off the park and into the chat room: how less child-friendly places contributes to grooming

HUGE content warning for grooming, sexual assault, kidnapping, & brief mention of eating disorders

kids & teens have no spaces anymore. in the 80s/90s, there were teen clubs, but those have grown more sparse in this modern day & age. it seems wherever I go, it's either 18+, or if it's outside "no loitering". personal story time, once me & my friends were hanging out by this massive pond. we were just sitting & eating snacks. we weren't damaging property, we weren't being loud. but this old lady called the cops on us because she thought we were suspicious. of course, nothing happened because we weren't doing anything. another, me & my friends went to a restaurant & they refused to serve us because we looked too young & they assumed we couldn't pay. there is also the mental contradictions people put on children. they say that kids have to have time to be kids, & then say that children are annoying because theyre being childish. unrealistic beauty standards are pushed on young girls, & then they are scolded when girls use makeup or wear clothing deemed inappropriate. don't get me wrong, I totally think that kids shouldn't be wearing sexual clothing, (even if there's no such thing as slutty clothing, only disgusting people,) but I do think that kids should be given the opportunity to experiment with makeup inside the home, no matter how little they are. the contradictions in peoples expectations of little kids can be extremely confusing to someone with an underdeveloped mind. especially the double-standards set for boys & girls. 

& people love to say they want teens & kids off social media but give them no place to go. & few places that are kid/teen friendly, have become infested with predators because they know that's where they can find young girls (parks, malls, ect). predators have even infested our streets. the national center for missing & exploited children states that 62% abductions happen when a child is walking to & from school, or when they are playing outside. so if the streets aren't safe, & establishments that welcome kids aren't safe, where is?

most children assume that the internet is safe. nobody can touch you, & nobody knows who you are. that's why social media platforms and websites have become flooded with children, due to the harassment & fear they face outside. 40% of kids ranging 8-12 have social media accounts. 95% of youth 13-19 say they are on social media constantly. the most common social media sites that these children are using are TikTok, Snapchat, and the devil itself, Discord. there is an average of 500,000 child predators online each day. according to the FBI, more than 50% of online grooming victims are between the ages of 12-15. 90% of grooming & grooming attempts happen in private messages & chat rooms. a quarter of these predators will ask for sexually explicit photos. 

another personal story time, when I was a naive young girl scrolling through pro-ana tumblr (i'm doing much better now don't worry,) I found myself an 'ana friend'. the term refers to someone who is supposed to go on diets with you and motivate you. we got to talking, and eventually they asked for body checks. I sent them, just photos of my thighs and stomach, and eventually they asked for an image without underwear. I refused, and they sent me a image of a nude young girl, claiming it was a picture of them. I blocked this person, and deleted my Tumblr account. but so many cases get so much worse than this, some ending in real-life meetups, kidnappings, and sexual assault.

2/10 children between the ages of 8-11 who are online are cautious, concerned, or even just aware of the dangers of pedophiles. 40% disable privacy settings made to protect children in order to gain a larger following. in 2023, there was a rise online grooming cases, going up to 82% more reports than there was in the past half-decade. on average, cases have an occurring rate of 10 per second.

earlier, I mentioned Discord being "the devil itself". since it's debut in 2015, 35 child abduction cases were linked to discord. that's already a very high number, but imagine how many secrets lay in private messages that nobody found. 165 prosecutions of child sexual abuse material or child pornography involved the platform. hundreds of active discord servers made to promote child exploitation were discovered by various news teams. images in discord are scanned and compared to their database of child sexual abuse material, but text moderation has to happen within the group itself. so as long as no sexually explicit images of kids are being sent, & no one inside the group is reporting these behaviors, it is not moderated, censored, nor reported.

no matter where children go, they will be ridiculed, mocked, sexualized, & abused. you don't want them outside, so they go inside. you don't want them on social media, so they find people who do. & once they've found a person who wants them to be there, they latch on like a leech. & who knows when/if they'll realize that they need to get out?