One Crisis Averted By Concerned Parents – But There’s Plenty More Danger Out There

The world seems a more dangerous place for our children than it was a generation or two ago.

While the digital age benefits us in many ways, making communication and everyday tasks easier, it also causes great concern for today’s parents.

An example of the dangers awaiting our children online can be seen in a recent addition to social media, but the power of concerned parents made a difference – for now.

We’re likely all aware of the pitfalls of social media sites, particularly Snapchat, which has no features set up for parental controls.

The concept of the site is for users to be able to quickly post messages and photos which disappear after they are viewed – allowing for our youth to post disturbing content without parents ever being the wiser.

In fact, the company was founded by college students who wanted a place where they could post quick, illicit messages that would then vanish without a trace.

Recently, the Snapchat app introduced a pornographic channel called “Cosmo After Dark.”  And because of the lack of parental controls, anyone – including our children – could access it.

The app’s own description of the channel called it “X-Rated,” and parents were outraged.

Cosmopolitan magazine has long been a mouthpiece for the progressive agenda, targeting young women to accept sexual promiscuity and abortion as “rights,” convinced by the left that they are being held back in their potential to be strong women if they don’t join the bandwagon.

And with their Cosmo After Dark channel on Snapchat, they aimed to make pornographic acts the norm as part of a woman’s “right” to experiment with their sexuality and push social boundaries to create a new normal – where anything goes.

Chris McKenna is the founder of “Protect Young Eyes,” a blog and forum advocating for reform to online sites that endanger our children.

As reported by Activist Mommy, Protect Young Eyes shared their concern with the ability for children of all ages to view this obscene content – without parents having any knowledge of what they were seeing:

On May 18, 2018, Snapchat introduced a new channel in its Discover section called, “Cosmo After Dark.” Using its own language, the channel “is an X-rated weekly edition that goes live every Friday at 6 p.m. and is exclusively dedicated to all things hot and h*rny.” And, there’s nothing parents can do to turn it off.

Cosmo After Dark seems to include a new, more pornographic level of sexualized content, even by Snapchat’s standards. It’s for this reason that Protect Young Eyes is so concerned. Snapchat seems desperate. As a publicly traded company, making money is important. In the bloody waters of social media competition, it’s a feeding frenzy, and there are signs that Snapchat might not survive. Therefore, everything seems ok. They won’t say no to anyone.

Examples of the articles and images posted on Cosmo After Dark are sexually explicit and offensive, even for most adult viewers.

But the fact that our children could easily access this channel on the Snapchat app is frightening.  Activist Mommy continued:

 “Anyone using Snapchat can subscribe to this channel so that it remains in the ‘Subscriptions’ section of their Discover section. This is really the only way for a parent to know if the channel has been subscribed to, but only a really careless kid would actually subscribe,” they explain. “Instead, he or she would just peruse the content from time to time without anyone knowing.”

The ease at which our children could access this pornographic content is shocking, and it is far from the only content of its kind available to our vulnerable youth online.

As parents, we are all aware of the dangers of the internet and the necessity to monitor our children’s online use, but this Snapchat channel shows just how easily our children can slip through the cracks and be exposed to something without our knowledge.

There is a silver lining in this case, however.  After an outcry from parents and advocacy groups like Protect Young Eyes, Snapchat removed the Cosmo After Dark channel from their app, only a week after its launch.

Cosmopolitan issued a statement saying, “Cosmopolitan has always been known for empowering women in all aspects of their lives. With a highly popular Snapchat Discover channel, Cosmo launched an age-gated product on the platform for adults over the age of 18, which it is discontinuing after a pilot edition,” according to Protect Young Eyes.

While it was a victory for parents and groups like Protect Young Eyes, there is still plenty of shocking, inappropriate, and even dangerous content out there on social media.

So what can concerned parents do?  McKenna suggests staying “observant, engaged, and informed,” and also says parents can alleviate at least part of the problem by using an app called “Bark.”

With a subscription to Bark, parents pay for a service that monitors social media, email, and texts on kids’ devices.

Their site explains that “Bark’s watchdog engine uses advanced algorithms to look for a variety of potential issues, such as cyberbullying, sexting, drug-related content, and signs of depression. If a potential issue is detected, a text/email alert is sent to parents to review the issue, along with recommended actions on how to handle the situation.”

It is a bargain at about a hundred dollars a year and includes a vast list of social media sites that are monitored, including Snapchat.

Mommy Underground has often reported on tips for keeping your kids safe online, like tips for social media.

Our children are under attack by the left with their plan to indoctrinate our youth to carry on their radical agenda.  They are exposed to material in school and online that violates and undermines our traditional values.

We must remain vigilant, especially with the content they are exposed to online, to ensure they stay safe and carry on the values we work so hard to instill in them.

For now, thanks to the effort of concerned parents, one dangerous social media channel has been removed.  But it is far from the last of its kind, so we must take every precaution and stay involved and engaged with our children.

What do you think of the ease at which children could have accessed the pornographic Cosmo After Dark channel?  Were you aware that Snapchat does not have parental controls, and will you subscribe to a service like BARK to help monitor their social media activity?  Leave us your thoughts.