Kids’ depravity a call to action in wake of schoolyard porn scandal

The harsh reality is that our children are in strife and something must be done to save them. They need to be taught respect – for others and themselves, writes associate editor Kylie Lang.

If nothing is done we could end up with a generation of degenerates.

Little has disturbed me more in my many years of journalism than the demise of our kids.

If we don’t take immediate action, I fear we’ll be stuck with a generation of degenerates.

The deeply perverted imagery that is being so carelessly shared on social media points to young minds so badly bent out of shape that I truly worry about the adults they will become.

Their moral compass is smashed.

In the blink of a decade, these children will be working among us in a range of jobs, if they’re not on welfare or in jail which our taxes will be funding.

Many will go on to produce offspring, and I also dread to think what kind of partners they will become – and the impact on already dire statistics on domestic and family violence.

The twisted sexual nature of the content they’re sharing and deliberately searching for on the dark web is horrific.

I’m talking about a young boy appearing to have anal sex with a female, a vagina with a kitchen knife inserted and various other violent iterations of genitalia and sexual acts.

These and other images were posted on Snapchat by some of the children at Good Shepherd Lutheran College last year and remained online until this week when this newspaper broke the story.

Good Shepherd was made aware of the potentially illegal material by a parent in February but it was not reported to police until May.

One boy has been charged with one count of use of carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence.

The Noosaville college is not alone in grappling with the ills of social media and unfettered internet access – the corruption of young minds is happening across the board in independent, religious and state schools.

Cybersafety expert Susan McLean

Thankfully, not all kids are participants and some will shun these dangers but peer pressure is immense.

Too many educators are sticking their heads in the sand, wishing such issues would just go away.

They’d rather protect their school’s image than face the ugly truth.

Others who try to tackle the problem can be stonewalled by parents who think their kids – and by extension, themselves – are blameless.

Many parents wouldn’t have a clue what their children are doing at night in their bedrooms and they’re too busy or apathetic to bother investigating.

Besides, ignorance is bliss, right?

The harsh reality is that our children are in strife and something must be done to save them.

They need to be taught respect – for others and themselves – instead of being left to freewheel in this social media quagmire.

Cyber-security expert Susan McLean contacted me this week after reading about Good Shepherd Lutheran College.

McLean brings 27 years’ experience as a police officer to her current work with schools across Australia and says the age of kids sharing explicit material is getting younger and the imagery much worse.

“The level of depravity is something I have never seen before – it’s just revolting – bestiality, eight year olds being raped,” she says. “It’s not popping up on their Instagram feeds – they are seeking it out on the dark web.”

McLean says parents are a big part of the problem.

“They just say to the school, it’s a boy thing, nothing to see here, and no, I’m not going to get them professional help, take away their devices or allow you to discipline them.

“But I always say, if you bail them out while in school, you will bail them out at the police station later.”

McLean says principals should also toughen up and expel kids who share illicit material and endanger others.

“The right of one to remain does not outweigh the rights of the rest of the community to be safe, and a school has a duty of care, if they allow those kids to remain, the school will lurch from one disaster to another.

“Until such time as we inconvenience parents (by forcing them to have to move schools) then nothing will change.”

McLean says AI apps that allow people to create nude images should be banned, as has happened in England, to lessen the problem by putting in place “a protective barrier”.

Social media platforms need to use their own AI to detect the sharing of explicit content and remove it – before it gets published.

Importantly, she says we all have “a social responsibility” to report it.

If not, we are enablers. I couldn’t agree more.

Kylie Lang is Associate Editor of The Courier-Mail

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