Prankster creates fake abduction experiment to show dangers of social media
A 22-year-old man masquerading as a 15-year-old boy named “Jason” online friends utter strangers, and within three days, they’re agreeing to meet with him.
“How easy is it for a pedophile to pick up an underage child using social media?” he asks in the video.
But for Coby Persin, the parent feedback he has received for “The Dangers of Social Media (Child Predator Social Experiment)” has been positive, so much so that he’s now producing another version aimed at potentially vulnerable young male teens and tweens. “She won’t do it”.
Mikayla meets her online suitor alone at a playground, even though he looks nothing like his Facebook picture. She shows up to the park to meet Persin – only for her father to pop out of hiding and yell, “Mikayla, are you insane?”
The second girl, Juliana, takes things a step further and invites “Jason” over to her home, thinking her parents are asleep.
But the dad’s hope turns to anger as she opens the door to the stranger forcing him to point out to his daughter that she “could have been raped or murdered”.
“What’s wrong with you?” he said. “I think it’s worthwhile to have a conversation with your kids and tell them that they can talk to anyone, but they cannot go off with anyone”. What would I do if I lost you?
But the most terrifying moment comes when a 14-year-old Jenna agrees to meet her unknown new friend in a van.
“We would just appeal to any parents or young people who have concerns for someone they know who may have fallen victim to this type of crime to call us”.
Grabbing her mobile phone from her daughter, Jenna’s mum lets rip saying: “What would have happened if you came out and it wasn’t us sitting out here?”
This time the parents allowed Cory to pretend to kidnap her in a van – to demonstrate the dangers of chatting to strangers online. “It’s probably one of her friends playing around with her”.
Jenna then proceeds to get in the auto and starts to scream when she thinks shes being abducted. He decided to record a staged video, with the permission of the parents, to create awareness for teenage girls and their parents.