Showing posts with label Online Predators. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Online Predators. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Predators Among Us

Originally posted here by DodiaFae on June 3, 2009
Warning: Contains information and descriptions that are unsuitable for minors. Parents, please use discretion. While screenshots have been edited to hide the faces of children involved and to black out nudity, there is still some content on some of them that are inappropriate for minors.

MM All,

As many of you know from a previous post about Online Safety, I have a couple of IP trackers set up on PACA. One of the reasons for this is to keep track of how people find PACA and surf in.

This is how I became aware of a PACA member who was also a member of several predator sites and child pornography sites that had been set up on the Ning platform, and is what prompted me to start the Campaign Ning" group. The member went by the name of "Dagmar". (WARNING: Do not click that link when children can view the screen as there may be inappropriate content on her Ning page.)

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She was banned from PACA at that time for breaking PACA rules, as well as Ning ToS. While I had suspicions about her at that time, I didn't have any proof that she was a predator... at least none that would convince anyone who doesn't know what to look for. That's why I didn't post this discussion a lot sooner. But she was a member of a large number of the sites that were clearly adult in content, openly viewable to anyone (even minors), and many of them contained graphic pornography on the main page, member pages, in the photo galleries and the video galleries. Ning has, as of the start of this year, decided to no longer host adult sites, so each of those sites was reported to them.

Then I came across "Mums for teens Advice". A description from the reports I sent to Ning and NCMEC about this site:

"It's very obviously set up to attract teen girls to give them "motherly advice", but none of the members seem to be teens, many of the members have nude or partially nude photos up, and there are adult male members as well. It looks to be a predator site. Even some of the profile pictures break Ning's "Adult Content" rules."

The site was fairly quickly shut down because of the content, and still has the "maintenance" page up.

I reported that one at the beginning of May. Now, if someone were just looking at the name of the site, it seems like a good thing, and they may join and forget that they've joined, and maybe never check the content. So I gave her the benefit of the doubt. After the whole PaganSpace thing, I was worried that many of our members wouldn't appreciate a heads-up based just on suspicion and this one site. But I have been keeping an eye on her network list.

The next day, I came across a site called "Devil's Whore", of which she was a member, and on which she had just befriended a girl who didn't look a day over 14. She was friends with many of the minors on this site, some of whom had nude shots of themselves as their profile picture. Some of the kids on this site clearly broke Ning's ToS simply by being members, as they don't allow any members under the age of 13. Nearly every child member had been befriended by multiple adult members, who either left sexually suggestive comments or photos on their pages. Many of those adults had pornographic profile pictures, so each comment they left added that to the child's page, as well. Just to give you an idea:

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As I said in the warning at the top of the page, I've blacked out all nudity and hidden faces of children. The network photo was particularly graphic fetish. One of the profile pictures on the listing was a full-frontal shot of a little girl, about 5 years old, nude on a beach. The profile for this listing said that they were "an incest family from Germany". The one next to it was a penis shot, and there were many of those left on the pages of children on that network. I didn't see one comment anywhere saying how inappropriate all this was.

And yet, one could still argue she didn't look at the content, that maybe she's just into fettishism and slutdom. Hey, to each their own, so long as they're not hurting anyone else, right? Only children were most definitely harmed in the making of some of the content of that site.

The same day, I found the "Naughty Girls Forum" through her list.

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That site contained many of the same minors and adults as the "Devil's Whore" site, and again she had children on her "friends" list on that network.

Both sites were reported to NCMEC. Both now show as "Page Not Found" and "This network has been taken offline by it's owner". (Ning has assured me that this does not mean that they weren't able to save all the evidence needed by LE to track the predators on the site.)

The next day I found 2 more sites through her list:

kissed a girl, which I reported to NCMEC, but unfortunately slipped through the cracks for a while... but I kept an eye on it. The name of the site, together with the URL, was a dead giveaway, and though I couldn't view anything but the main page, there were many of the same child profile pictures as on the other two sites.

Girl and Boys, which also had many of the same members and inappropriate profile pictures. (Note that the URL, when you click on it, is "privatefotos.ning.com".)

I resubmitted my report to NCMEC and to Ning for the "kissed a girl" site a week later, when I saw that many of the members of the networks that had already been closed down had started posting child pornography there. 11 people had joined the network within a day. It could have been due to the fact that I reported 2 more sites (which where quickly shut down) just the day before:

bludbox.ning.com contained some of the worst, most graphic images I've seen to date, including a photo of an adult man having intercourse with a little boy. I was pretty shaken after finding this particular site.

http://babygirls69.ning.com/ seemed to be mainly a GL (Girl Love) site, and had photos of preteen girls in "sexy poses" and exposing private body parts or nude.

Then yesterday I found three more, again through Dagmar's list. Two of these were even worse than the "bludbox" site, horrible, nightmare inducing content:

lilsissiboys... as you can see from the screenshot below, they even add a description of what the site is about that is completely unmistakable... "for lovers of little girly sissy boys".

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And in case that one is too small to read, here's a screenshot of the header:

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And their member badge is even worse:

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It says, "I'm a member of lilsissyboys: post pics and vids of boys dressed like little sluts, Young gay and sissy boys" (note the capitalization of the "Y" in "Young", and also that Dagmar's picture shows up first in the list of members on the badge).

The second site I found yesterday was "lilgirlluv", and the site description was "For all you little girl lovers"

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There was CP (Child Porn) right there on the Ning listing. And the member badge?

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It says, "I'm a member of lilgirlluv: post pics and vids of little girl sluts and angels".

Both of those sites had images of young children being made to do things that many adults wouldn't do, sexually degrading things. Both sites contained very graphic pornography involving children.

Now, how anyone could join either of those two sites and not know what they are is unimaginable. To see them and not report them is unforgivable. Ning had both sites shut down within 10 minutes of me emailing them the reports. The fact that Dagmar was a member of both of these sites is what convinced me to post about it, as a warning to our members. Many of our members have her on their friends list, and I'm sure that they don't realize what kind of a person she is. Many of you are also members of other Ning sites she is on, and you may want to consider sending off a warning to the owners of those sites, particularly if there are minors on them.

Just to give you an idea of what we're up against, the "lilsissyboys" site had 297 members when I reported it and the "lilgirlluv" site had 249. Now anyone who has started a Ning site will have a fair idea of the length of time it takes to get membership up that high. This can only mean one of two things... either the sites had been there for some time, and no one has reported them, or that the predators on Ning are incredibly well organized. The fact that they seemed to bounce from one site as it was closing to another site to post their abuse leads me to believe that it's the latter.

The third site I found yesterday was "your space to talk", with the description "I JUST MADE THIS SITE TO ENTERTAIN PEOPLE TALK TO KIDS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD!!WELL I HOPE YOU JOIN!!!!" Well, a lot of people did, and most of them were predators looking to hook up with kids. There were many people posting sexually suggestive and sexually graphic photos of children. Though I would have had to join the network to see just how bad it was, there was more than enough incriminating evidence to be found in the photo slideshow on the main page. It was also shut down within minutes of being reported to Ning and NCMEC.

And today, I found yet another one. When I started to type this post, and went to Dagmar's Ning page to copy the link, I noticed that she had befriended a young pre-teen girl who's profile photo was a full-frontal nude of herself. I followed that link to find that this girl had tons of teen and pre-teen "friends" with equally inappropriate photos, and was a member of "It's My Life [for girls]", which says it's "For all teenage and pre-teen girls!", but had many of the same adult predators I had seen on other CP networks, including this guy:

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He really seems to like the GL sites (Girl Lover).

This site was much like the third site I found yesterday, and was shut down within minutes of being reported to Ning and NCMEC.

It seems that Ning has also gone through Dagmar's friends, as well as the friends of the pre-teen she had recently "friended", and cleaned up all the photos. Though I'm not sure if Ning or Dagmar removed Dagmar's photo... I'm glad I had it from her PACA profile before I banned her so that people could see that it was her.

I was going to post it in the Campaign Ning group, but decided that I'd like it to be seen by everyone, whether they're a member of that group or not. I will be linking it from there, but won't duplicate the information.

This discussion was particularly difficult for me to post, mainly because I had to go back and revisit all the information I had typed up to report those sites in the first place. But if anyone has any comments or questions, please feel free to post them or email me directly.

Blessings,

~ DodiaFae

Thursday, December 11, 2008

The Consequences of Protecting Children Online

As many of you are probably aware, some members of PACA were recently banned from another network due to our unwavering stance on child protection and the grooming practices we witnessed there. The PACA group on that site was then deleted.

Apparently there are those who seem to view child abuse as a moral issue that is changeable with each individual, in the same way that "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I'd like to point out that it is a child safety issue. And child safety is a pretty clear-cut issue. Either it is safe for a child or it is not. Either you leave your toddler in a room with breakable glass, exposed outlets, and precariously balanced boxes of books, or you do not. Either you let your 15 year old daughter hitchhike to her friend's house across the state, or you do not. Either you allow your teen to meet with people they've met online, or you do not. Either you allow old men to flirt with your 15 year old daughter, or you do not. Any grays there? I don't think there are. It's all about the safety of the children, and what could harm them or kill them. And while many people would like to believe in their heart of hearts that we are greatly exaggerating the dangers posed to children, we most certainly are not.

What I find disturbing is that there are some members of that site who have been posting "discussions" to "explain" the events that unfolded. One has chosen to focus on one phrase, supposedly uttered by one of us who were banned that has absolutely nothing to do whatever with the events that transpired, as a means of attacking us further.

The issue here is not Witchcraft, not Wicca, not even Paganism. The issue here is child safety and the grooming practices used by those who would prey upon teens (children) who don't have enough worldly knowledge to know they're being groomed. The issue is the permissive attitude that the owners of some sites have about blatant grooming tactics used by predators in their effort to gain access to potential victims. There is no gray area in that. Either you want to protect the children who visit your site, or you don't give a shit. If you don't care enough to either do something about those adults, or keep children off your site all together, then don't complain when your motives are called into question.

Brightest Blessings,
~ DodiaFae
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