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Only a few days ago a twitter account was made in the name of @OfficialGlitter, at the time of this posting it still has 16,834 followers, yet according to the blog post made by Ben who created the fake account at it height it had nearly 20,000 members.

It has now emerged that this account is fake and was set up as a social experiment.  And reading the post on Tumblr, a worthy one it is.

Ben, has explained explicitly why he set up the account and his findings are truly astonishing, you can read his full post at http://glitterontwitter.tumblr.com/, however the part I would like to quote is this:

@OfficialGlitter was a fake account. But imagine if it hadn’t have been. I’ve got almost 20,000 followers now. That’s 20,000 people I can send private and direct messages to. That’s hundreds of thousands of photos I can view. Imagine for a second, I set up a profile saying I was a “Justin Bieber Fan Club”. How many young girls would follow me? I hazard a guess at a few thousand. The scary thing is that most parents wouldn’t bat an eye-lid at their child following a profile that seems to promote their favourite singer.

NME who is reporting the story asked the Home Office about paedophiles being allowed to use Social Networking sites, what they said in their article is truly astounding, they report:

NME also made inquiries to the Home Office press office about the online restrictions which can be placed upon registered sex offenders and was told that the police cannot ban anyone from using the internet as it would “violate their human rights” and any online monitoring of registered sex offenders by police was carried out on a “case by case basis”.

Going back to what Ben posted up, he said:

Firstly, to those people who sent hate/abuse and started the #GetGlitterOffTwitter campaign:

 

Although legally, there is nothing you could have done to remove Glitter, it’s very satisfying to know that a majority of Britain still has their morals intact.

I don’t agree with the hate and abuse sent to this fake account – because hate and abuse are counter-productive and do nothing to worthy your cause – but I totally agree with Ben with what he says about those who started the #GetGlitterOffTwitter  hash tag. That being that the majority of people have morals and principles and don’t want to see children put at risk.

As Twitter has no age restrictions, it is very worrying to think that a child could create a twitter account so easily and become a target for paedophiles.  I am all for human rights but come on who should have more rights, a child or a paedophile?  A child is the only answer.

However it does make you think about certain people on the #McCann hash tag and what they were tweeting @OfficialGlitter.  Here is just one example, I am sure there are many more, but I can’t be bothered to wade through the abuse directed at the family of a missing child:

Speaks volumes about the mentality of some people, doesn’t it?

Further Reading

‘Gary Glitter’ account is revealed to be fake

A social experiment

 

Addendum – Please Note – Important

Thanks to one of the readers of the blog who has pointed out something, as much as I hope and pray this guy is genuine, who carried out this Social Experiment, there is always the chance that he might not be.  I am NOT accusing but warning people, of online safety.  He is telling people they can contact him via an email address, therefore I ask anyone who contacts anybody online, be careful.  DO NOT give out personal information, DO NOT arrange to meet any person online, without taking precautions.  And above all remember just because  if you are genuine don’t take it as a fact that everyone is genuine, the internet is full of people who ARE NOT.  Be careful and stay safe online.