Woman who investigated internet crimes against children warns parents why they should NEVER post photos of their children online

A woman who worked in the child exploitation investigation has shed light on the horrifying reason why you shouldn’t post pictures of your children on social media.

Alex Hoffman, a 24-year-old law student known as @definitelynotelex04has over 100,000 followers on TikTok where she shares videos about her life and interests.

The content creator went viral this week after revealing what she learned investigating sexual crimes against children on the internet as a government employee.

“Most of the photos uploaded to the dark web of kids are from normal people’s Facebook and Instagram pages,” she said.

“If you see a suggested person on your Facebook page that you don’t have mutual friends with, it means they’ve searched your profile at least three times.”

Hoffman explained that “the dark web is not a mysterious and exclusive place,” saying, “you just need to download a browser” to access hidden Internet sites.

“Child exploitation is a multi-billion dollar industry and thousands of websites are created every day to share photos and videos,” she said.

“My advice to parents would be to really limit your child to social media, because photos and videos can very easily be distorted and posted on the dark web.”

Hoffman’s dazzling video was viewed more than 7.9 million times and received thousands of comments in one day.

The aspiring lawyer filmed a series of follow-up clips further explaining why it’s best to keep your kids off social media.

“A lot of pictures of kids that get posted on the dark web aren’t explicit,” she noted, saying she saw a lot of pictures of kids in gymnastics and dance costumes.

‘These parents often had no idea that their child was on the dark web. In addition, ordinary photos of children can be distorted into images that are explicit, even though no explicit photo was ever taken,” she added.

Finally, and probably most disturbing, there will be kids going viral on the dark web, and there’s no reason for that. It just happens, and there will be pages and websites and forums just devoted to sending pictures of this kid.”

Many commenters wanted to know if they can safely post pictures of their children if their profile is set to private.

“It depends,” she replied. “I think when you’re private it greatly reduces the likelihood that predators are likely to see your child’s photo.” However, I strongly believe that it is based on the content of the photo.’

Hoffman explained that problems arise when a photo has “erotic potential” that a parent may not recognize.

“By erotic potential I mean a picture of your child eating, a picture of your child in a diaper, a picture of your child in distress, a picture of your child in a bathing suit,” she explained. “These are the kind of photos that can pull a predator out of context.

They can add whatever they want. They can add a person to the photo. They can subtract things from the picture. They can make things that weren’t really there in the picture. We are all adults. We know what’s suggestive and we know what’s not.

“But you also have to be a little careful and read between the lines and see what can potentially be taken out of context and what can potentially be photographed if you choose to put your child on the internet,” she concluded .

Admittedly, many commentators were shocked by Hoffman’s warning.

‘Wait what?! Do they edit these photos before posting them on the dark web? Frankly, that’s scary. I had no idea,” one wrote.

“It’s extremely disturbing to me how many parents in all these comments didn’t know this is happening and how common it is,” added another.

“Ever since I had my kids, people ask me why I don’t share more pictures of them. This is exactly why!’ someone else noticed. “But some people just don’t get it.”