The chats of WhatsApp of the families of first-year ESO students of at least half a dozen institutes of Barcelona They are fuming these days. Children and teachers are also worried. Who is behind that WhatsApp group that has reached more than 400 participants – the majority 12 year old children– and in which images of brutal porn next to racist and homophobic messages? EL PERIÓDICO has learned that the controversial chat was created in a first year ESO class at a center in Poblenou and that has reached, at least, up to 18-year-old kids. This is the story of How originated this group that has raised alarms among families and centers about the content that children access and share through the mobile phone at such young ages.
A first-year ESO boy activated the chat, which in a few hours he lost control
It all started on Monday October 9. The first class of the Poblenou high school had gone on summer camp the previous week. One of the children came back with a cold and didn’t go to school that Monday. This minor, who has been diagnosed with an intellectual disability, feels passionate about football and the Spanish team. Bored at home, he decided to create a WhatsApp group to talk about these issues with some classmates whom he had only known for a month. And he called it ‘Children All of Spain‘.
Kids over 16 years old also accessed the group and at least one of them shared wild images
Added without permission
The institute does not allow the use of mobile phones in the classroom. Therefore, it was during the afternoon and evening of Monday when the kids began to add to each other. Children from the class and the institute were added, but also from outside it and the group began to pick up speed. From here, it totally lost control of the content of the chat, which had initially been innocuous.
The chat has spread to at least six institutes, although there could be many more
“They put me in, but I got out immediately,” says an 18-year-old young man, a student of a Vocational Training cycle with whom this newspaper has contacted. At least six institutes in Barcelona – although there could be many more – have alerted families about this WhatsApp group. All the people who were added also repeat the same pattern: they saw themselves in the group without any notice and without knowing who had added them.
The first alarm that went off was at the Poblenou high school where the child who had created the chat attended. A woman who has control over all the content of her daughter’s cell phone gave the first notice to the families of the class. “She explained to us that she was hallucinating a WhatsApp group that many children in the class were part of,” explains a mother from the center to this newspaper.
Inform the Mossos
This woman notified the institute. The same Tuesday afternoon, the director went to the first year ESO classes to explain to them the dangers involved in misuse of mobile and the possibility that there were pedophiles behind the chat. He also urged them to leave the group imminently.
Next, the mother of the minor who had created the chat apologized to all the families and He went to the Mossos d’Esquadra to report what happened. That is why the Computer Crimes Unit of the Catalan police was aware of the existence of this group and began investigating it on Wednesday, October 11. Meanwhile, the chat was spreading among the first-year ESO classes in different neighborhoods of the city.
older kids
It should be noted that the person who shared the brutal content in this forum with hundreds of minors was not the child who had created it. As this newspaper has learned, at least five different telephone numbers have reported racist homophobic content and porn images in which you see women suffering violence and humiliation.
One of them is a 16-year-old young man who is studying a Vocational Training cycle. He shared, for example, the image of a dead woman, cut open, who was being vaginally penetrated. This teenager explains that he uses this image frequently and even shares it when this journalist contacts him. After a few sexual innuendos and jokes on the phone, he bursts into tears when he admits that he sent this brutal photo that the Mossos are now investigating. “I didn’t take that image, they sent it to me through a group and I thought it was funny to forward it to this group where there were so many people,” the boy tells this newspaper through tears.
Content that is difficult to report
He also makes the excuse that he was not the only one who posted inappropriate content. “Everyone was sending dirty things,” he says. “I’m not a pedophile, I’m a child,” adds the kid, scared. His friends console him, but he assures that he is afraid of getting into trouble with the police.
Mossos sources explain that it is difficult for the content of this group – beyond being inappropriate, unpleasant and savage – to be considered a crime. “You could be prosecuted if you share images of child pornography or photos of your classmates, or if you mess with someone. But this porn content is difficult to report,” Mossos sources explain to this newspaper. The mother of a girl who was added to this group has also tried, without success, to report the facts to the Mossos.
The pattern of abusers
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The teachers consulted point out that everything indicates that what happened with this group is that the adolescents have gotten out of hand and that the dynamics of WhatsApp have allowed the fuse to be lit. “We don’t know if there are pedophiles in the group using fake profiles,” says one of the affected teachers. However, when we have detected this type of situation with students at the center, the groups are usually smaller and more intimate, with three or four people. “.
Neither the Department of Education nor the Consorci d’Educació of Barcelona have wanted to make statements on this matter of which they have been aware for at least five days.