Warn children of dark social media

Ag ASP Michael Seales, President of the Police Service Social and Welfare Association.
Ag ASP Michael Seales, President of the Police Service Social and Welfare Association.

PRESIDENT of the Police Social and Welfare Association (PSWA) Ag ASP Michael Seales has called on parents and guardians to teach and warn their children about the the darker side of social media, one where gang members and sexual predators use this platform to lure children.
Seales was speaking to 76 students who received spectacles from the Rapidfire Kidz Foundation and Nu Iron Unlimited at Couva over the weekend. He told them now that they can see better, not to spend all their time on social media.

While it is used by billions to communicate and while there are many advantages to it, social media also have a lot of disadvantages, as he referred to its “dark side.”

“I want to tell you, it’s better to pick up a book than to get caught up in the web of social media,” Seales said. He told the recipients, from the Freeport Hindu and Freeport Presbyterian schools, who were accompanied by their parents, that gangs are using social media to recruit members and drug dealers to recruit drug mules.

With the new glasses, since they would be able to see and read more easily, he said, they would be more inclined to join and spend more time on social media. “Almost every day we are seeing videos being circulated with gang members showing off guns, gold jewellery and women. Gangs are using these videos on social media to entice young men to join the gangs.”

He appealed to parents to monitor what their children were accessing on social media as this lifestyle was being glorified on that platform. He gave an example of a 15-year-old girl who was held with drugs at Piarco Airport, who said she had been recruited through social media to transport drugs overseas.

“Criminals are monitoring people’s profiles on things like Facebook and Instagram, searching for victims to commit various crimes, and victims to prey upon.”

He warned sexual predators were creating fake social media profiles to befriend children and sexually groom them.

The presentation of the glasses was part of the Eyes Right Project. Rapidfire Kids Foundation president Kevin Ratiram said the 76 pairs presented on Saturday brought the 693 pairs of glasses donated under the project.

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"Warn children of dark social media"

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