Utah resident Brittany Champagne has two children and thought that posting pictures of them on Facebook was harmless.
Now, Champagne says, “I seriously feel like the world’s worst mom, having put these on there and seeing what happened.”
Champagne was on Instagram when she saw her 8 year-old daughter’s pictures on someone else’s profile. “I clicked on there and I found a girl claiming to be 11 years old as my daughter and she’s a bisexual cheerleader and her whole page is about gay pride.”
Champagne says it was clearly a fake account, so she did some digging and found more, including pictures of her 9 month-old son.
That’s not the worst of it.
The account hash-tagged porn sites onto the photos of Champagne’s children, which caused them to show up on porn sites around the internet. Champagne counted 11 sites in one day.
The pictures themselves haven’t been doctored, just attached to extremely graphic content.
Champagne says, “I can’t imagine how my kids would feel. I feel beyond violated, so I don’t even know what they would feel.”
Internet security experts say, the only real way to prevent something like this is to keep your social media profiles private and only give access to those you trust.