Investigation
'I'D LIKE TO SEE DIRTY PICS'
Inside the teen dating site Snog where perverts target underage girls to groom with sick messages
“I’D like to see dirty pics of you”.
The message flashes onto my screen, just moments after I told him I was 15.
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His name is Andre, and we “met” through snog.fm – a website based on a hit BBC Three TV show that allows people to rate each other as “snog, marry, avoid”.
And within minutes of me creating a profile with a photo of my 15-year-old self, I had already received “snogs” from accounts with names like “grabatit” while anonymous stranger “justheretowatch” rates me as a “marry”.
The website was recently thrown into the spotlight when it was used by web designer Gareth Hughes, then 36, to seduce a teen.
He was jailed for six years and eight months after admitting a string of offences, including having a secret sexual relationship for four years between 2012 and 2016.
But despite insisting “security and safe guarding” their users is a main priority, and changing the website to become 18+ only, it’s only too easy for a vulnerable teen to sign up.
And while parents may not have heard of the website before, the site can attract more than 1.5m page views a day.
Although it is unclear just how many accounts are registered, there are more than 6million interactions between users recorded - and they're still growing.
It's a parents' worst nightmare, with kids easily able to sign up and chat to strangers in mere minutes.
The Sun Online set up such an account – posing as a schoolgirl on the seedy website.
Users can sign up through an email address or Facebook account, easily lying about their age to gain access to the site.
At one point, my account was suspended after moderators realised I had described myself as 15 in my "about me" section".
But I could sign up again straight away, using another fake email address and continued to chat.
One account, @justheretowatch, is quick to message me and ask for my kik account, another messaging app that is able to send and receive photos - and that cops have been warned is prone to be abused by paedophiles.
Trading messages on kik, I tell him I’m at school, and only 15 when he asks what I’m up to.
Within minutes, he asks: “I mean, I’d love to see…”
I ask: “What do you mean?”
He replies: “I’d love to see dirty stuff off of you. I’d like to see dirty pics of you.”
I protest, telling him I’m uncomfortable, and that no one has asked me for pictures before.
The call centre worker replies: “They’re idiots, you’re super hot.
“What? You’re gorgeous, don’t even.”
I tell him that I’m shy, to which he replies: “Shy is for ugly people, babydoll.”
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Has your son or daughter been targeted? Contact the Sun Online via email [email protected] or call 0207 782 4368
Another man, claiming to be a 25-year-old Rob from India, sparks up a conversation on snog.fm.
I tell him that I’m 15 and live in London – with the anonymous man saying: “Really? You’re 15. Look I’m not a pedo. Hahah!”
He labels me "naughty" for lying and saying my age is 18.
But just a few messages later he tells me: “You’re funny. I like you. No boyfriend?”
I tell him I can’t have a boyfriend until I’m 16, and that school’s boring.
Sad I can’t date you
Rob
He tells me: “You should do naughty and crazy things at school just don’t bully anybody, and it will be more exciting.”
He adds: “Get into trouble. Trouble is always fun when you don’t get caught.”
We keep chatting about history homework and sport when he adds: “Sad I can’t date you.”
Charities have revealed how online grooming is one of the biggest threats to young people with more than 5,000 online offences recorded by police in the last 18 months.
Girls aged 12 to 15 are the most likely to be targeted by groomers, with attempts more than tripling through social media sites like Instagram.
And scrolling through snog.fm's livefeed, you can watch as accounts snog, marry and avoid others, judging simply on their pictures.
More than 6.5million answers have already been given as men and women rate each other on the shallow site.
Some say they are 118 years old, while one lists himself as 77 and under the name "gimmethatbooty".
After it launched eight years ago, it branded itself as “a way for young people to break the ice and interact without the awkwardness of traditional dating sites”.
'I FELT PRESSURE TO UPLOAD PROVOCATIVE PHOTOS'
But its easy ability to sign up and chat has sparked warnings from young women, who say they were immediately bombarded with seedy messages.
One woman, Chloe Mills, said she signed up to the website when she was just 14.
The 20-year-old Nando’s worker, told The Sun Online said she would use the site for “hours at a time” thanks to it giving her a quick confidence boost.
But she said: “I felt pressure to upload provocative photos, but that was never me. I’ve never been into all the sexual stuff.
“I’d get random messages from so many guys who would try and start dirty talk. It was really weird. They’d compliment my photos, but mention my boobs or my butt, try and make it sexual. Even if it was just a photo of your face and a T-shirt, no cleavage or nothing, they’d still try it.”
While the site states it’s for over 16s only, Chloe says she never had to prove her age.
She said: “You’d just falsify your date of birth, set up an account name, send a photo, then they’d verify your account. A few of my mates were on there, who were also under 16.”
'I FELT PRESSURED' Woman, 22, reveals how men would try to ask for nude pics on snog.fm
FAY Parker was just 14-years-old when she signed up to Snog.fm.
The 22-year-old stay-at-home single mum-of-one, from Bradford, told The Sun: “A lot of my mates from school were using it so I signed up.
"They were all around the same age as me. It was pretty simple to sign up; it wasn’t hard to join it.”
Fay says there were “a lot of creepy guys” on there.
She said: “The men on there were a lot older than me, about 16-18, but I don’t remember any in their 20s or 30s. “I did get the impression some of them were lying about their age, it was so easy to make a dodgy account, so a lot of them could have been lying about it. There were no ID checks.”
Fay says she was naive back then and didn’t realise it was a “dodgy site”.
She added: “The guys would try dirty talk, asking for pictures of my boobs and to meet up. That would happen a lot.
“I did feel pressured to show off cleavage in the pictures, a lot of the girls were. My friends used to get creepy messages too. We don’t use it now.”
- By Josie Griffiths
Chloe was overwhelmed by how sexual the site became.
She said: “There were too many older men putting weird photos of themselves up - they’d be topless, showing their V-lines, trying to show something off but also stay within the guidelines.”
Chloe says men would try and lure her to Kik messenger or Skype.
“Most of them were from America,” she said.
“You could send photos on Kik. I would give out my Kik because that was the main messaging service and you could always block them if they got annoying. They would send d*** pics on Kik, the ones I met on snog.fm, I’d just block them straight away.”
SAFETY NET: How to keep your child safe online
The Internet can be an amazing tool to help children learn and play.
But with the digital world changing all the time, how can you make sure your child is safe?
Set up parental controls
- Parental controls can be used to block upsetting or harmful content, control in-app purchases or manage how long your child spends online
- The filters can help control what time of day your child can go online, and to stop them from downloading apps they are too young for
Talk to your children
- Have regular conversations about what your child is doing online
- Explore sites and apps together
- Talk about what personal information they should share online
- Create a family agreement about what behaviour is appropriate when they are online
Do your research
- Check through websites your child will use through the
- Change privacy settings and turning off location sharing
If you need help now, you can phone experts on the free NSPCC & O2 helpline 0808 800 5002
None of the men ever tried to meet up with her, but she was sick of how sexual it became.
She said: “One conversation put me off completely when I was 16. The guy - who claimed to be 19 - went all in with the dirty talk. It made me feel really disgusting, dirty and weird. I logged off and was like ‘I’m never going back to that again’.
“He was talking about how he’d like to see me naked. That was a tipping point. It was a bit disgusting and weird. There were too many creepy messages from creepy people, I would never do it again.”
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Tony Stower, Head of NSPCC Child Safety Online, said: "This is a chilling example of how adults can use social media to bombard children with sexual messages.
"We know that online predators use these platforms to groom and abuse young people all too frequently. It is time tech firms got their act together and made their sites safe.
"The Government must use their Online Harms Bill to introduce an independent regulator to enforce a statutory duty of care for children on these sites. If they don’t, they will have thrown away an opportunity to keep children safe."
Snog.fm has been contacted for comment.
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