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As reported in The Age newspaper by Jessica Guynn on 24 December 2012, a new IPhone messaging App allows users to ‘Poke’ their friends and is known as ‘Facebook Poke’ which sends texts, photos and videos to friends that self destruct within 10 seconds. 

Allegedly the Facebook Poke App works similar to the increasingly popular Snapchat which according to the article also allows such messages to be transmitted and have its settings set for messages to ‘self destruct’ in a matter of seconds.

The ‘Poke’ App allows the user to set when a message should ‘expire’ whether it be one, three, five or ten seconds.

It is here that communication with your children is paramount and that they should be made aware of the ramifications of ‘sexting‘ both now and how it can affect their reputations in the future and how it is deemed illegal if they are images of persons under the age of 18.

The real concern is how you build that open communication channel up in that your child may appreciate it is illegal but feel that they cannot approach you if they receive an unsolicited image from someone. It is here you need to consider giving them a lesson on how to best retain such evidence so that you can decide on the proper action.

As the message will most likely ‘self destruct’ it is imperative that the image is captured immediately with a screen shot taken by the recipient and shown to you directly. (Instruct them not to on forward the message to friends or even yourself as this can be deemed as an offence if the image is of a person under the age of 18 years of age.

Once your child has captured the image it is strongly recommended that you contact your local law enforcement agency and discuss with them what action can be taken.

If your local law enforcement agency does not appear interested in the incident, feel free to contact us here at Cyber Guardians Online and we can discuss what avenues may be available for you to pursue to ensure that the person sending inappropriate images or messages is dealt with in your jurisdiction. (Sometimes your initial contact with a local law enforcement official is hampered by their lack of understanding of the issues relating to ‘sexting’ and cyber bullying.’)

Once again this really reinforces on how important open and frequent communication takes place with regards to social media activity and how they are very selective on who they ‘friend’ in social media.

Image via CrunchBase