The Weekend Post

Twitter new porn site

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LANAI SCARR TWITTER has become a faux porn site, with hardcore images and video easily accessible.

Cyber experts and child psychologi­sts are hugely concerned about the effect it may be having on very young users and say it could even teach kids how to rape, sexually abuse others or put them in direct contact with paedophile­s.

A special investigat­ion by News Corp Australia has uncovered the dark side of social media, which should make every parent and user concerned.

In one case a 15-year-old girl called Kids Helpline last month and said she had been sending “sexy nude photos” of herself to “at least 20 guys” on Twitter.

The men she had been interactin­g with were replying with pictures of their own genitalia.

In another case a different 15-year-old girl called Kids Helpline in February to express concern about her 17year-old boyfriend, who she felt was addicted to viewing porn on social media services like Facebook and Twitter and was pressuring her to perform the lewd acts he had seen.

While the service, along with other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, promotes an age restrictio­n of 13-plus, there are thousands of underage users of Twitter.

Figures from the e-safety commission­er show 34 per cent of kids aged eight to 13 have circumvent­ed age-restrictio­n requiremen­ts to access social media and of those, 11 per cent list Twitter as their preferred service.

A total of 82 per cent of teens aged 14-18 were on social media, with an average of three accounts and 23 per cent cited Twitter as their preferred service.

Twitter did not respond to specific questions, despite numerous calls and emails yesterday.

 ??  ?? ADULT CONTENT: Kids are bypassing age restrictio­ns to access hardcore images and video via Twitter.
ADULT CONTENT: Kids are bypassing age restrictio­ns to access hardcore images and video via Twitter.

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