Are Teens Imitating Sexy Celebrity Poses Prey for Internet Predators?

This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," July 19, 2006, that has been edited for clarity.

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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: "Back of the Book" segment tonight, this story may not be for kids, younger kids.

The Internet site MySpace.com has attracted millions of American children and some of these children are imitating celebrities who do provocative things. That is, they are posting pictures of themselves in compromising positions -- the kids are.

Joining us now from Greenville, South Carolina, Katharine Debrecht, the author of a series of children's books. The latest one is entitled "Help Mom, Hollywood Is in My Hamper,” which of course, we don't want.

All right. I don't go on MySpace.com, but I understand this is huge among teenagers in this country. So what's going on vis-à-vis the celebrities?

KATHARINE DEBRECHT, AUTHOR, CHILDREN'S BOOK SERIES: Well, Bill, it's unbelievable. You look at these pictures and you think is this how we want our children to identify themselves?

I was able to go on those sites, and these pictures that you have are not near as bad as some of them — emulating celebrities, and not realizing, because they don't have the maturity or the wisdom, to realize the consequences of emulating these in these poses.

And yet the predators do realize that these children don't know that, and that's why they're flocking to these sites.

O'REILLY: OK, so what the kids are doing is they're seeing stars like Madonna and Aguilera and these people, Ashlee Simpson — look at her now — in certain poses in magazines and whatever, right, or television they see them. There's Angelina Jolie.

And then the kids take pictures of themselves or have a friend do it, and they post the picture on MySpace.com, where everyone in the world can see the picture. Now do they post their personal information? Do you know where they live? Do they go that far?

DEBRECHT: Well, it's amazing. I mean, along with these provocative poses, you have Playboy bunny logo, you have phrases like "sexy, promiscuous." I saw one with a boyfriend application. So you have all of that.

In addition, they do have — some of the kids do have their information on it. There was a local television show in southwestern Florida. The girl posted her name and city, and from the minute they looked at her profile it took 30 minutes to get to her front door.

O'REILLY: All right. So some of the kids do it anonymously, as a lark. But others give enough information so that anybody wanting to do them damage, could track them down?

DEBRECHT: Sure. And, Bill, this is just so sad that these children feel like, you know, in the culture that we live in and with the media and the celebrity culture and celebrity-obsessed culture, that sexual makes special, these children, it's so sad to see them just posing there for attention or acceptance. And really, they again don't have the maturity or wisdom to see the consequences of posting this.

O'REILLY: Of course, not. I mean, it's an exhibitionistic thing that they probably think is cool and all their friends are calling up and saying, "Oh, that's so hot” or whatever Paris Hilton is saying this week.

DEBRECHT: Right.

O'REILLY: And you're right. I mean, the parents have no clue most of the time. They don't know what's going on. And the Internet, they don't have any restrictions against this, do they?

DEBRECHT: No. And it's amazing, Bill. If you look at a lot of these photos that are on there, they're either taken in the child's bedroom or in front of their bathroom mirror. So obviously, these parents do not know what's going on.

O'REILLY: No, every kid has got a cell phone with a camera on it. I mean, it's not like you have to get them developed like you used to. Put it on the Internet and pop it right on there, and there you go.

DEBRECHT: Yes. And it really is a danger to our children. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children did a study last year. Sixty-one percent of teens have a profile on any of these sites; 71 percent were approached or got correspondence from someone they didn't know, and out of that, 41 percent corresponded back with them.

O'REILLY: All right, Katharine, thanks for alerting us to what was going on. I would have never known it. And I know a lot of parents don't know it either. We appreciate you coming on.

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