Rapist On Facebook; We Must Rethink Online Friendships

It seems like Facebook appears in every other headline nowadays. The latest one has to due with David Bradt, a 24-year-old from upstate New York who was using Facebook to meet and rape underage girls.

Bradt would add a teen girl, go through her friend list and request her friends, then request theirs.
So a 15-year-old girl might log on one to day to find an unfamiliar man friending her on Facebook. But if a dozen of her besties are already Facebook friends with him, then it must be fine, right?

After that it was easy for Bradt. He’d message the girls, invite them to his place with offers of drugs and alcohol and then sexually assault them.

Bradt was caught when a mom snooped through her daughter’s cell phone and saw some inappropriate text messages. Now, nine times out of ten a teen girl would shriek in righteous indignation to have her cell phone checked by her mom. But this time, it was a good call.

Bradt will spend roughly a dozen years in prison on four counts of rape of underage girls, in addition to having to register as a sex offender. I myself haven’t been a teen girl since, well, ever. But I do remember being 15 and having a MySpace; getting friend requests from people I didn’t know and refusing.

Even now I get Facebook adds from names I don’t recognize. Sometime we have mutual friends. I’ll send them a message asking how we know each other. Even if the response is reasonable I don’t necessarily confirm them. I do not add that person, and then I do not go to their house, take drugs and get molested – I never put myself in a position where I am likely to be at the person’s mercy and at risk of getting molested. It works well for me.

I’m sure some of you feel I’m being harsh. They’re teens, they’re the victims, it’s ridiculous to act like I didn’t make stupid decisions at that age.
And you’re right. But like I said, even by the age of 15, we should make sure our children have understood how not to get into that sort of situation. As children, it’s drilled into our heads not to talk to strangers.

For the most part, there are more perils to young women than men. So, how could these girls so readily accept this guy online, and then be willing to meet him in real life? Perhaps I just don’t understand.
All of these girls should have been a little more wary.

This whole scenario seems off to me. Bradt deserves far more than a dozen years in prison. Four counts of rape of a minor should net him far more than that, unless the one Criminology class I took taught me nothing.
Did these girls go alone to this guy’s house? None of them thought of bringing friends along just in case you were about to get into a dangerous situation. When I say friends, I mean the kind you actually know.

There’s a lot of information not provided in the articles I read about it, and we may never know exactly how these terrible encounters took place.
I think that while parents who police their kids help in this situation, it’s not enough. How many of us have little sisters and brothers – yes, brothers, it happens – that are of that age?

My parents can’t even figure out how to use Skype, let alone keep my emails under tabs. It would be easy for me to hide my texts from them with the password my phone requires. But then again, I’m not going to go to a stranger’s house for drugs either. Parents should be educating their kids. Stranger Danger needs to apply to the Internet just as much as the real world. It seems ridiculous to say, but it would go a long way to eliminating guys

like this or the CraigsList Killer from finding their prey.
How about we teach the teens a little? When I was 14, misusing something got me smacked on the head and the object would be taken away. It wasn’t that long ago; let’s bring that rule back.

I have a relative who is 13 and his folks won’t let him have a Facebook. He’s a bright kid, but he’s also pretty naïve. In this case, I approve of his parents’ decision.
And it’s not like this is something unbearable I’m asking for either, where the teens roll their eyes and wish I’d shut up.

I’m guessing they don’t want to be raped, so how about you only friend people you know? That’s why it’s called “friending” and not “allow pictures of you in a bikini to be viewed by a stranger two states away.” In real life, being friends means something. Why does it have to be different online? Why do we value it less?

What could possibly prompt us to “Confirm” someone we don’t know?
Great, you know my cousin, and you think I’m “relly cute an hott” but you’re in Texas and this whole message screams desperate. I don’t care if you have drugs or alcohol, I don’t care that you’re complimenting me, I’m not going to give you my phone number.

Everyone, not just teens, needs to stop treating Facebook friendships like they’re nothing. Because I guarantee, there’s some guy right now looking at your bikini pictures.

Richard Solomon can be reached at richard.solomon@spartans.ut.edu.