Online Safety: Avoiding Antisocial Media
Anyone who knows me properly knows I’ve spent at least 20 years campaigning for the rights and protections of young people around the world. I am fighting a constant battle to try and help keep young people safe online.
Like countless people around the world, I use a variety of social media platforms (Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook etc.). As of writing this, I have about 1000 followers on Instagram and over 600 followers on Twitter. I know how so many people place a lot of importance on getting a high number of followers. YouTube even award plaques for reaching milestone amounts of followers. But how many of your followers actually regularly like, comment or generally interact with you or what you post? I know I rarely get more than 20 people liking my photos on Instagram and even less people actually post comments. So, why does it matter how many followers we have? At the end of the day, it’s just a number.
I’m hoping that if you’re a kid or teen, you’ve got at least one family member who’s regularly checking what you post and who you interact with online. Yeah, I know, you’re probably laughing and wondering why you’d want your parents invading your privacy or ruining your fun.
The first reason is that there is a massive amount of people online who want to make contact with young people in order to cause them some sort of harm. They won’t necessarily say or even do anything to them physically, especially as they may not even be in the same country as them. But they will, at the very least, get a lot of sick enjoyment out of looking at pictures of young people they post online. So, it’s worth considering exactly what you’re posting online and who you’re allowing to see them. Most social media, especially Instagram, allow the option to set your account to “Private”. This means that none of your content is visible unless you approve access to it. So, this is a good opportunity to ask your designated family member to check if the person sending you a “Follow Request” is potentially a risk or trustworthy. You can check out their own account, what they post, what they say etc. If your family have a rule that you can’t allow anyone over a certain age (such as 18), then you’re obviously not going to allow someone who’s quite obviously 35.
Now, this isn’t a completely fool-proof way of doing things. What can appear to be an innocent-looking boy or girl around your own age, could in reality be a 42-year-old man. It’s hard to tell at first glance. What normally gives them away is how they interact with you. If they’re particularly keen on you posting pictures of yourself, especially in a situation where you may not be wearing much, like if you’re swimming, then that’s suspicious. One thing I’ve picked-up on a lot is they post either just emojis (usually hearts and kisses) or say things like “Oh gorgeous!”, “Beautiful!”, “Look at you! You’re so good-looking!”
They may also be interested in where you live, what school you go to (don’t EVER post pictures of you in school uniform!) or if you want to meet up sometime. They may spend time trying to get to know you better and build-up a connection with you, so that you consider them a friend. They may even try sending you gifts or money, under the false pretence that they care about you and want you to be happy. This is called “grooming” and is never about making YOU happy, it’s about making THEM happy. NEVER arrange to meet-up with anyone you just talk to online, even if they seem harmless and like they care more about you than anyone else you have in your life. Certainly, don’t arrange to meet someone at their house or yours. At the absolute very least, make sure it’s a very public place with lots of people and try to make sure you have an older, trusted friend or family member go with you. That way, if things do go badly, you’ve got plenty of protection and can call for help. With any luck, the other person will be watching and won’t want to go anywhere near you if they see you’re not alone.
Of course, the potential to harm/manipulate you may not even need to be in person, it can even happen through various live video-chat features. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve heard about kids and teens being coerced into stripping or performing sexual acts on camera through services like Omegle.
I’ve also come across numerous accounts which pretend to be “fan pages” for young actors, athletes, dancers etc. But they’re really just places where paedophiles can freely look at or share pics of kids. Every single photo may be revealing, or every single comment will be like how I described above.
What I normally do whenever someone requests to follow me, or if I consider following them, is I check all their Follower/Following lists. You’d be surprised at the number of times I’ve found loads of accounts without profile pics, shady-looking older men or accounts filled with indecent images. So, always check these!
Now, I know I keep placing blame on a lot of “older men”. Believe me, I’ve had plenty of people accuse ME of being a potential threat, simply because of how I look or how I follow and support a lot of young people. It’s why I’ve taken my age out of my bio, because people would judge me simply by that and my appearance, rather than who I actually am as a person. I’ll still tell people my age if they ask me, as I believe in complete honesty and transparency in order to build trust. I never pretend to be anyone I’m not. I’d rather people take the time to properly get to know me better, rather than making their own incorrect assumptions about me.
Thankfully, in a lot of cases, I’ve been able to get in touch with a lot of parents/guardians and even follow their own separate accounts too. So, they know they can always rely on me to report any concerns I may have, like if I find someone else sharing their kid’s photos on their own pages or if someone following them is a potential threat.
Believe me, I’ve been a target myself, especially as I’m always doing so much to try and take down paedophiles and other risks. I’ve had people create fake accounts of me and then get my own account taken, accusing ME of being the fake. Thankfully, I was able to create a backup account and get in touch with my most-trusted followers to warn them. Still, it took a LOT of hard work and persistence over two weeks before I was able to get my original account back up and running.
I’ve also had people follow me and befriend me over the course of several months before I’ve realised they’re fake and using other people’s photos to pretend to be them. In some cases, when I’ve confronted them or exposed their lies, they’ve either blocked me or got extremely hostile. I’ve even had people get all their followers to gang-up on me across multiple social media platforms. So, I’m very much aware of just how bad things can get.
Having said all this, social media can still be a really great thing to get into. I’ve made a lot of trustworthy, kind, caring friends who’ve shared a lot of interests with me. I’ve helped save a lot of teens I’ve been mentoring because they’ve been battling depression, self-harm or bullying and also considering suicide. Most recently, it’s helped me explore my passion for photography. So, it’s not all bad, as long as you stay completely aware of the dangers and always know what to look out for.
As I always say: “When in doubt, just block and/or report.”
