{"id":25398,"date":"2013-06-04T14:40:08","date_gmt":"2013-06-04T21:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.mcafee.com\/?p=25398"},"modified":"2025-08-28T00:17:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T07:17:14","slug":"danger-of-instagram-and-kik","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/family-safety\/danger-of-instagram-and-kik\/","title":{"rendered":"Picture to Pedophile: The Danger of Instagram and Kik Messenger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes it might feel overwhelming to keep up with the latest social trend for your kids, but it\u2019s important to be up to date and in the know.<\/p>\n

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Although we\u2019ll be using a specific example today, this could happen using most any social network. In this particular example Instagram, a photo sharing social network and Kik Messenger, a messaging social app. The issue is that, like many social networks, it\u2019s easy to follow a user from one to the other, either through integration, friend requests, or similar user names. In this case it involved a young teenager and a possible pedophile.<\/p>\n

This man, Michael Sheehan<\/a>, also known as HighTech Dad, had such incident occur to one of his daughter\u2019s friends. Many teens post images to Instagram everyday, using simple editing tools such as filters to give photos an \u201cartsy\u201d feel. Sometimes photos are of places they\u2019ve been, things they want, food they\u2019re eating, and sometimes of themselves. The problem here is that the photos are very publicly available and assignewd to your user account (usually linked to Facebook in most cases). In\u00a0Michael\u00a0Sheehan\u2019s case, a user asked to add his daughter\u2019s friend on Kik messenger via Instagram, once the two were connected via Kik messenger, the user asked to see the girl\u2019s privates.<\/p>\n

The fine line is in privacy, how private is a social network. Most are very public, like Facebook, Instagram comments are public, probably even more so arguably. Kik messenger chats, on the other hand, are not, and this is where the danger lies.<\/p>\n

The situation becomes very, shockingly clear when you think about the timeline and conditions of events. This teenage girl went from posting non-sexual, innocent photos of herself on Instagram and was solicited by a pedophile and engaged by one as well. It\u2019s every parent\u2019s nightmare, sexual predators reaching out to their children, but have no fear, you can be a very good line of defense for your children against this.<\/p>\n

Tips on Using Social Media<\/h2>\n

Here are some tips regarding Instagram and Kik, and other similar sites\/apps:<\/p>\n