SMILE, YOU’RE ON SELFIE CAMERA | Alarm bells raised on emerging ‘Selfie Porn’

MANILA, Philippines — A number of Filipino youths are now unwittingly providing material for online pornographers as various voyeurs now harvest daring ‘selfie pictures’ posted on the net, a non-government organizaton (NGO) said.

“Traditionally when we say child pornography, a syndicate is behind it. But what is happening now is that the children are now the ones producing material,” Ysrael Diloy, advocacy training officer of Stairwell Foundation, Inc., said at the National Conference on Child Protection in the Cyberage in Manila.

Diloy said that online perverts now archive public personal photos on the net which they then swap with other pedophiles in their network and community.

“It is similar to how sex videos are spread,” Diloy said.

The danger therein lies when online pedophiles become as bold as to make online, and even offline, advances to the person in a photo. In some cases overseas, some pedophiles go as far as stalking and harassing their victims.

The trend, according to Diloy, is being fueled by how the practice of “sexting,” or sharing explicit photographs through mobile phones, has now migrated to social media. As many children do not understand the importance of internet privacy, pedophiles are in turn having a field day collecting photos by accessing public profiles.

In a nationwide survey of 3,500 respondents made last year by Stairwell, four out of 10 respondents age 10 to 12 and six out of 10 respondents age 13 to 17 said that they add online strangers on Facebook. Overall, five out of 10 of those surveyed have public Facebook profiles.

The challenge, Diloy said, is to build up the “protective capacity” of children by making them aware of the risks of online activity.

“The challenge is to make them realize that the Internet is just like reality and that online danger may also translate to offline danger” Diloy said.

The best way to protect children against such exploitation should be to foster dialogue at home and at school, Diloy said. The problem, however, is that majority of parents and teachers do not engage children regarding the perils of technology.

“The digital divide is neutral but it becomes negative when it hinders dialogue between adults and children about online child protection,” Diloy said. –Jose Bimbo F. Santos, InterAksyon.com