Twitter Watcher

I'd like to pass the baton, as it were, to a new blog called "Twitter Watcher" at http://twitterwatcher.blogspot.com/ .   The best word I can think of to describe pedophiles is "Legion," because they are indeed many.  Therefore, it's not surprising that Twitter is now having problems with users posting child pornography.

News Coverage

It was surprising to see the extent of the recent news coverage about Facebook's problems with child pornography traders.  I'm glad that people are concerned about the problem of child pornography, but would like make a few remarks.

First, social networks are attractive to pedophiles and a number of other "problem" users because they simply provide the opportunity to anonymously connect with like-minded people.  Many child pornography collectors have obsessive traits.  How many news stories have you read about someone getting caught with only a few child pornography images?  Generally, it's a matter of hundreds or even thousands.  Facebook is one of the biggest players in the social networking arena and it also offers features like image and video sharing and private groups.  So it wasn't a matter of if pedophiles would show up on Facebook, it was a matter of when.

Facebook initially seemed to focus on growing and adding new technological features and may not have anticipated that it would also attract child pornography traders until they ended up with quite a few of them.  The problem was that by that time, there were millions of accounts.  So they had to come up with automated ways of finding users who did not want to be found. Automatically shutting down accounts annoyed the people behind them, but they could always just create new profiles.  So many of them did.  To make things even more interesting, the problem users came from a number of countries, some of which are a lot more proactive about fighting child pornography than others.

For the most part, the pedophiles trading child pornography on Facebook seemed pretty stupid -- not too far removed from the idiots sharing it on open P2P networks.  The ones on Darknet seemed smarter and scarier.  I'd challenge the WND writers and anyone else interested in fighting child pornography to investigate that and try to come up with viable solutions.

Ann Deragegirls

Below are a couple of recent screencaps.  Given Facebook's size and scope, there will probably always be pedophile users.  Overall, though, they seem fewer and less blatant than they were a year and a half ago.  Facebook's gotten more aggressive about reporting them and kicking them off, and it's possible that the higher default privacy settings have also helped.  If it's harder for a cranky blogger to find them, it's probably also harder for child pornography collectors to find each other.

Twitter has also had problems with these people, as have other social networks.  For the most part, the people using Facebook to trade child pornography haven't seemed too bright, and a number of them who've lived in countries that would actually do something about it have been arrested.   Child pornography is a big problem, and steadily chipping away at it may be the best anyone can do.

Shane Goes to Prison?

Shane Dale Pattison, also known as "Shane Ispedo," may be headed to prison.  Canadian news stories described him as one of the worst child pornography offenders in Saskatchewan history.  Some of his trading buddies are already locked up.

Menfor Babygirls

What do you say about something like this?

Bad Librarian

Richard Wareham had a number of accounts, including "Nobby Nobson" and "Richard Valentine."   He was recently convicted of viewing child pornography at Paddington Children's Library, where he worked as a librarian.  Below is a screencap of a pedophile group on Facebook that included the "Nobby Nobson" account.

More arrests

According to CTV Calgary, Clement John Murray was arrested for sharing child pornography via Facebook.  I vaguely remember a middle-aged Canadian white guy who went by "Clem Murray" and had some obvious pedos on his friends list.  One anonymous source said that he was in a "nepi" group, which apparently involved babies.

Another Canadian, Alexander James Kennedy, has been arraigned on charges of posting 10 child pornography images to his Facebook page.

In Australia, John Raymond Zimmerman was sentenced to up to 16 years on charges of manipulating a number of underage girls into sending him explicit photos of themselves.

Paolo Ghelardini Gets 12 Years

According to translated news stories, Paolo Ghelardini was sentenced to 12 years for his extensive collection of child pornography.  Although he'd also bragged about sexually assaulting children, it was apparently impossible to prosecute him for that.  Nevertheless, he's apparently claiming that 12 years is too harsh and filing an appeal.  I wonder if they could reconsider and give him a longer sentence?

Preteen Girls

This guy says, "I made a preteen group before and was blocked by some kind of freak."  Gotta love the way that his concept of "freak" apparently means "someone who does not like child pornography."

Wordsmiths

Here are some screencaps gathered over the past couple of weeks.  As you can see, some of the user name choices aren't too subtle.

Facebook's apparently gotten smarter about "PTHC" as an interest, so some users we saw are now listing "Pthc.littlegirls.9" as an interest.

Ray Gould -- presumably as in "R@ygold."

Young Girls

Here's yet another closed group.  Given that one of the members had what appeared to be child pornography posted to an open wall, I suspect it may not be a Bible study group.  Just a guess.

Paolo Ghelardini Indicted

Paolo Ghelardini, who was arrested this spring, has been formally indicted in Romania.  According to news accounts, he had over 9500 child pornography images and 1000 videos.  At this point, he has not been charged with production.

He allegedly had 19 different Facebook accounts, and was apparently active between January 2010 and May 2011.

He had also used the alias "Paul Grechiadan" among others.

Pro Spanking Mom

Molly Anderson claims to be a "pro spanking mom" with five kids.  She lists "parenting toddlers" as an interest, but her friends appear to be spanking fetishists.

Let's see, she's got a video of someone talking about spanking kids and a picture of a girl getting spanked with her pants down, among other things.

Preteen Lesbians

Jeff Pingle, like one of the users in a previous post, claims to be interested in "preteen lesbians."  This term apparently translates to "yet another sick way to exploit young girls."

Cascade-O-Crap

Facebook's apparently gotten smarter about certain keywords, such as "PTHC."  So some users came up with a new interest called "pthc.incest.young schoolgirls 10.11.12.daddys littlegirl."  It's like a cascade of crap.

Kidzz

This guy has had a number of accounts.  Given that there are plenty of idiot parents willing to allow their kids to be on reality TV, he should be entertained for a while.

But the "Watching kidzz...." thing seems to be new.  But by this point, it's hard to be surprised by the content.

Weirdest Facebook Groups

Thanks to blog.rounds.com for the link in the story "Top 15 Weirdest Facebook Groups."

Readers probably will not be surprised to hear that the group mentioned continues to attract creepy users.  Below are some screenshots.  Can anyone guess what Mike Shanks is fixated on?

Uh yeah.

On the group "Spanking Children," a user gets even less subtle, if that's possible.  Paul Williams wants to chat about spanking kids.

We've seen Rich before trolling for videos of girls getting spanked.  Would anyone be too surprised if Paul also turned out to be a fetishist?

We didn't think so.

Robin Pagoria and Money

According to court documents, Robin Pagoria filed for bankruptcy in 2009.  Christopher Lobban, the Australian man she was involved with online, is reportedly wealthy.  It's quite possible that Lobban's wealth made him more attractive to Pagoria, just as her access to minors may have made her more interesting to him than she otherwise would have been.

Given that Pagoria had apparently found spanking sexually stimulating from an early age and had also been spanked as a child, it may have been easier for her to rationalize her actions as "discipline."  In fact, if she'd done what the woman in the cartoon below had done, she might not have been charged at all.

Chester

It's occasionally hard to tell whether someone is trolling or serious.  Below is the user originally known as "Chester MoeLester."

Facebook apparently forced him to change his name, and he became the more prosaic "Chester Brown." 

Here's Hans Rockhard, one of Chester's friends.

Is Hans serious or trolling?  Let's take a look at a comment he posted.

Just .... ewwww.

Billy Kidd

Alas, since Facebook has blocked Mr. Kidd from adding friends, it looks like his "PEDO friends" will have to add him.