Girls pay price as Instagram ignores calls to ban "parent run" accounts
Eighteen year old Dutch woman “Jacky Dejo” is the subject of a new New York Times report highlighting the risks of exploitation and predation of girls on mainstream social media. The piece exposes the inherent dangers of “parent-run” Instagram accounts and the risks posed to girls who post “modelling” content including:
- the prevalence of predators – men with sexual interest in children - on the platform;
- the role of predatory photographers, brands (including porn and swimwear brands like Playboy and Chixit) and image-selling sites (like BrandArmy, Patreon and SelectSets) in child exploitation; (read about our own investigations here)
- risks of cross-platform exploitation, whereby content is stolen from Instagram and reshared by paedophile networks on other sites;
- sextortion and image based abuse;
- the seemingly natural progression for girls from mainstream social media to porn
From the article:
She Was a Child Instagram Influencer. Her Fans Were Grown Men.
For her 18th birthday in March, “Jacky Dejo,” a snowboarder, bikini model and child influencer turned social media entrepreneur, celebrated on the secluded island of Dominica.
Her fans — thousands of men had been following her through her teens as she posted and sold photos — wished her well and eagerly anticipated her next move online as an adult.
“Happy birthday,” one wrote in French. “I can’t wait to see you without any clothes on.”
Born two years after the launch of Facebook, she belongs to the first generation to grow up with social media and the multibillion-dollar creator economy that is redefining adolescence for girls.
It began harmlessly in 2012, when she was 6 years old and her mother and father launched a parent-run Facebook account to share her snowboarding prowess. By the time she was 8, they had added an Instagram account, where they highlighted free gear she received from brands like Adidas and Nitro Snowboards. They also posted photos of her surfing and skateboarding, two other favorite activities.
As she approached her teens, she began drawing inappropriate attention from men online. She was shielded from the worst of it, like when her parents deleted photos men sent of their genitalia. But the risks in this new world they had introduced her to escalated after she turned 13 and began promoting a swimwear brand.
When she was 15, she and her father said, someone stole her phone and posted her private images, including nude photos she had taken of herself. Not long after, a man began recruiting her to a platform where people regularly spent $10 to $100 on photos of underage girls, often in revealing clothing.
[T]he day after she turned 18, her playbook had not changed. She delighted her online followers by joining the adult site OnlyFans and soon thereafter, Playboy-dot-com.
...
[I]t seemed innocuous, she said, when at age 13 a youth swimwear brand, Chance Loves, offered to collaborate with her on social media after she contacted the company and praised its swimsuits. The brand featured her on its website and sent her bikinis, which she sported in photos she posted on Instagram.
Jacky’s parents supported it at the time, but looking back, her father expressed misgivings. If he had it to do over, he said, he would tell her to wait “a little bit later” because the photos attracted pedophiles.
“I honestly didn’t know that it was so bad,” he said, referring to the presence of pedophiles on Instagram. “I don’t see anything attractive in a 13-year-old girl in a bikini, but apparently others do.”
A few months after signing on with Chance Loves, Jacky was fielding requests from photographers and obscure clothing brands that sent her bathing suits and tight athletic outfits.
Years later, she found out that her photos were being discussed on internet forums for men attracted to underage girls and that they were, in her view, “patiently grooming” her by sending free things.
Two of the photographers who contacted her were later charged with child exploitation crimes. One of the clothing brands, Chixit, The Times has reported, is run by a man who also registered website names related to bestiality.
“They were all dodgy,” Jacky said.
Jacky Dejo for Playboy/Missguided at age 16
We have been highlighting these dangers for years and called on Meta heads to put children’s safety over profit to stop the rampant exploitation, predation and sexualisation of children on Instagram.
Our five-year campaign calling on Instagram Head Adam Mosseri, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Head of Safety Antigone Davis and other decision makers to ban “parent-run” accounts has largely been ignored. Girls are paying the price.
We were pleased to contribute to an ABC-4Corners story exposing the dangers of kidfluencing and “parent-run” Instagram accounts earlier this year – watch the full episode here:
Read the full NYT piece here.
Read about our early investigations and the 2019 start of our joint global #WakeUp Instagram campaign here.
Add your comment