Wake Up, Look Up

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hello everyone thanks for listening to

wake up lookup a podcast or we connect

events happening in real time to the

Gospel of Jesus Christ I'm Zach wrock

and in today's episode we're asking the

question are we protecting our daughters

this is prompted by something I read in

the New York Times this week about the

growing of social media influencers uh

that's what you call basically people

who make their life a marketing campaign

for products that they're hired to

support uh but in particular social

media influencers who are children so in

other words uh underage people who are

pushing products working obviously in

conjunction with their parents on

Instagram Tik Tok Facebook and other

platforms the New York Times did a

pretty in-depth study of of these

situations looking for Trends and what

they found is incredibly alarming I'm

going to detail the five things that

they said are true of the social media

influencers who are children the first

is that increasingly these accounts are

followed by grown men men who are child

Predators uh what is happening is that

these uh the way you make more money as

a social media influencer is you have

more follow followers but it doesn't

follow that all those people who are

linked to your account are actually

interested in the products you're

selling sometimes they're interested in

the child who's doing the selling what

the times found is that increasingly

child Predators online are communicating

with each other that the first place to

go are these children who are

influencers promoting products I can

give you a quote that'll make your skin

crawl and your blood boil one child

predator said to others like him on the

internet it is like a candy store God

bless instam moms let that soak in for a

second the second thing is that parents

are getting addicted to the income

there's a lot of money to be made out

there in social media influencing if

your daughter selling products is moving

the needle for your family you start

looking for more ways for her to make

money the times found that parents are

increasingly becoming aware of the who

are following their daughters and even

found instances where parents were

selling chat time with their underage

daughter selling articles of clothing

that she had previously worn and

pictures of you can guess what kind in

other words parents get addicted to the

money and do not care if they are

exploiting their daughter to make it the

third thing that that the times found is

that the social media platforms

themselves are doing nothing about this

any alarm that is raised is met with

silence that's because they can hide

behind the fact that the parents have to

be involved and if the parents are

involved who are they to say as meta or

Instagram or Tik Tok that the parents

are making bad choices so no one is

policing this uh fourth they found that

in on so many of these cases as the

child gets older they are filled with

regret they have one heartbreaking story

of a 17-year-old girl whose mom had her

selling swimwear online by modeling it

and what that has meant for her life and

her own identity in fact Society is

starting to wake up to how bad this is

that leads to the fifth conclusion of

the times which is parents are starting

God bless them to be prosecuted for this

because if you pimp your daughter out on

Tik Tok you are committing a crime and

you should be prosecuted look this is

just one more example are we paying

attention to the things that are

happening on social media you should not

have your children on social media you

should not have your children selling

products online I hope that is not

something you've entertained and if it

is stop immediately it will take you to

some pretty dark places but the other

thing I want to say and maybe what's

most relevant for us is that we have to

stop participating in these things the

reason social media influencing is a

thing is because we're influenced by it

we go to these accounts to find out what

our kids should be playing with or

wearing or doing we are the audience For

Whom the product is being made so when

that guy is UGL the girl online because

he is a child predator he's doing so

because I've created the market where

that can happen listen social media is

increasingly showing itself to be a

dangerous thing it does not bring about

the flourishing of your family or of

Society we are the salt of the earth we

are the light we are the city on a hill

certainly our choices of how we engage

online and how we let our children

engage online must reflect that we have

to step back from the insanity and start

letting God through the authority of

scripture and the power of His holy

spirit lead us to decisions that make

our children safer instead of exploiting

them to make a little money hey thanks

much for watching this episode of wake

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