When I was a probation officer, in one of our trainings, we saw a film taken by a pedophile at a park. He carried the video camera at his side (as if it were off and he just happened to be strolling along with it), all the while taking shots of kids at the park. This same pedophile was caught because he and his wife molested an 11-year old girlscout that had come to their door selling cookies. The girl escaped and they found the tapes in his home.
This really hit-home to me that you can never trust people, especially strangers to have innocent motives. The video tape shots looked innocent, but they were not only used as kiddy-porn, they were also used to study the kids for molestation opportunities. Which kids weren't being closely monitored by their parents? Which kids were on a predictable schedule (were they at the park every day, or every Tuesday, at the same time every time?)
We also learned in the same training that pedophiles will often steal photos of children from the desk of coworkers (and I vowed that if I ever had children, I'd never leave photos on my desk and I'd never let a child go door-to-door selling stuff without me standing next to them - and probably not even then). Even though I don't have kids, I have made a habit of looking for adults hanging around children who don't seem to belong (unfortunately, there's not much I can do, even if I spot them - I just have to hope the parents are as paranoid as I am).
We all need to be aware that there are creepy people who can twist something innocent into something perverse.
It's not blaming the victim to say - be aware of any potential audiences and their motives. If nice strangers can see what you post on the internet, then so can creepy strangers, too.
There are probably people here on this site - lurking or even posting who are not who they appear to be. They might have a fat fetish, or just morbid curiosity.
The point is, we all have to remember that we can't know or trust the minds of strangers, especially in "public" settings. Most of the internet is very public, but it feels private, so people can easily forget how very public it is, until something scary happens.
Last edited by kaplods; 02-22-2012 at 05:53 AM.
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I set my video to private and will do so for all future videos but the damage was done. Was I just naive? I really didn't see this coming.
