Turkey

According to the Turkish Justice Ministry, the rate of women murdered in that country has jumped 1400% between 2002 and 2009.  This is part of a larger pattern of violence against women.  Honor killings, where women and girls are killed to protect the family's perceived "honor," continue to be a problem.  During the relatively brief time that this blog has been online, I've noticed a surprising amount of pornography posted to Facebook by Turkish users.  Most of it involves adults, but some of it clearly does not.

Two Men Kissing Update

Via Newser, Facebook has apparently apologized for removing the photo of two men kissing.  In fairness to Facebook, the event was apparently removed by the organizer in response to troll harassment and not by Facebook itself (as the blog post originally stated).

Two Men Kissing

Some users organized a "Kiss-In" protest on Facebook in response to an incident where two gay men were ejected from a pub in the UK.  One man posted a photo of two men kissing to the "Dangerous Minds" Facebook page in the context of the event.  Facebook removed the photo, sent the user a warning, and deleted the protest event.  Below is a screenshot from their blog that includes the photo.

Meanwhile, let's take a look at what some currently active users on Facebook have been up to.  Sarah Dee is interested in finding some other groups where people post images and videos.

What kind of images and videos?  Well, Sarah Dee lists her interests as "Lolita" and "P T H C."  For the blissfully unaware, "PTHC" stands for "pre-teen hardcore."  We can reasonably assume that Sarah and friends are interested in stuff that's a lot more explicit than kissing, and it doesn't involve adults.

Sarah Dee's friend "Children Side" is also openly trolling for child pornography.

Emily Emmerson uses the "Questions" application to ask "Would anyone like to trade pics or vids?"

Zac Cartoon is also looking for like-minded friends and is not too subtle.  He posts, "plz all pedo add me."

The two fully clothed men in the first picture hardly seem sexually explicit.  If the Facebook safety team would like to see something that was, they might want to take a look at some of the closed and private groups that some of the users we saw were talking about.

Distortions

One thing we've noticed about the pedophiles that we've tracked is an almost compulsive level of persistence.  In the past few months, we've seen a few users arrested and charged for posting child pornography to Facebook and all of those users had created new accounts after being kicked off Facebook at least once.  So it was interesting to read "Inside the Mind of a Pedophile" (Neuroanthropology, 2010) that discussed some of the neurological and behavioral abnormalities associated with pedophilia.  It mentioned neural characteristics similar to disorders in the obsessive-compulsive spectrum, e.g., pathological gambling and kleptomania.  It said that there were both biological and environmental factors, specifically mentioning experiencing sexual molestation as a child.  Another article cited, Abnormal Attraction (Scientific American Mind, 2009), expanded on the correlation between being abused as a child and later committing a sex offense.

Both articles also referred to cognitive distortion, and the SciAm one pointed out that in some cases, this distortion may help prop up an individual's self-esteem.  This may be the case with Marcos Teia, one of the most active posters of child pornography on Facebook who seems to use this to gain attention and acceptance.

There are some unsettling parallels between these people and some of the spanking enthusiasts we've seen on Facebook and elsewhere online.  For example, if you google Becky Chandler's ID, "beckychr007" and "spanking," you get about 840 hits.  It's not hard to find anecdotes involving her mother spanking her bare with a hairbrush, and it's even easier to find her posting in parenting forums about the benefits of spanking kids.  Others have posted collections of images depicting children getting spanked with their pants down, which have attracted equally disturbing comments from their Facebook "friends."

 Some have even trolled for videos.

There are also some problems with boundaries and distorted patterns of thinking in both groups.  When discussing child pornography, pedophiles often rationalize it by saying that the victim seemed to be enjoying the sex acts.  Some of the spanking fetishists claim to be loving parents who have to "discipline" their children.  For example, we saw Amanda Facey in a previous post commenting enthusiastically about sadomasochistic fan fiction, posting to a Yahoo group about her boyfriend spanking her to tears, and also talking about spanking her own daughter with her pants down.  When someone else expressed their disgust, Amanda accused that person of "child pornography."

Human behavior and sexuality are complex and still not very well understood.  I can't offer any explanations as to why some of the people I've watched are the way they are, nor can I offer any solutions.  But some things are hard to ignore.  Both the child pornography traders and the S&M people who fixate on children getting spanked seem to be troubled individuals with damaged sexuality.  A number of the S&M people have talked in great detail about getting spanked as children, and some recent research has even established a correlation between this and later "sexually deviant" behavior.  The Neuroanthropology article about pedophiles have indicated that at least some of them were sexually abused as children and may be "re-living" what they experienced and trying to master it.

What can be done about these people?  Beyond locking up the ones who break the law, I have no idea.

Lydia Cacho on Child Pornography and Social Networks

Lydia Cacho, a Mexican journalist who has won awards from Amnesty International, International Women's Media Foundation, and UNESCO, is tackling the issue of child pornography on social networks.  She is calling on Facebook to report child pornography to the police.  Facebook's position has been that they do when it comes from a country that has an agreement with the U.S. to prosecute it.

As I've said before, one technical problem here is that large social networks may not always be aware of child pornography because not all of it can be automatically detected.  If a user who lives in the U.S. posts a file that the system recognizes as known child pornography, that user probably will be reported to law enforcement.  But if the image does not match any known child pornography hashes, the system will not automatically flag it no matter how bad it is.  Since many of the child pornography traders seem to use closed and secret groups for posting their material, they're also unlikely to be reported by other users.

From what I understand, most account shutdowns happen as a result of an automated process, not a human review.  The system is capable of detecting certain anomalies that are likely to be associated with abusive accounts, but it is unlikely to be smart enough to recognize accounts that need to be reported to law enforcement.  Once an account is shut down, the clock starts ticking and the information is automatically deleted after 90 days.

Kiki

Kiki Dubois makes Becky Chandler look subtle.

He gets excited about a photo of a small boy holding a paddle.

His buddy Dan Schneider posts a photo of three boys.

The commenters take an interest in the boys' backsides and Kiki brings up spanking.  Again.

Dan Schneider, who posted the picture above, is interested in boys.

Jamie Blue, who also commented on the photo of the boy with the paddle, is disappointed that a "great vid of a kid getting spanked" didn't stay up for long.

Pictures or Videos?

Rich Taylor, who is an enthusiastic fan of the "Spanking Kids" page promoted by Becky Chandler, is apparently interested in procuring pictures or videos of another user spanking his daughter.

He asks if "Chuck Baxter" can get someone else to take videotapes when he spanks his daughters.