Dear Friend, Picture this: You’re a parent of a 13-year-old girl who is just starting to discover the world of social media. As you’re aware that the online world can pose some dangers to kids, you try to do a bit of research on the various apps your daughter is using, to make sure they’re safe. There’s one in particular she spends most of her time on, and you haven’t heard of it before. It’s called “Kik.” Doing your due diligence, you browse the Kik website to see what this app is all about. Much to your comfort, the website is full of assurances that Kik is “built especially for teens,” and offers teens a “fun, safe place to connect.” You’re more than satisfied. What a stroke of luck that, of all the apps your daughter could have chosen as her favorite, she happened to settle on one that was specifically designed for kids her age! . . . Or so you thought.
Could you have imagined that this app which was purportedly “built especially for kids” would be rife with sexual predators? Could you have imagined that your 13 year-old-daughter would be groomed by a grown man into sending him sexually explicit images of herself? Could you have imagined that you’d wake up one night to find your daughter gone, because she’d agreed to meet this man in person? These are the all-too-real dangers of the supposedly teen-friendly Kik. | 
