Claire Reid
A mum was forced to remove a photo of her son after she was warned it could become the target of sick predators online.
Influencer Chloe Szepanowski, 24, shared a photo of herself and young son Sunny, who was naked but had his private parts blurred.
However, shortly after posting, Chloe received messages from her followers warning her that even though she’d blurred out Sunny’s body, vile online predators were able to use image editing software to remove the blurring.
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After being made aware, Chloe removed her photo and shared a statement, saying: “Thank you to everyone for informing me, I obviously wasn’t aware of what people do to images of children on the dark web, which is sickening.
“I hate the world we live in. Naked children are so innocent, and it’s so natural for humans to be naked, the world is so grossly sexualised now, it’s sickening.”
The hosts of the Outspoken the Podcast spoke about the incident on Thursday (6 October): “She received an influx of messages warning her of new technology that predators are using to remove paintbrush tools and also emojis.
“Disturbingly, some predators go as far as photoshopping genitals onto the photos which is just disgusting to think about.”
The hosts then issued a warning to other parents: “I think you do need to be so careful when you are sharing your kids online.
“While she might think that child nudity is innocent, sadly there are so many predators online who do scope out big mummy blogger people like this, so she would be a target.
“Obviously at the end of the day it’s the creeps out there’s fault for taking these images, but as a parent you really need to be protecting your child where you can.”
Chloe’s shocking discovery comes just weeks after police in Australia warned parents against posting back to school snaps of their little ones, as they could be unwittingly putting their child in danger.
Sergeant Nigel Dalton, from Queensland's Crime Prevention team, told Perth Now: "When somebody takes a photograph of a child in their school uniform, firstly you're identifying their school."
This is because the pictures could contain seemingly innocuous details - like street signs and number plates - that could be used to identify and locate the children.
He added: "Unfortunately, that is the way we have to live and we have to protect our children as best as possible.”