There was I under the impression there were not a great deal of teens on Twitter, when the Sun sticks on its front page this morning that the micro blogging service has become "a free and easy hunting ground for paedophiles seeking to lure kids for sex".The tabloid claims that it uncovered this as part of a wider investigation into abuse of the ultra-successful blogging website.It says that pornographic pictures of young girls are also freely available. The Sun says it was shown an online conversation between a group of youngsters that had apparently been infiltrated by a pervert who asked a 13-year-old boy, who had posted a photo of himself and his sister on Twitter:
The pervert asked: "What do you like to do? Where do you like to go?"The Sun says that the boy replied: "Are you coming on to me?" The suspect said: "No, not at all. I'm just interested in finding out about you."Maybe it's true, and I am sure that there are SOME teenagers on Twitter (but remember the city wake-up call? Teens don't tweet), but is it really a free an easy hunting ground as the paper says? I really don't think so although it makes a nice alarmist front page story.As you read on in the story it looks more like the paper has made something out of maybe not a great deal, at least I hope so, as it quotes child protection expert Mark Williams-Thomas saying that looking at these tweets "I'd say the boy is being followed by an adult posing as a teenager". Of course we've all been followed by porn bots and sites asking us to "click and see their pictures", but Twitter is pretty good at deleting these people and the other Twitter pages the Sun points to showing obscene images of Thai girls are clearly an example of that.The paedophile thing is news to me, but I really have a problem believing it is widespread as the paper makes out. With all these advertising, digital, marketing and media types there's no room or place for the scum of the earth.
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Was that an intentional pun in the headline?
Gordon Macmillan
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