Intended for 13-25 year olds, the Rencontre adolescent platform offers young people the opportunity to meet people. But it mainly welcomes sexual predators and pedophiles, in search of young defenseless prey…

Intended for 13-25 year olds, the Rencontre adolescent platform offers young people the opportunity to meet people. But it mainly welcomes sexual predators and pedophiles, in search of young defenseless prey…

Teenagers love social networks, whether it’s to keep in touch with their friends, share their passions, follow their idols, meet new people or simply have fun. But if parents generally know Facebook, TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat, some networks escape their vigilance as well as that of the authorities. This is the case of platforms like Omegle, Bigo or Coco, which put strangers in contact so that they can exchange with each other and harbor many sex offenders and pedophiles (see our article). But they are not the only ones! Attracting more and more minors, Discord has become a real hunting ground for pedophiles who use the platform to track victims and exchange child pornography content.

Lately, a platform called Teen Dating has been in the spotlight, and not for good reasons. Created in 2006 and derived as an Android application in 2022, it offers young people between the ages of 13 and 25 the opportunity to chat privately according to the people closest to them. The concept is already problematic, because of the age range: realize, some are in college, while others are already well integrated into working life! The difference in age and maturity is simply enormous! Because if Teen Dating attracts teenagers looking for social interactions, it is also very popular with people who are much less caring. A problem highlighted for years, but in vain…

Teen dating: a hunting ground for pedophiles and scavengers

To register on the platform, all you have to do is enter your first name, email address and date of birth. No verification is carried out, everything is only declarative. You can then add a photo, personalize your profile by answering a questionnaire – romantic situation, sexual orientation, physical description, religion, relationship to alcohol and tobacco… – and add a short description. Then, all you have to do is become friends with other users and start the discussion. The homepage of the site is made up of a news feed, which allows you to see who is friends with whom, likes, new photos of members, as well as new subscribers and the latest topics on the forum. The latter also very often addresses topics around sex.

We wanted to test Teen Dating by pretending to be Emilie, 13, a little shy and looking for friends. No need for a profile picture, ten minutes were enough for us to be overwhelmed by friend requests and dozens of private messages (PMs) – only from men – and without having to do anything. Officially, our interlocutors are, for the most part, between 17 and 25 years old. Conversations start innocently, asking us how we are doing, what we are doing, etc. But, very quickly, we are asked what we are looking for on the site. And there, the conversations get out of hand. We are told bluntly looking for a girlfriend or relations “no matter the age” – remember that most of our interlocutors are adults, and that we are officially only 13 years old! – or we are asked to chat on other platforms, like Snapchat, Instagram or Discord. A way to get down to “serious business” in order to send and receive photos and videos, which is not possible on Teen Dating. Some don’t bother with foreplay and go straight to the heart of the matter – special mention to “Feetlover”, very interested in “beautiful feet, especially when they are small like yours”.

And we are far from being an isolated or unlucky case! Many users testified about X – the new name of Twitter, nothing to do with pornography. This is the case of Angélique, who created an account on Teen Encounter, after hearing about it from a friend and her daughter. She quickly realizes that the people who contact her are not really teenagers, but men with predatory behavior, including one who tells her bluntly not to be “only interested in younger girls.” A other user shares the profile of a man, whose description reads: “I pay if necessary. 150 euros negotiable but total discretion requested, thank you”. Yes, we are clearly on prostitution.

Teen dating: users are sounding the alarm on the Play Store

However, the reputation of Teen Encounter is not concealed. When you go to the application page on the Play Store, many reviews report bug problems, but above all the presence of sexual predators on the platform. “Only sexual predators, people whose age is not verified and who are in fact often over 35”, “This app is 95% full of pedophiles and sexual predators!”, “the app puts us in contact with sometimes major predators and does not protect younger people like me. Do not install this app if you are under 18 and tend to be naive”, “app full of pedophiles and ‘daddy’ looking for young girls”… The opinions leave no room for doubt.

The application is also classified PEGI 18 by Google, while it is intended for 13-year-old teenagers. “Rating in the ‘For Adults’ category is applied when the level of violence depicted is intense and/or contains specific elements of violence. This may also include overt sexual content, discrimination or advocacy of drug use”, indicates the Mountain View firm in its classification rules. On his side, the rules on the site from Teen Dating states that“it is strictly forbidden to fill in your profile with false information” and above all, that “Minors over 13 must ask their parents for permission”.

Teen dating: why the site can hardly be banned

Child protection associations and the media have been warning about the problem of Teen Encounters and similar sites for many years, to no avail. In 2021, Le Figaro was already investigating the problem of predators infiltrating teen dating sites, just like BFMTV And Release in 2019. Asked by France infothe editor of Teen Encounter indicates to be “fully aware of this problem”. It also indicates to BFM TV ban a hundred people a day. He also specifies that a penalty system has been put in place, with different degrees depending on the seriousness of the offense, but he admits that the lack of moderators makes it insufficient. On the site, a small ad has also been posted to recruit moderators, who must be part of the community of verified members of the platform. The only real safeguard is the obligation to be “friends” with the person in order to be able to send him messages.

But then, why have Teen Dating and its associates still not been banned? guest of France info on August 22, the Secretary of State for Children, Charlotte Caubel, indicated that “the objective is not to prohibit certain sites but to regulate, limit and make the platforms responsible”since a ban would simply lead to a migration to other sites.

In France, the law of July 7, 2023 now imposes a numerical majority of 15 years, which in theory regulates the use of social networks for the youngest, but the device has not yet entered into force. Parental controls will also have to be installed by default on all equipment from July 2024 (see our article). But prevention remains, for the moment, the best protection, for young people and parents alike. To do this, the Government has set up a new platform, jeprotegemonenfant.gouv.fr, to help parents support their children in the use of screens and digital technology. It is essential to establish a preventive framework and dialogue around the potential dangers of the Internet, both in terms of behavior (cyberbullying, revenge porn, cyberattacks, addiction to screens, pedophilia, etc.) and content consumed by the youngest ( fake news, pornography, violence, dangerous challenges to reproduce, sensitive content, etc.). Caution is the mother of safety !