Nightmarish revelations of torture suffered by a 12-year-old girl in Sepolia (Kolonos) bring to the fore the dark side of online dating apps and the role they play in misleading minors.
Blindchat.gr is an online platform for anonymous chatting with men and women from all over Greece. On her 53 year old rapist created a profile with materials of a minor and led himself on “her behalf”.
The offender, through a special application on the Internet, created a profile in which he posted photos of the girl. Just think about it! He received 213 phone calls from interested parties, potential rapists. The arrested 43-year-old man was also one of her “executioners” and was registered on her mobile phone as a “client”.
Application on the Internet
According to ERT, Blindchat.gr was created 9 years ago, in 2013, with the aim of providing blind dating services to those who want to meet other people without revealing their full identity. It is an online platform for anonymous communication with men and women from all over Greece.
Application in question ensures user anonymity, giving those who chat the ability to exchange information without knowing who is “on the other side”. According to the site, you can also make a video call here if the interlocutors want it.
Registration and account creation are optional. When entering the home page, users can choose whether they want to talk to men or women, and then indicate your preferences regarding the location and age of your interlocutors.
Although the application does not require registration, the Blindchat account offers users features that can add their chat partners to their friends list and use services that allow them to find people from recent conversations.
Concerning to ensure safety and prevent unpleasant incidents, it is possible to report the interlocutor if it is believed that the latter was offensive or lied about gender and intended to deceive. The application studies the user’s behavior and, if necessary, blocks his access to Blindchat.
The application itself states that it intended exclusively for adults. However, the presence of a 12-year-old in the chat room and the platform’s transformation into a vehicle for the heinous act of rape suggests otherwise.
The anonymity offered by online dating encourages deception of users, especially minors. The presence of minors in an online community comes with several risks, especially given that this remains an environment that lacks strict parental controls.
Parents of children belong to another generation and remain technically illiterate. Such applications have flooded the Internet and are often used to cover their tracks, but this does not lead us to the other extreme and the “demonization” of technology. Technology in itself is not a means of seducing minors, but can easily be turned into a tool that serves the purposes of criminals..
Sudden change in children’s behavior is an important sign that the child is not in a normal mental state. Another factor is the profile of attackers. Pedophiles do not have any special characteristic, a noticeable feature that clearly distinguishes them from ordinary citizens. Many times they are people “above all suspicion”.
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