Our kids are able to find websites that are not recommended for minors. All parents must be aware of these listed websites so that their child will not be a victim of digital injury. Unlike apps, websites make it much easier for underage children to gain quick access to explicit content. GKIS will provide a brief description of the websites, dangers attached to the websites, and methods to prevent digital injury.
Websites to Look Out For
Parler
In our previous blog article, Parler the Free Speech App was covered as a social network platform focusing on the freedom of speech protected under the first Amendment and user’s rights privileges. An increase of conservative users arrived on the platform in the wake of feeling censored on Twitter. In a battle between liberal and conservative views, big tech censorship has become a public outrage sending users to Parler.
As for children, GKIS stands by our previous decided outcome of Parler not being appropriate for minors due to extreme views and lack of censorship. According to Google Trends, the analysis of popularity for search with interest over time (IOT) ranges from 0 to 100. From January 10th to 16th 2021, Parler had a 78 IOT.[8] With a high population usage and the ability to not fact-check user’s posts, children using the app would likely be exposed to false and conspiracy-laden content.
Onlyfans
One of our most-read articles of 2020, Is Your Teen Selling Nudes on Onlyfans?, explained the risks that on Onlyfans kids and teens may easily access pornographic content. Onlyfans is a social media platform meant for users to access a creator’s content that may provide sexual content to subscribers for a monthly payment. From February 21st to 27th 2021, Google Trends reports that Onlyfans had a 99 IOT.[8] According to Onlyfans terms of service, the user must be 18+. Still, there are reports of minors bypassing the age verification without parent knowledge.[1]
GKIS cautions that minors should not have access to Onlyfans due to leaked information, stalking, life-threats, unemployment risks, and family separation. If you worry that your child could become a victim of sexual exploitation, you will get huge benefits from Dr. Bennett’s weekly parent and family coaching videos on the GetKidsInternetSafe App! Your first 30 days are free!
Toomics
In this comic book subscription service, users can receive Japanese and South Korean comics on horror, romance, and action genres. The service does provide a family mode to exclude inappropriate content. However, children can enable or disable the mode without password requirement.
GKIS recommends monitoring this service or, even better, blocking it from your children entirely. There is a vast amount of sexual content and nudity on this service, including comic book sex scenes, incest, and rape. According to the Google Trends report, from February 7th to 13th 2021, Toomics reports an 85 IOT based on search popularity.[8]
Reddit
In 2005, Reddit grew to be the most popular forum website on the internet. But how safe is it for children? The service provides subreddits of vast topics into smaller ones (e.g., from r/books into r/horror stories or r/Stephen King). Subreddits are organized by moderators who are individuals who manage the forum. As of February 27th 2021, Google Trend reports Reddit as an 87 IOT.[8]
Reddit may not look dangerous, but it does have a high volume of not safe for work (NSFW) material that may be easily accessible to children who lie about their age upon entry into the site. Reddit can be used for searching, browsing, and messaging anyone or anything which obviously holds a high risk of digital injury. For more information on the signs and risks of digital injury, be sure to check out Screen Time in the Mean Time A Parenting Guide to Get Kids and Teens Internet Safe.
The Chive
The Chive’s mission statement is “an outlet for attractive ladies from around the world to strut their stuff.” Although intended to be funny, much of the content on this site demonstrates misogynistic views and a strong prejudice against women.
Google trends reports, The Chive has a 95 IOT from February 21st to 27th 2021.[8] GKIS considers this a red light service due to its raunchy and sexist humor. A study by Brown and L’Engle (2009) reported a significant finding that adolescents exposed to sexual content in media are more likely to engage in sexual harassment two years after watching the activity.[3]
DeviantArt
DeviantArt is an online social community where members share their artwork for critique and to build a fanbase. According to their website, DeviantArt has 55 million users and has a score of 92 IOT from February 21st to 27th 2021.[8] DeviantArt earned a red light GKIS rating because reviews report extremely violent and bloody works of art. Parents also report content involving cursing, insulting, stealing art, fetishes, and nudity on community posts.[4]
4Chan
This highly controversial (and GKIS-rated red light) forum had made headlines because of anonymous users posting nude photographs of dozens of celebrities, including Emma Watson. 4Chan users often endorse sexist ideologies against female gamers like the cyberbullying of Jessi Slaughter and discuss neo-Nazi radicalism.[5] Unlike Reddit, users are not required to form an account. Due to its anonymity, kids can easily participate in R-rated posts undetected and unmonitored.[5]
If you haven’t selected a child-safe browser or set parental controls on devices, through your internet service provider, or through third-party apps and services, you’ll want to check out our Screen Safety Toolkit. We did the research for you with this comprehensive how-to safety resource guide.
Tumblr
In our GKIS article “The GKIS Sensible Parent’s Guide to Tumblr,” we rated this social media platform as a yellow-light app due to sexual images and inappropriate content often displayed on member accounts. With over 30 million users and a score of 83 IOT as of February 14th to 20th 2021, this microblogging social platform is still quite popular.[8]
High-risk content includes self-harm, sexual content, eating disorders, and drugs. There are also reports of sex offenders using the website to incite sexual conversations with children. We stand by our previous decision to recommend parents closely monitor their teen’s activities within the website.
Pornographic Websites (NSFW)
A popular website used for viewing pornographic content like photos, videos, and live streams is PornHub. To learn more about how porn impacts our kids and teens, read our GKIS article “Online Pornography’s Impact on Kids and Teens.” We previously reported that 13% of internet searches are found to access pornography. Due to increased access, that percentage has increased to 20% on the computer and mobile internet browsers.[6]
Fight The New Drug is a non-profit organization trying to reduce porn addiction and set regulations for the porn industry. In 2020, they reported that PornHub’s popular searches were “lesbian,” “teen,” “stepmom,” “mom,” “step-sister,” “hardcore,” “gangbang,” and “rough sex.”[7] Further, the average age for first exposure to hardcore pornography has been estimated to be 11 years old.[7]
GKIS highly recommends that parents add pornography websites onto their restricted website list in parental controls. The website Top Porn Sites can help you block them in child-safe browsers.
Hide it Pro
We would all love to believe that we can trust our kids not to search out, post, and collect inappropriate content online. But sadly, we just can’t. Kids and teens often delight in discovering and sharing titillating and forbidden content and hide it from parents. We cover how to check for apps that hide content in our Screen Safety Toolkit and Dr. B covers it in her coaching sessions on the GetKidsInternetSafe App. To get you started with safety, check all devices for Hide it Pro, a particularly popular hiding app.
Set up content restrictions on tablet and phone devices.
On iOS products, Apple has designated a method for parents to limit adult websites for their safety. Follow these steps:
Go to Settings > Screen Time
Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions and enter your Screen Time passcode
Tap Content Restrictions, then tap Web Content
Choose Limit Adult Websites, and Tap Never Allow: Add Website[9]
In this section, you can add each of the listed above websites to protect your child.
Google has designated parents’ methods to limit adult websites for their child’s safety on Android products. Follow these steps:
Open Settings
Tap Digital Wellbeing
Tap Parental controls > tap Get started
Select Parent
Tap Get Family Link and install Google Family Link for parents
Tap Open (review the information) > tap Get started
Use the on-screen instructions on both phones to finish connecting the two devices. Once it’s all set up, you can use the Family Link app to keep an eye on everything[10]
Thanks to CSUCI intern, Christian Sandoval for locating harmful websites that parents should restrict minors from interacting.
I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.
Onward to More Awesome Parenting,
Tracy S. Bennett, Ph. D.
Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
GetKidsInternetSafe
[3] Brown, J. D., & L’Engle, K. L. (2009). X-rated: Sexual attitudes and behaviors associated with U.s. early adolescents’ exposure to sexually explicit media. Communication Research, 36(1), 129–151.
As a woman, a mother, and a psychologist who treats teens and teaches about addiction and eating disorders, I am profoundly aware of how our media-saturated sexualized world is affecting our kids and teens. From print ads to television to Internet browsing and social media, kids are bombarded with a range of sexualized images and videos that pose real danger to healthy emotional development. The question many parents ask me is “how big of an impact does sexualized media images have on kids?”
Research regarding impact remains unclear and controversial. However, it is clear that parents have a reason to be concerned. In graduate school I watched Jean Kilbourne’s groundbreaking Killing Us Softly series and learned how women’s bodies are objectified in ads. How marketers choose images of vacant-eyed models in need of a roast beef sandwich with extra mayo (and an IQ) posed in powerless positions, body parts lit, made up, and digitally manipulated to achieve an inaccessible fantasy. These images exploit sexuality for profit and strongly impact how we view others and ourselves. As empowered women, we want to be both intelligent and sexy, not somebody’s mindless object.
My proudest work has been mentoring young women to empower themselves and helping young men become insightful, strong partners. This blog is about our responsibility as parents to keep our children emotionally safe, which translates to educating, protecting, and supporting them along the way rather than abandoning them to be exposed to material they are not ready for or that is violent or frightening.
Keeping our kids safe sounds like an easy concept. And it kind of was when our homes provided sanctuary from dangerous others. But now with the Internet and sophisticated hand held devices, dangerous others can be seen and can view and converse with us at the click of a button. The sheer exposure from hours of daily screen time has more impact than ever. The Internet is a portal to real risk. There is no longer a doubt that this generation of children is viewing more explicit sexualized material at greater frequency than any generation before. Raising a child to 20 years old and still having two younger ones at home provides shocking illustration to us! Pretending this is not happening is not a solution. It is our obligation as parents to tackle the issue on several fronts.
CONNECTING with your kids to provide ongoing education through factual, honest dialogue and a fun, trusting relationship,
FILTERING unsafe material from reaching your kids in the first place, and
PROTECTING your awesome, hard-earned connection and filtering throughout their development by transparently and consistently employing a safe and informed strategy that allows Internet exposure in responsible ways at the appropriate developmental stages.
*********
Let’s start the CONNECTION phase with a factual discussion about sex education. Parents get particularly fearful about how to manage sex education. They ask me: when should I start? What should I say? How much should I tell them? This is particularly challenging because as a society, we are chronically conflicted about female sexuality and power. With the simultaneous purity of youth and the seductiveness of Lolita, it is sometimes frightening to know how to talk to our daughters about their sexuality and its effect on others. And frankly we are not much better with our sons. How we can best lead them to healthy maturity?
In regard to formal sexual education, schools vary tremendously on what they teach, and some teach absolutely nothing at all! You may be shocked to know, for example, that only 19 states require sexual education that is medically and technically accurate. Teacher’s hands are tied; parents must provide the formal education (NCSL, par. 4).
Beyond school intervention, how do our kids get information outside the home about sexuality? The Internet.
87.5% of Americans under the age of 25 years old have access to the Internet (US Census Bureau 11).
And news for the naïve, a 2006 college survey of 563 students revealed that 93% reported exposure to Internet pornography before the age of 18, with the first exposure being on average 14 years old (Sabina, Wolak, Finkelhor 2).
That means kids are being exposed to factual information that may be helpful, but also sexual images and video that will leave them with powerful emotions including excitement, embarrassment, disgust, shock, surprise, guilt, or shame (Sabina, Wolak, Finkelhor 3). These feelings can lay an emotional foundation that could shape them in unwanted ways for years to come.
HOW DANGEROUS IS IT FOR MY CHILD TO VIEW PORNOGRAPHY?
Unfortunately, as a treating clinician I have insider information that clearly demonstrates that viewing pornography can be dangerous on many levels. In my experience, this very real risk is reaching epidemic proportions and, despite being a passionate advocate about the resiliency of kids. I’m worried about how this dynamic is affecting the future generations.
In order to inform you in a factual way, I dug deep at the university library on this topic. Because triple-A Internet use (accessible, affordable, anonymous) is a relatively new phenomenon, research is in its infancy on this topic. However, in the upcoming weeks I will cover specific findings about what we do know and how to avoid the following effects from child/teen viewing of Internet pornography:
Self-identity
Relationship with one’s body
Relationship with one’s brain & ability
Emotional well being & safety
Relationship with the other gender
Relationship with intimate partners
Relationship with the community
I will make a deliberate effort to discuss Internet safety in a credible and balanced way. However, when it comes to viewing explicit material prior to sexual maturity, there is no way to think about this without valid alarm. This is a topic that screams for in-home, immediate intervention that starts with supervision and calm, supportive dialogue. Not only must parents filter inappropriate content from young children, but they must also acknowledge that older children will be exposed to this content and must have the education and resources to deal with it before and when they do. GetKidsInternetSafe.com was created to help.
This week I invite you to assess two things: your child’s current Internet access and your feelings about pornography and how you would begin to educate your children about its role in society.
It’s important to be calmly aware of your opinions about Internet pornography BEFORE you approach your child with an age-appropriate, non-shaming discussion. Start by being thoughtful about your own feelings and opinions now.
In the next blog, I will give you specific ideas about how you can broach the topic of sexuality with your child in a way that’s developmentally appropriate. The goal is to empower them! Avoid shame and fear.
As I was writing this, my twelve year-old daughter wandered into the kitchen to ask what I was writing about. I told her I was concerned about the sexualized images young girls are exposed to in the media, and I asked her how she thinks it is affecting her. She responded, “It makes me want to better than that. To be stronger.” And then she flounced back out of the kitchen. Haha! That’s my girl!
Share your concerns and special knowledge and don’t forget to forward GetKidsInternetSafe.com to friends and family. I’d also love to hear from you on the social media links below!
I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetYourKidsInternetSafe.
Jean Kilbourne tells us the Internet is a powerful vehicle for dehumanizing women in this Killing Us Softly trailer
Works Cited
“Computer and Internet Use in the United States.” United States Census Bureau, May 2013. Web.
Sabina, Chiara, Janis Wolak, and David Finkelhor. “The Nature and Dynamic of Internet Pornography Exposure for Youth.” Cyber Psychology and Behavior (2008): n. pag. Web.
“State Policies on Sex Education in Schools.” State Policies on Sex Education in Schools. National Conference of State Legislators, 14 Feb. 2014. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.
