By Ej Dickson. They want you to go up to the car seat and look around while they snatch you really quick. The woman who posted the video is princessbellesunflower, a. Despite her lack of credentials as a sex trafficking expert, however, her video has gone massively viral, racking up Before posting her TikTok, she contacted a trafficking hotline.
On Oct. But the post does not actually say that the car seat in the photo was used as a lure by sex traffickers β in fact, it says the opposite. The Wilkesboro Police Department has investigated this incident and discovered the circumstances of how the seat was left in the parking lot. According to the post, two Wal-Mart customers simply had left their old car seat in the parking lot after buying and installing a new one.
In response to such feedback, though, Parker appears to be doubling down. And because the post went viral, I believe that many people feel the same way. There are other videos and pictures of strange activities that have been posted on Facebook and TikTok. Last summer, for instance, the Wayfair sex trafficking conspiracy theory, which posited that sex traffickers were using high-priced Wayfair items as a front for smuggling children, first went massively viral on TikTok; as recently as last April, a rumor that sex traffickers were procuring victims at Target stores across the country also gained traction on the app.
Scary content goes quite viral. Such content obscures the reality of sex trafficking in the United States, which is that it rarely involves strangers hiding in dark corners, waiting to snatch unsuspecting victims. Although few reliable numbers are available regarding the prevalence of sex trafficking, according to anti-trafficking organizations like Polaris, the vast majority of victims are disenfranchised people β homeless LGBTQ youth, for instance, or people addicted to controlled substances β who already know their traffickers.
When narratives like the car seat myth go viral, it can do serious harm to actual trafficking survivors, says Cutter. But regardless of whether this particular video will be taken down, unfortunately, the reality of these types of viral narratives β in this case, that two people simply abandoned their old car seat after buying a new one β is a lot less sexy than the idea that strange men are lying in wait to snatch unsuspecting women in parking lots.
