This is an interesting article about the use of Kik by predators.
The site authorities say Madelyn Allen's suspected kidnapper used has been popular among men charged with sexual abuse
The man accused of kidnapping and raping student Madelyn Allen met her through the messaging platform Kik,
according to the indictment obtained by Insider.
Kik is an anonymous platform that has been used by predators in the past to contact young victims and
exchange explicit images.
Forbes reported it had a "huge child exploitation problem" in 2017 due to users' anonymity and the platform's lack of action in deleting offenders' profiles.
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In 2018,
a BBC investigation found that Kik had been involved in 1,100 child sexual abuse cases in the previous five years.
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In February, a convicted pedophile used the app to upload footage of himself abusing a child,
the Daily Mail reported. Lewis Tupper, a 25-year-old man from West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom, was sentenced to 10 years in jail for uploading videos and photos of him molesting an underage girl.
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The same platform where investigators said Brown and Allen met was also used by Nathan Larson, a self-professed pedophile and white supremacist
whom authorities said kidnapped a 12-year-old girl in December 2020.
Larson, who
had advocated for legalizing child *advertiser censored*, was charged with kidnapping, child abduction, soliciting child *advertiser censored* from a minor, and meeting a child for the intention of sex, among other things.
More at link
