The strange relationship between religion, conspiracy and ending child abuse.
TA: This article contains mention of child abuse, reader discretion is advised.
I was recently listening to ‘Hunting Warhead’ a CBC podcast that investigates how police and investigators track down online child abusers. In typical generation Z form, I had to be consuming multiple types of content at once and was simultaneously scrolling through TikTok. Suddenly a video from an account called #pornkills came across my For You Page. At first, I was taken aback- was my phone listening to my podcasts now? Then I realized the video had millions of views and likes. I was seeing it because it was viral.
I immediately clicked the profile. It was run by a young man who would post text detailing stories of survivors who had been abused in the porn industry. I am always slightly suspicious when I come across accounts like this. A common Instagram scam at the moment is accounts that lure in followers with similar messages but then just try to sell them a product. But as far as I could tell, the account was legit.
I was still suspicious. I devour content about conspiracies and underground culture, and there is a strange connection between many religious-based conspiracy theories and ending child pornography. Q- Anon reeled new supporters in with the #savethechildren hashtag and ‘pizzagate’ was a consequence of the Q-Anon belief that the Democratic party was full of pedophiles. I was curious if this TikTok was part of something larger.
I headed over to Instagram and searched #pornkills. I found two types of accounts. The first type was overtly Christian, advocating that porn kills your desire for your future partner and that humanity needs a moral reset ( an alarming assertion but not one I was looking into in this case). The other half were from organizations that were aimed at saving children from child pornography. One, in particular, appeared frequently. It stuck out to me because it was followed by someone I follow who I had seen post content about Donald Trump and the Big Lie on Instagram. The organization is called Our Rescue.
Now, this next section presents a bit of a moral quandary. Of course, like any morally sound person, I condemn child abuse in any form and want as many children rescued as possible. This organization helps children, and for that I applaud them. However, I do not think this shields them from all and any scrutiny.
One of the first posts I saw on the organization's Instagrams was a clip of the founders where they declare they do not care if you are Democratic or Republican if you support their cause. I agree that political affinity should not dictate someone's ability to denounce the child abuse industry, but they have clearly brought politics into the organization themselves. The founder recently spoke at Prager U, whose latest Instagram post claims that Martin Luther King would have denounced BLM and that America needs a moral (read between the lines Christian) foundation to prosper. It took me less than 3 clicks from a viral TikTok video about the dangers of porn to end up on an account denouncing the left and promoting Christian values.
The power of hashtags like #savethechildren and #pornkills is that they are like a gateway drug to conspiracy. Begin with a moral issue that no one can argue with. The first accounts you see when you encounter the hashtag are posting content that any ethical and moral person would support. Conspiracies do not reel people in by immediately hitting them with the aspects of the conspiracy that are the hidest to digest- it is a slow and sinister start. You are confronted with alarming statistics about child trafficking and are slowly fed content that promotes the idea that the authorities are willfully suppressing content. Soon you begin to question everything, and these accounts are along for the ride.
When moral issues become politicized, everyone loses. It gives the illusion that this is a political one when it is a human one. What political party you support should not mean you either denounce or support child abuse, but in the eyes of some (especially those who subscribe to Q-Anon), it does.
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