Foxtel faces social media backlash with Australia’s #NextTopPredator hashtag
A Fox8 social media promotion for Australia’s Next Top Model urging people to take ‘selfies’ and post them on Instagram is facing a social media backlash by a group of feminist activists launching the hashtag Australia’s #NextTopPredator to counter the competition.
The activists, who include social commentator Melinda Tankard Reist, claim girls, as young as nine, are posting images of themselves in sexual poses and are instead urging people to enter the competition with positive messages.
“Research by the Internet Watch Foundation tells us that 88 per cent of self made images posted by girls online are captured sent to porn websites,” claimed Tankard Reist. “They are snatched and captured and sent to what are known as parasite pornsites. “These girls have no idea that their images could be going there and here is Australia’s Next Top Model is soliciting this.”
Mumbrella I sat in one of your Mumbrella360 sessions this year with your speaker encouraging brands to jump on the Selfie band wagon. Hypocritical much?
What a pathetic response from Foxtel. I’ve browsed through the #antmselfies feed on Instagram, some of the girls are so young and have zero privacy settings, with profiles including their full name, age and school. Once these images are shared, they can be screen captured or shared by anyone.
So Collective Gout, a self-appointed Internet vigilante group, is citing another self-appointed Internet vigilante group, the questionable Internet Watch Foundation. What stunning circular reasoning.
So instead of an education around personal standards and self-esteem issues, some weirdo from CG has trawled the pictures for skank-shots. Nice.
I’m sure some moderation by ANTM is likely in order, but if CG actually worried about paedophiles, then shuttering ANTM is not going to have one iota of impact.
A rule for CG: if the images you are concerned about could be found with a search for kids paddling pool, then your point may be a poor one.
For those unfamilar with the IWF, they have an even patchier track record for pearl-clutching censorship than Collective Gout. Notably, in 2008 effectively shuttering the whole of Wikipedia in the UK, because of an image of a Scorpions album. More on that debacle here
Good god the people campaigning against this
have selfies of themselves as their profile. Please
This is not a feminist group it’s a church group.
“Research by the Internet Watch Foundation tells us that 88 per cent of self made images posted by girls online are captured sent to porn websites”
And that DOESN’T set off alarm bells? I’m willing to eat my words here, but that sounds quite simply WAY too high to be the case in the last 7 years of internet use…
I always know that when I see AdGrunt has commented on a story with Melinda Tankard Reist in, an awesome s*** storm is about to start!
Wow, a whopping three retweets on “I am way more than my image”… Id hardly call that a ‘social media backlash’. These stories are getting pretty tiring Mumbrella… especially when you manufacture them like this.
oooh, social media backlash, ooooo!
At what point in history did we let parents and guardians off the hook?
Most likely it was the return of the Nanny State with all its collectives, committees and social engineers, who with Big Government declared themselves the “parents” of us all.
How about parents taking some responsibility here?
Predators have always been around and always will – banning picture-taking won’t change anything. But some parental guidance to the young’uns in how you handle your own image will.
#fail
someone pop up that selfie Rudd sent out of his shaving cut and tell everyone they’re being played for mugs.
@social media guru, anyone that calls themselves that is definitely NOT a guru. Pffft
You must be 13 to use Instagram and you can’t delete images on a hashtag. Just saying.
The Internet Watch Foundation’s “Study of Self-Generated Sexually Explicit Images & Videos Featuring Young People Online” is a little different to how MTR is presenting it, especially the “self made images posted by girls online are captured sent to porn websites” part.
First the definitions are pretty broad in the study;
““Self-generated content” is defined as “nude or semi-nude images or videos created by a young person knowingly engaging in erotic or sexual activity”.
[…]
“Young person” is defined as “an individual assessed as being between 13-20 years of age”.
[…]
“Parasite website” is defined as “a website created for the purposes of displaying self-generated content where the content has apparently been harvested from the website to which it was originally uploaded””
And what was included in the definition of a “Parasite website”?;
“Imageboards (Also Known As “Chan Boards”)”, “Dedicated Blogs and Forums” and “Abused Services Allowing Upload of User Generated Content – Any image/video sharing site, including mainstream social networking sites, not those solely dedicated to pornographic material.”
So it’s not about “selfies”, it’s about self made pornography made by adult women (women aged 18 to 20 aren’t children) being posted just about everywhere except porn sites. It’s a massive beat up by the IWF and MTR has chosen (yet again) to misrepresent the study for her own gain.
Matthew, what does Melinda “gain” from this exactly? She has a passion that I share. That is of the desire to better young women and allow them to realize their self worth isn’t based on how hot she is. If your passion, so it seems, is to encourage young girls/women to pose for your pleasure, then so be it. But its sad and yours and others anger toward Melinda is creepy.
Melinda seems to be more of a zealot. There have always been those who seem to get joy out of telling others what not to do and holding themselves and their way as the one true path.
The Simpson’s parodied this with the Reverend Lovejoy’s wife, Helen and her constant refrain
“Won’t Somebody Please Think Of The Children?”
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tum.....o1_500.jpg
http://youtu.be/Qh2sWSVRrmo (duration of Youtube clip – 5 secs
Catherine D, MTR is clearly advocating control of women’s sexuality. Or are you telling me she didn’t write “Giving Sorrow Words” and “Defiant Birth”? She can attempt to whitewash her past as much as she likes and even associate herself with as many fringe dwelling radical feminists as she likes (her “Big Porn” book was launched in WA by the Society for Cutting Up Men http://allecto.wordpress.com/2.....t-program/ ), but it’s obvious who she’s dog whistling to.
As for “Australia’s Next Top Model”, never seen it, don’t really give a crap about. I do take issue with people wanting to control what other can watch and those trying to control people’s sexuality.
There are more people in the sex trafficing ‘industry’ now, than ever before in history. It starts with sexualising our young children and making them into sexual objects as soon as possible. No wonder people are campaigning against this trend and more should be done on a much larger scale to put a stop to it.
As for ‘controlling’ what other people watch or their sexuality – what ‘control’ did the 14 year old girl have who was abducted off the streets with 2 other older girls?? and kept in slavery for a decade ?? What ‘control’ did they have over their own lives??
I speak out for those who find themselves in situations beyond their control and who are forced into situations not of their making by adults – adults who should be looking after them and doing the right thing by them.
Matthew- pornography has nothing to do with sexuality- only depravity.