“If you have teenagers, beware of this site where there is a bunch of perverts and pedo-criminals”, alert on X (formerly Twitter) a mother. Like her, many parents are protesting against the dating-ados.net site, which offers exchanges between young people aged 13 to 25. If the gap already seems significant, some profiles of mature men do not hesitate to lie about their age to chat with very young women and ask them for sexual favors.
When registering, no age or identity verification is required, which allows anyone to create an account on the site. “I have just made a profile without a photo with the only information ’13-year-old girl’ and I have dozens of adults with hyper-suggestive nicknames who send me messages in a few minutes”, is offended by a surfer on X Same observation for another mother who hid behind a profile of a thirteen-year-old girl, who received “8 friend requests and five messages within half an hour”. “I want violence,” she says, angry.
Other parents make more macabre discoveries, with “men who offer priced rape to children”. Lilly, mother of three children, thus displays on X one of the profiles she has come across on the platform: “I am a man who is looking for real sex discreetly, I pay if necessary [sic], 150th negotiable but total discretion requested, thank you.”
These examples are unfortunately far from the only ones on this platform, created seventeen years ago. In November 2021, Le Figaro carried out a survey there with a profile of a thirteen-year-old girl. The finding was already clear, with dozens of messages from men over 30 in just a few minutes. At that time, the Belgian founder, Thomas Mester, explained that with his 2000 euros in monthly advertising revenue, it was impossible for him to hire full-time moderators. “If a problem is going to happen, it will happen, whether it’s on the streets or on other sites. Parents are right to worry that their children may come into contact with pedophiles,” he admitted disconcertingly.
Despite the multiple alerts against the site, it is still accessible online, but also on mobile phones. An application reserved for people over 18 is offered in the Google Play Store and therefore available on all Android phones. In the comments, some users warn of the presence of “sexual predators and pedophiles” while others complain of “having too many advertisements”.
On the government side, this site is well known to investigators from Pharos, the platform for reporting illegal content online. Since the creation of encounter-ados.net, they have received “409 reports, including 129 in the last 24 hours, spread over 141 files (each file grouping the reports made on a single natural or legal person for the same facts)” , specifies in Figaro the ministry of the Interior.
“When the report concerns the site itself, and while we understand the emotion that the activity of this site can generate, there is nothing illegal in the fact of allowing people to ‘exchange, regardless of the age of the persons concerned, completes the ministry, reporting [only] the site will therefore have no effect’. It is thus necessary to report directly the users who would have reprehensible behavior, but who are generally difficult to locate.
In addition to the Pharos platform, the executive promises other actions, as assured this Tuesday morning on franceinfo by the Secretary of State for Children, Charlotte Caubel: “We have several ways to respond: […] regulate, limit, verify age, make platforms accountable. It is a fight that we lead […] we lead it for the pornographic sites. “Age control, for both children and adults, is essential. Technology has to advance. […] it is a priority,” she added. And to clarify: “The objective is not to ban certain sites because we know very well that this will lead children and teenagers and adults to go to others. The goal is to regulate.
“We are still facing the same difficulty,” laments Le Figaro Justine Atlan, general manager of the e-Enfance association. These alerts “are proof that we must find a way to verify majority or age to offer children the protection they deserve”. Problem, “adults still refuse to prove their majority on the Internet” so the legal arsenal “cannot be put in place and we are going around in circles”, regrets Justine Atlan. If, today, “young people have more self-protection reflexes”, we “must not lower our vigilance and continue prevention with new adolescents”.
