” If your kids are on social media and you haven’t heard of Wren’s story, please listen. “, Begins the user @hashtagfacts in a video on TikTok released on July 18, 2022. This mother from Maryland in the United States then shows the profile of Wren & Jacquelyn in the background. This is the story of a mother and her 3-year-old daughter who are a success on the Chinese platform: 17.3 million people follow them.
The disturbing number of video recordings of a 3-year-old girl
As adorable as she is, the little girl doesn’t do anything special in the videos shot and posted by her mother, in the eyes of the general public. But what is questioned is the number of recordings (to be able to find and review them easily when you are another user) of certain videos in particular.
When it comes to, for example, Wren playing with tickets, she generates around 10,000 registrations, notes @hashtagfacts. But when Wren squirms in a crop top, @hashtagfacts highlights over 45,000 records. The counter explodes when the three-year-old girl innocently eats a hot dog: nearly 375,000 records.
In the search bar, autocomplete suggestions (i.e. when the algorithm offers associated searches often typed in the word you just typed) presented creepy expressions. Many of the comments under Wren’s videos also turn out to be ambiguous, indicating the 3-year-old’s alleged maturity, how naughty, even provocative that would be.
Innocent children sexualized by strangers on TikTok
@hashtagfacts then explains through his video how anyone can access these videos of innocent children and that some people can sexualize them. From there to talk about petty criminals, there is only one step that the French-speaking YouTuber Le Roi des Rats had tried to take.
Two of his videos deal with this topic: one dated December 2020 “TikTok investigation: scam, predators… but what is TikTok doing ?! and the other from March 2021, “TikTok’s biggest problem: hypersexualization”, highlighting the little progress made on the subject, despite numerous efforts to moderate.
Because TikTok is establishing itself as the most loved social network by young people, and also by the very young. And if the legal age to register is set at 13, many children easily bypass it, as well as many parents who stage offspring, without necessarily being aware of the associated risks. Hence the need for an educational video like @hashtagfacts, already seen by more than 7 million people on TikTok since its publication. History of raising awareness of his peers directly in the space concerned.
Front page photo credit: TikTok screenshot.
Source: Madmoizelle
Lloyd Grunewald is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. He is a talented writer who focuses on bringing the latest entertainment-related news to his readers. With a deep understanding of the entertainment industry and a passion for writing, Lloyd delivers engaging articles that keep his readers informed and entertained.
