technology is so great, isn't it ??? Or are we just constantly being told how great it is by the folks who create it.
Just look at all the wonderfl things...internet bank fraud, child predators, identity theft, costly electronic viruses, lazy & obese children, musical "stars" who we learn cannot 'sing' unelectronically, adults addicted to chat rooms, lawsuits against libraries who switch off computer porn, and the list goes on and on.
Is it just coincidence that the nation's downward path began just about the same time all this electronic wizardry began it's upward path ???
Has all this electronic garbage improved anything in this country ???
You are forgetting about the 60's. That is when things started going to sht.
Thanks for that by the way hippies! The whole equality thing didn't work out the way you thought.
Instead of bringing the minorities up to the level of anglos you just brought the anglos down to the level of minorities. FKtard hippie boomers.
There are problems with technology, but seeing all of you posting on the "Internet" from your home "computer" complaining about technology is laughable. If you really had a problem with all this technology you should go analog and turn your backs on the "evil" technology. Education is the key. Fear is ignorance.
mike...
If "education is the key"...has the computer made our children more educated or simply more techno-savvy. Educational testing says "no" to the first part of the question.
Kill your television, Kill your internet connection, get rid of your credit cards, use cash, only deal with local people, people you know personally. The only way to have real privacy anymore is to leave the electronic circus/freakshow.
This $hit can not be controlled by you or anybody else. The only solution is to not participate at all.
I love you Steve! Unfortunately all it takes is a generations fixation on it.
Just curious, have you killed your TV? You are currently using the internet. This is one of those "do as I say not as I do" things right?
:)
He answered here. Which means he has a computer to connect to the internet to connect to this site to post here.
So he is one of the "Do as I say not do what I do" kind of person.
He must be a politicitian.
Ok, folks...the irony of my post did not escape me, even as I was posting it...It is, however, a conclusion that I have very recently come to (and this is due to events in my own life that involved very negative and hurtful events at my daughter's school).
I am working to bring MY life into conformance with what I have posted. Unfortunately, like many people, I jumped onto the whole "information super highway" concept many years ago. It has only been recently, that I have begun to question the utility of it all, have begun to see the very negative aspects of it and even today have been involved in parent discussions concerning what all this is doing to our lives, especially our children's.
On balance, I think I can do without it.
@ lisa-3322183 - Yes I DID kill my TV...about a year ago.... :-)
Have kids not seen the PSA where the girl posts a picture in the school hall way and everytime its removed another pops up? A good 1.5 million was spent on that ad.
Yeah. The kids downloaded that PSA, edited it with a bunch of stupid crap, and posted the results up on youtube.
This has been going on for a long time, there's nothing new here. The title is extremely misleading.
Articles like this make me wonder if people sit at their computers, jump on the internet and suddenly FORGET that the internet is the most disgusting DIRTY SMELLY bathroom on the planet! Would you walk up to a stranger and hand them a photograph of yourself? If you did, would you honestly care what the stranger does to your photo? EVERY single item -especially photographs- that you place on the net can be STOLEN and reused. NOTHING is private and if you honestly THINK there is true privacy on the net, write Santa for help, because you need it.
In general, people who use Facebook are narcissistic morons who put EVERYTHING about themselves out, as if anyone really cares. Yes, I'm speaking to most of you...
Was it really necessary to post those forum titles in this article? Creeps know what to look for anyway, but making me read them served to add nothing to the story but caused me to feel dirtied.
I wish I were as tech savvy as these people.
I've tried to retrieve pictures of family and friends from facebook just for my own photo collection and I can't get them to copy. When I see a particularly nice photo I usually have to contact the person and ask them to email it directly to me.
I guess drag & drop is too much effort.
UDunnoBro,
I've tried that, I've tried copy, I've tried cut and paste. They haven't worked on my computer. But thanks for your sarcasm.
my father told me to never use a computer. I wanted to listen but I couldnt even beileve what she told me
Your father is a she???
....soooooo.....which one of you gals has the bigger penis?
Why I don't have a facebook page. I also don't tweet. Those who I want to know what I am doing, I pick up the phone and call them.
Here's what I don't understand about this whole story: Who viewed the website? I saw the story last night, and I asked myself (and my wife) a very important question: If viewing child pornography is against the law, who notified the school, the cops and the students? How did the students find out they were on this website?
From the 7 News story: "My friend called me and told me that I was on the website, and I was in shock because I kept checking it every day to see if I wasn't. Being on that website and being on a child porn website just makes me look bad as a person," said an 18-year-old woman who found her photo on the site.
WTF?
Simple... the poster bragged to a friend then he told someone who told someone else that the girls photos were on the site. From that point on every girl in the school checked to make sure they weren't on it.
They can find the guy or girl that initiated this. The 17 girls must all have a few friends in common. Find the creepy one out of it and s/he is probably your guy.
OR they had all their pics open to the world for viewing. Nah, couldn't be it.
Doesn't sound like any crime was committed.
Since they are all from the same highschool I suppose one of their common friends has downloaded the photos and has been unknowingly attacked by a virus that grabbed all of his personal photos. Or perhaps that "friend" uploaded the images him/her self to another forum and that's where they got distributed. The bottom line is to make sure that you know everyone who you become friends with on fb.
Sorry people this kind of thing has been going on before there was even any personal computers. Posting someone' half nude picture in the boys locker room etc. The easiest is not to post a picture of yourself until you are 18. When you are 18 nobody is going to care. The porno sites want 14 -16 year olds to get the perverts to go on their sites.
If you put it out there for the world to see, it's your own fault if it ends up somewhere else.
Stop snitching.
I don't know why parents allow their kids to be on Facebook. Shame on them! Like Betty White said, "It's a huge waste of time." Facebook should be for the entertainment of adults only. Get a clue parents. Better be safe than sorry.
It's not as easy as NOT having a Facebook, because what if someone else is taking your picture and adding it to his/her Facebook. It's not ALWAYS the kids whose pictures are being exploited at fault. We live in a society in which almost every person you see has a camera on their phone with an internet connection. I could refuse to use the internet at all, but that doesn't mean you'd never be able to Google me and get a picture. As long as someone knows your name (regardless of whether or not you'd call this person a "friend") they can take your picture without your consent or knowledge and upload them to the internet.
Unfortunately, not allowing your children to have a Facebook page won't keep their pictures or reputations (true or untrue) off the internet.
You are missing the point. If you have a Facebook page, it is much easier for a person to "steal" a picture of you, one of those provocative self-portraits people take in the bathroom. Teens are not very smart. They like the attention they get from posting something outrageous. And today's parents are dumb and neglectful. Outrageous teen + neglectful parent = happy pervert.
Vitus.
Even eliminating Facebook would have little or no impact.
Just go to Google and search on "Girl" or "Nude", then click on images. You will pages and pages of pictures from hundreds of sites including family websites and photo sharing sites.
The world wide web is just that everything is out there, stopping or limiting one site will simply push people somewhere else.
You do realize some schools also post pictures and photos of school students, with parents permission? Some schools send out waivers and permission slips to allow students to be photographed during events. So if you have a high school girl in a cutsey cheerleader outfit slathered all over some schools web page, they can access that just as easily.
I believe this is a good reason why we should outlaw the practice of taking pictures of minors. It should be illegal to take ANY photograph of a minor / someone under 18. Going to far? Of course not. Who is to say that someone isn't using high school yearbooks as "eye material"? We only know about THIS instance because it was found on web sites.
What about people who look at clothing ads? What about TV shows which show fully clothed minors? Who is to say someone, somewhere isn't getting their jollies imagining less-than-wholesome thoughts about those fully clothed minors?
And look at shows like Twilight! My GOD! Tell me I'm just imagining that the show portrays minors in a sexually suggestive way?
Islamic countries have the right idea: Covered, head-to-tow in a burka. But that only solves half the problem. Males should be forced to wear them as well.
Until they are 18.
Problem solved.
Now that I think about it...though I'm not a minor NOW, I was one in High School. Who is to say that somewhere, someone isn't looking at my picture and thinking unhealthy thoughts? I feel the need for therapy coming on.
CRACK DOWN ON PORNOGRAPHY! That it is for perverted people who prey on new and new flesh, leaving carnage of the hollowed out, soulless person discarded as the next crop comes in to feed the lavascious, disgusting appetite of inhumane, uncivilized, barbaric people who wallow in the filth of other people's body fluids and couplings of energetic, and physical - prostituted for the perverted...it doesn't get more maggoty that this folks...but innocents must have the RIGHT to demand that picture be pulled down and that site taken down for indecency!!!
Every day, there is something about Facebook, how they ruined a life,or what ever. Why do people want the whole world to know when they fart? Who in the worl really cares? People are so addicted to it. Sickness