Deola Kayode
Titi has a smashing body and she knows it. So, every time her boyfriend told her to send her nude picture to him, she always felt a sense of self worship and always obliged. However, the ‘wan-tin-tin’ love didn’t last forever. She caught him cheating, the love turned bitter, she broke up with him even after a lot of pressure and pleading by her boyfriend.
But what happened to her pictures? Well, it later appeared online as revenge porn. Nude ‘selfies’ — pictures and videos — are on the rise.
Err… what is a selfie?
Ewww… ok, I’ll help you. Every time you attempt to take a video or picture of yourself, you are taking a ‘selfie.’ It was named the Oxford Dictionary’s most popular new English word for 2013. It reached a new popularity height when a high profile trio — the Danish Prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt; British Prime minister, David Cameron; and U.S. President Barack Obama were photographed taking a ‘group selfie’ during the funeral of former South African President, Nelson Mandela. However, the underworld of pornography has its own popular trends — revenge porn, sexting, cyber-luring, with some men and women unknowingly participating in live porn shows. The list and the victims are becoming endless.
You just wondered what ‘sexting’ means again. You may be seriously old school. If your child, friend, or colleague are protecting their phones, they may be more exposed than you think. Sexting is the act of sending sexually explicit messages, photographs and videos between mobile phones — either between two people or one too many broadcasts.
Rising amateur pornography
With the emergence of camera phones, it is now easy to create and share texts, media messages, photos and videos and at the click of a button, you can share it with the world. It is happening in private sexting messages between couples — married and unmarried; and sexual predators are luring teens to share personal and intimate sexual images and videos. Many gullible youths succumb, without imagining possible future consequences.
Remember, a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that a young girl asked me if she could send her nude pix to her Facebook ‘boyfriend’ in the U.S. She was a JSS3 student.
This has become rampant for a number of reasons: technology has made everyone an amateur cameraman; worse still, young people are more likely to act impulsively, especially when deceived into taking actions that might have future consequences. Some have sent sexting selfies to someone they trusted, only for the person to pass them round until they end up on the internet.
Never share or record what you can’t publish
Especially with teens and young people generally, harmless fun can translate into eternal regret. If photos and videos you share get online, it will still be searchable by the time you are looking for your first job, when you become a star, governor or CEO. If you hope to achieve any of these significant achievements, be careful what you record for posterity. Don’t share photos that could embarrass you, your partner or your children, even in 10 or 20 years’ time. If you will be embarrassed if your sex scene, naked bath or toilet photos are out, then don’t share them.
By sharing a picture with someone, you are essentially telling them that you completely trust them with your most intimate secrets. If you cannot look into the eyes of your partner and tell him/her about it, then I suggest you keep the pictures in your memories. If you must film anything — and I don’t want to spoil your fun — have a device dedicated for it. If you must share anything, please delete immediately.
You are never 100% in control of the contents
You may think the person you are sharing it with will not betray you and that you are 100 per cent in control of the images and videos you record. But then, what happens if your phone gets stolen? What if you took the laptop for repairs and forgot to remove the photos? What if you wanted to share the picture on Twitter, Facebook and Blackberry and a glitch in the system made it a broadcast? Impossible? It’s happened before.
The Internet is replete with stories of several people who made the headlines as a result of this development. Imagine if social media and its tools are one huge cocktail event. Never share the things you do not want to be published.
No secret arrangement with someone you met online
I have heard and celebrated stories of people who met online and eventually got married. However, there are thousands of others whose sad stories never made it into the news. Silent and unreported cases of rape, robbery and kidnaps abound and the people involved are suffering for it. Some people you chat with may have a sexy picture of a 16-year-old lady while they are actually 40-year-old smart dudes hoping to exploit your body and money.
Even if you are to arrange a meeting, let someone know about it or, better still, don’t go alone. You can be there earlier or later than the agreed time and keep your eyes peeled to spot mischief.
Those videos and pictures can haunt you
Experienced predators can easily track where you live. This is because most smart phone users are unaware that their devices use GPS location services to upload pictures, power maps, driving directions, phone locators, and other handy apps, but not everyone is aware that the same technology may pose a risk to their safety and privacy by recording precise geographical information of where and when the pictures were taken. This feature is called ‘geotagging.’
A Burger King employee was arrested last year for taking a ‘selfie’ showing himself standing with shoes on a container of shredded lettuce, with the comment, “This is the lettuce you eat at Burger King.” The picture located him. So, if you are a young, single or married person and you think you are out of reach when seducing someone secretly online, you may be wrong. Those pictures can be fed into a map and voila, the picture of your house, office or school is in the hand of that individual.
When uploading pictures, you can check their document properties and geo-tagging settings as well as the privacy settings on Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest and Instagram; especially at a time when most of these platforms are having challenges with security.
Social media and technology are shifting business and social culture. It is a new ‘country’ and we must be aware of the advantages and implications of abusing the freedom to publish.
Copyright PUNCH
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