In Wisconsin a darker side of Facebook was revealed last December when Anthony Stanci plead no contest to two felonies. It must have been a plea bargain, because the 19 year old had blackmailed at least seven of his fellow students for sex. Between 2007 and 2008 he had a Facebook page that he used to trick male classmates into sending him nude pictures of themselves. He pretended to be a girl, and after classmates exchanged pictures with him (it's not hard to find nude pictures of girls on the internet), he threatened to post the boys pictures online unless they had sex with him.
Stanci might still be blackmailing teens for sex, if he hadn't been greedy. One of his victims had been unwilling to speak up to protect himself, but when Stanci wanted pictures of the young mans brother that was too much. He went to his parents, and the police were called.
Last week Stanci was sentenced to 15 years in prison. According to his lawyer, that is a fair sentence, and will give him time to rebuild his life after he gets out. That's really great, but I wonder who is making sure the youngsters who were victimized by Stanci get their lives rebuilt?
It's important we make sure our children know that they cannot assume that they know someone online. And that we remember it ourselves. Otherwise we make it too easy for predators to prey on us.
That's the lesson you want your children to learn? That they don't always know who they are talking to online? That it is okay to send nude photos to someone you do know online? I'm not going to generate just a whole lot of sympathy for people who send nude pictures of themselves to the world, known or unknown. They have motives for doing this and those motives belie any reasonable person's extension of sympathy. These "boys" thought they were going to get "lucky" by exposing themselves. What they got in return for their "offer" was not exactly what they expected. If they are "lucky," they'll just suffer some temporary embarrassment, a little ribbing by their classmates, a healthy dose of humiliation at how little they had to show, and the eternal knowledge that they are attractive to predators of their own gender. It is way past time they learned that choices have consequences. Sometimes the consequences hurt. If you don't like the consequences, don't make the choices.
ReplyDeleteYes, although you make a good point. What I really want my kids to learn is to think about the all possible consequences before they do things, and to take responsibility for their decisions. If you analyze this story deeply, there are many decisions by many different people that led to this result. Any one of them going differently could have prevented this. I happened to focus on the very last one by the "victims" in this case.
ReplyDeleteEveryone should think at least twice before sending any picture of themselves to someone they've never met online. They should think at least 10 times before sending nude pictures to anyone - you never know where they'll end up. Just ask Vanessa Hudgens or the mother of Emma Jones.
I wasn't trying to ignore the stupidity of sending nude pictures of yourself to a stranger, but most people, even high school students (I hope) know they shouldn't do that. But the social networking culture is pushing the idea of 'trust everyone'. If you learn that you can't trust everyone, you're less likely to send anything to someone you don't know in person.