Pornography, The Wide Web, and Social Media

We've heard it thousands of times before. “Porn is a danger to our society!” Why then, is it still allowed to flow through our social media apps and web browsers that not only our children can access with ease, but also the adults of our society? Yes, the adults. I believe porn in general truly does pose a threat to our societies and communities, including the adult portions through desensitization, the dangerously excessive release of dopamine, the links between porn use and anxiety/depression, addiction and more. Of course, the simple act of masturbation can be seen as healthy, but are there any beneficial impacts of pornography? Sure, it may help one to discover their sexual side, especially in adolescence, but with the excessive release of dopamine, it can easily leave one to go too far. I believe this is where pornography first becomes a danger. There's no warning signs on pornsites for the men, women and youth of our country explaining to them that this sexually explicit website they are about to enter could lead them down a significant rabbit hole of addiction, erectile dysfunction and/or trouble. That while they're on this sexual journey of self-discovery, they could fall into this trap with ease. You see, it is well known that porn desensitizes one’s mind to explicit imagery and activity. This leads to the danger of them seeking more and more graphic or new imagery. Some even go too far and end up down the rabbit hole of child pornography, videos of rape, incest, beastiality and more. Yes, I've said what I said and sadly, it is the truth. I myself have looked into and read up on these cases and this is why I believe that pornography truly poses a threat to our society that simply isn't taken seriously enough across the web. To make matters worse, illegal pornographic content is quite easily accessed through the rabbit holes of social media algorithms on very commonly and very easily accessed apps. While these social media apps do not condone such content, many of the users on these apps manage to find loopholes. Postings of videos of children in bathing suits, videos of dance competitions, videos of youth cheer teams and certainly more will lead to more near-explicit videos of the youth through the system of the “algorithm”. For those unaware of the system of the algorithm, it is a system that takes in what you have seen, pursued via the browser, or interacted with on these apps and pushes similar content to your device, sometimes even pushing more graphic and distasteful content than that which you had previously viewed. Those who have fallen susceptible to desensitization or have found themselves addicted to porn and now seek more and more graphic content are able to use this algorithm to find such videos. This is true for both YouTube as well as Instagram and could even be true for other apps. Although I haven't found this next part to be true for YouTube in my own personal investigations, many comments on videos posted by the youth of Instagram have even been known to contain links to another app known as “Telegram”. These links lead to direct conversations with those who offer to sell videos of child pornography, rape, incest, bestiality and more. As baffling and unfortunate as this is, this is all happening right on our very own social media apps on a daily and nightly basis. Apps that men, women and even children use everyday. Many people have even been convicted and admitted to using these means to gain access to such content. How can this be stopped? Does it require the banning of all pornography? Should the system of the algorithm be removed to put a stop to this access for those who would seek it out? To not only put a stop to those deliberately seeking it out, but also prevent people from accidentally stumbling across the aforementioned links? Should safe-guards be put in place to prevent these algorithms from turning our social media apps into a pornographic rabbithole? The purpose of this writing and my investigations across the internet and multiple social media apps is to not only draw out these questions, but also the answers.

Now, not only does pornography hold a grip on our society through social media apps, but as mentioned before, the danger is in fact widely seeded in our web browsers. There are even websites, such as “candidgirls.io”, filled with communities of people that share what are known as “creepshots”. These sexually-suggestive candid videos and photos are of unsuspecting women in public areas. Each of these posts are in fact praised and those who posted the content to the website find themselves congratulated by the other members of the site. Tips on how to successfully snap these "creepshots" without being caught and what public places to take them at are even passed around on a daily basis amongst the members of this website. This website and its contents have been reported multiple times, yet the website remains. Even popular porn sites such as Pornhub and many more are known to be home to these types of videos and photos. Those who take these photos and record such videos have even been bold enough to stealthily work cameras under women's skirts and/or dresses. On popular porn sites, these types of videos even have their own category known as “Upskirts”. Is this something to be condoned? I believe not, yet it all persists and is widely normalized across the pornographic side of the internet. Lust and sexual temptation are indeed normal, but at what point do these normalities become abnormalities? At what point are people expected to be able to tell the difference between right and wrong/normal and abnormal when the devices they carry normalize and expose them to all of this content every day? When they are exposed to it and it is normalized to them at any age? Even children are able to gain access to the dark side of the internet known as pornography and can delve too deep. At highly impressionable ages, the youth can find such distasteful content and online communities and find themselves in trouble for falling too deep into the rabbit hole of pornography. They can find themselves addicted at these impressionable ages and grow to find themselves caught up in the consequences. They can wind up desensitized and find themselves all too easily on the condemning and illegal sides of the pornographic world. We as a society hold the power and responsibility of closing this rabbit hole so that lives do not continue to be ruined by the jaws of the pornographic world.