March Madness. The vasectomies are scheduled BABY (with love, to Dickie V) and Cinderella stories await. As a school social worker, it’s when I hear hundreds of teens collectively cheer in a rare act of unity after every point, foul, or substitute as they watch on the cafeteria’s big screen.

It’s also the first year my 9-year-old son filled out a bracket and my lucky husband finally had someone to share the excitement with in our family. However, this past Saturday morning, while looking at ESPN.com to get the game scores, was an image presenting barely-covered nipples and enhanced breasts placed between articles. Blonde, and tan, with a wanting facial expression, are other non-surprising descriptors.

Whether you consider this porn or not, it was no accident that one of the most viewed websites in America in March – predominantly by boys and men- was placed as clickbait that would take many down the porn tunnel. One click by a young person and the algorithms adjust to feeding them similar and more sensationalized content for eternity.

The ad was presented by a company named Taboola – one of the worst offenders – which contracts with ESPN to generate ad revenue. How telling that it’s called “Taboo”… la. ESPN should know who they are contracting with and share responsibility for this content. And, guess who the majority shareholder is of ESPN?

Disney. 

It looks like we are the poor unfortunate souls they are profiting on… just don’t give up your voice for your values.

Thankfully, my 9-year-old son was co-viewing this article with an adult- so it wasn’t clicked on. But in many scenarios, this isn’t the case. The average age for first exposure to porn for boys is 9 years old, and 11 for girls. The majority of the time, the first exposure is accidental. It makes sense that this is the case when you see common websites like ESPN- which reaches an average of 208 million people in the US alone- allowing porn-bait ads.

Porn can cause conflicting and confusing feelings in a child. A sense of curiosity, along with a sense that it is wrong for some reason that they don’t yet understand, leads to further searching in secrecy. It’s important to consider the millions of young boys and girls who are inundated with these kinds of ads, and what message it communicates to them. For a girl, it could be that her value is her “packaging” and sex appeal- rather than who she is she actually is as a human. This can lead girls down a road of reduced self-value, eating disorders, and lack of achievement for societal good. It can lead boys to not view girls as equals, but as objects for someone else’s pleasure. Two clicks away could be hardcore porn, in which 88% is violent –94% of the time, toward women. When nearly 14% of girls are saying they are forced into having sex and have soaring mental health concerns with more than 20% have made a suicide plan, we need to take this seriously.

 The internet is not made for kids. But kids use it and are more frequently expected to “just google it” or “find it on YouTube” to educate themselves. It’s a failure to not equip our kids with education around the addictive and false nature of porn. And it’s a failure of the government to not update and enforce the laws that companies cannot market porn to children or collect data on those under the age of 13. The companies simply profess that they do not “knowingly do so”. 

So, what can we do about it? Many feel powerless in these situations, but there are a lot of options (and the important part is to do something):

1.      Don’t click on the ad, obviously. This reinforces their profit cycle.

2.      If your child saw the ad (or even if they didn’t), talk to them about what’s behind the scenes- clickbait, pornography, and objectification (which is taking away the humanity of a person and looking at them as an object for someone else’s pleasure). Use these media literacy’s essential questions as a guide: https://www.medialit.org/sites/default/files/14B_CCKQPoster+5essays.pdf

3.      Look at who owns the website, who owns the ad company, and who their parent companies are. Complain to as many layers as possible. In this instance, Taboola is a company that ESPN contracts with to sell ads. Disney is the majority shareholder of ESPN. My husband and I complained to the following:

• For Taboola, I googled “Taboola contact” and you can report here: https://www.taboola.com/report  and here https://www.taboola.com/contact
• He wrote a complaint to the web browser, Safari: https://www.apple.com/feedback/safari.html
• He couldn’t find a way to report an ad or contact ESPN, so he went to their parent company, Disney, and wrote an email to Disney.Advertising@disney.com entitled: “Disney’s porno introduction to my 9-year-old son”. And he copied the New York Times: letters@nytimes.com. I’m so proud. Here’s his snarky email:

Hi Disney,

I’m just writing to thank you…for introducing my 9-year-old son to a pornographic image.  So good of you.

I went to ESPN.com on my iPhone with my 9-year-old son to look at March Madness scores.  

Your sponsored advertiser, Taboola, took the liberty of presenting barely-covered nipples and enhanced breasts.  You should be ashamed.  I hit the back button to take it off the screen, so I didn’t get a screenshot.  I then went to ESPN.com on a laptop to submit a complaint, and you did it AGAIN. See attached.  STOP using pornography to draw people into your content.

Sincerely and angrily,

A basketball dad

4.      If you’re a social media person, here’s your time to shine. Go to each company’s social media site and let them know publically how they’ve let down your kids and society.

5.      Contact your legislator (remember, they are there to represent your concerns) to let them know this is an issue you wish for them to address- we need better legislation to protect kids from porn. Find your representatives here: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

6.      The US government does not regulate the Internet, but they do have regulations over TV and radio broadcasting. If you see or hear something obscene or indecent you can report it to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The FCC says that by filing a report, you contribute to h them identify trends and track the issues that matter most. The FCC does not resolve all individual complaints.

If you do even one or two of these things, you’ve helped us move collectively in the right direction. A small action by many can make a big impact on the future for all.

Please comment below on where you took action (and even your own snarky email) so I can celebrate your action!