Predators in the fishtank
Predators in the fishtank
Online grooming and the debate on social media bans
There are many things I could have talked to you about this week, dear readers—the routing of the ALP (and, it appears, the Greens) in the Queensland state election; the kerfuffle about Albo’s free Qantas upgrades (nota bene: non-pollie frequent flyers get them too on occasion); price gouging by supermarkets and ticket sellers; or power issues in Broken Hill (and not, for the moment, of the political kind). And of course the US presidential election—but there will be plenty of time for that next week.
But no, I chose this. The proposed Australian ban on social media for children under 14 has been debated in various places, and not a great deal that is conclusive has come out of it except a dominant albeit not unanimous view that it won’t work and/or won’t be helpful. The reasons given for this opinion are various and are in themselves evidence of the complexity and difficulty of this debate. I myself am still pondering it and so have been reluctant to write about it. However, news of a horrific case of so-called catfishing in Northern Ireland, along with a NSW parliamentary inquiry about the impact of pornography, drags me, protesting, back to my keyboard now. Warning: some of what you are about to read is harrowing and distressing. Much as I try to inject a little humour, it’s tough reading.
The term “catfishing” is itself confusing because the “catfish” in question is actually the sexual predator, which grammatically would mean that the catfish fishes himself. Or alternatively, that there is a particular type of “fishing” that catfish do, which would rather distort the accepted meaning of “fishing”. The term apparently derives from a 2010 documentary on the practice, in which reference is made to early-20th century accounts of catfish being shipped in tanks with cod. The “impostor” catfish, who are apparently natural predators of cod (depending on which catfish we are talking about), are said to keep the cod on their toes—er, fins—preventing them from becoming pale and lethargic during the journey. Which would logically mean that the girls being “catfished” online are metaphorical cod: a threatened species as it were, like their real-fish counterparts. Although, sadly, not as alert to the dangers as their real-fish counterparts when swimming around in a social-media tank with the predators. Anyway, moving on….
The McCartney case
Alexander McCartney’s case is disturbing for a multitude of reasons, the first being the sheer enormity of the crime. Creating online personae of teenage girls, and using Snapchat in particular, he targeted girls aged between 10 and 16: an estimated 3,500 girls in some 30 countries around the world fell victim to his grooming (although his trial focused on 70 of them). He convinced the girls to send intimate photos and then used those photos as blackmail, using threats of publication of the images to demand more and more sexually explicit material from them, including involvement of younger siblings or bestiality practices with pets. The second reason it was disturbing in that he was targeting lesbians or girls exploring their sexuality with other girls, which of course made it easier for him to sexualise the conversations quickly without triggering distrust in the first instance. The third reason it is disturbing is that he did his catfishing, using some 64 different devices, from his bedroom in his rural family home outside Newry, that is, the home he shared with his parents. He was 16 years old when he started in 2013, thus “a ‘child himself’ when he ‘began his journey as a predator’”, as a former head of the UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, Jim Gamble, put it (cited in The Irish Times). He was discovered in 2018, after a 13-year-old Scottish girl contacted the police. The investigation continued over the following year, with McCartney evading bail conditions and continuing to stalk girls until 2019. Questions have been raised about the time it took to complete the investigation and begin criminal proceedings.
I have tried to find information—any information at all—about McCartney’s family but have found none. That his parents, and the parents of all the girls he abused, had no idea what was going on in their homes, with their children, is sobering to say the least.
One of those girls was Cimarron Thomas, who lived in West Virginia, USA. She ended up committing suicide with her parents’ gun in 2018, at the age of 12, after McCartney put pressure on her to involve her 9-year-old sister, using the same kinds of threats as he had used on other girls. It was the sister who found her. Why on earth their daughters had access to firearms is something only Cimarron’s parents can answer: it is no doubt unsurprising that her father, Bill Thomas, also suicided 18 months later. The guilt at first, not having a clue what was going on and second, leaving his gun where his daughter could get hold of it, was surely unbearable. I can only begin to imagine the weight of McCartney’s parents’ guilt and pain.
Among McCartney’s multiple sentences was a manslaughter conviction for Cimarron Thomas’s death. This is believed to be a world first: a manslaughter conviction for the death of someone the perpetrator has never physically met.
I told you this would be tough reading.
Meanwhile, in NSW
The Standing Committee on social issues of the NSW upper house is currently conducting an inquiry into the “impacts of harmful pornography on mental, emotional and physical health” (my emphasis: as if there were salutary or innocuous pornography with which the harmful version can be compared). What in tarnation is the demarcation line between harmful pornography and pornography of the sweet and nurturing kind? What possible examples can one find of the latter?
This question of course brings us back to the old, old, old debate about what is “pornography” (baaad) and what is “erotica” (lurrvly). I am not going to rehearse all of those arguments here but will say two things. First, I detest the word “erotica”; many feminists claim it is simply a euphemism for porn, a view for which I have some sympathy. That said—and this is my second point—the demarcation line I draw between porn and other sexually explicit material is that the former exists solely for the purpose of sexually objectifying some human beings (usually women, girls and young men and boys) for the sexual and more often than not sadistic gratification of other human beings (almost always men). Hence, my puzzlement at the idea that there is a difference between “harmful” pornography and some other kind that is perfectly fine.
Submissions to this NSW inquiry are about to close but individuals can still fill in an online questionnaire (available at the above link) until 31 January 2025.
The porn inquiry segues into the discussion of the proposed social media ban, by begging the following question: Why, in countries where child pornography is illegal (such as the UK and Australia, as it happens), is it allowed to continue relatively unfettered, with the children themselves being so easily groomed into producing it? Is the federal government’s proposed ban the best way to apply fetters?
The term “grooming” is another one of those peculiar terms and much-misused these days. In the US, a group called Gays Against Groomers (GAG), which at first glance appears to be doing some good work on the transing of children, has clear links to the political right and broadcasts support for Donald Trump. (In passing: I am aghast at the increasing numbers of feminist and/or gender-critical women I am interacting with who are also throwing their support behind Trump. Next blog, readers, next blog.) GAG’s founder Jaimee Michel proudly advertises herself on Instagram as the “OG [original] right-wing lesbian” and as a “patriot”. When the UK organisation LGB Alliance set up a helpline for young lesbian, gay and bisexual people, informed by appropriate professional checks and balances, gender critical activist of Let Women Speak fame, Kellie Jay Keen, pounced upon it as an example of “grooming”. Well, no, Kellie Jay. It isn’t.
Grooming is defined by everyone working in the area of sexual abuse of minors (in which I include prostitution and pornography) as the process by which abusers establish emotional connections with said minors in order to lower their inhibitions and induct them into patterns of abuse. Its use developed within US law enforcement but did not become routinely used there until the 1990s.1 I know the term has been picked up by critics of genderism, in the same ways GAG uses it, but not every instance of child abuse is grooming as such. (Nor, for that matter, is every instance of Drag Queen Story Time, irritating as I find the phenomenon.) I fear the term is being voided of the meaning that it developed in relation to sexual abuse of young people (particularly albeit not solely women and girls). We need to be less lazy with language.
(Anti)social media?
Multiple objections have been raised to the federal government’s proposal to ban social media for under 14s, the most plausible one being that it simply won’t work. For a start, everything that children can find on social media can also be found across the Internet; if parents do not invest in child protection controls, children can be exposed to all sorts of non-age-appropriate things online. Even if the internet more generally does not provide the personalised interactive platform that social media do, it is hardly a completely “safe” place for children to roam about in.
Objectors to the ban foreground in particular the difficulty of assessing risk accurately and meaningfully for all, in all circumstances, and the need for better digital literacy education for young people (and their parents). Without such an educative focus, I fear a ban on under 14s using social media has the potential for exposing digitally illiterate teenagers to the perils of social media at precisely the age where they are wanting to engage in risk-taking behaviours.
Other objectors foreground the potential mental health benefits for some groups of young people in having access to social media: a group of Australian mental health peaks opposes the ban and makes alternative recommendations. I suspect the mental health benefits are overstated though: parents I have spoken with see little happening to kids on social media apart from exposure to porn, bullying, targeted advertising, catfishing and increased social isolation. As one of them commented: “social media is designed to suck you in, make you addicted, make you feel inadequate, gather data about you and sell you stuff”. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare cites research that shows social media can be positive in some circumstances and for some people, negative in others. Other research I have looked at provides similarly inconclusive results. We also know that one instance of indoctrination of children on social media (into genderist ideology) is currently framed as a health benefit.
But in all these conversations, the focus does not appear to be centrally on the need for more stringent regulations to be applied to the main perp: the social media platforms themselves. The topic is mentioned but most of the discussion centres on children, their parents and educational institutions. Of course, the protection of the privacy of users, including minors who also have privacy rights, needs to be balanced with the requirement that platforms do not allow dissemination of illegal material (such as child porn).
The European Union’s (EU’s) Digital Services Act (DSA) provides some interesting approaches to regulating social media and in particular how they are used by minors or how they target minors. It includes a ban on advertising that targets minors, foolproof (we hope) age verification and privacy settings for minors, and a whistleblowing mechanism to hold providers to account. The DSA has only come into force this year; it will be interesting to see how it works and how well it is applied. It does, however, contain some interesting ideas that Australia could pick up. The idea of a ban for under-14s is definitely appealing and I know many mothers support it. But on its own, it is simply not enough. I do wish our current government were a little less timid. We need bold moves, we need complacencies to be shaken up, especially those of big business, which includes social media platforms.
I continue to ponder the question…
Former FBI agent Kenneth Lanning traces the development of the concept and terminology in a 2018 article in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260517742