Rumours are circulating on social media that warn parents not to enter their children into the NEXT baby competition on Facebook because it is operating by a “paedophile ring”.
Some examples of the warning as they appear on Facebook can be seen below –
Police have advised all parents please do not enter your baby into the NEXT baby competition on facebook or any other networking site, it has nothing to do with Next and has been set up by a paedophile ring. Please copy and paste!!
collected November 2010
Police have advised ALL parents, please don’t enter your baby into the Next baby competition on facebook or any other networking site. It has nothing to do with Next it has been set up by a peodophile ring!! please copy and paste! its not a joke or a random broadcast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Keep your kids safe
collected November 2018
Despite the claims made by the warnings, they appear to be entirely baseless, and have been spreading online as far back as 2010.
In 2010, clothing chain Next launched their Baby Boutique model competition which offered a modelling contract to the child with the highest number of votes. That competition was legitimate, but despite its popularity, it also garnered quite a lot of negative coverage, ranging from celebrities touting for votes on social media to children being rejected from the competition because of facial birthmarks.
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As the Next competition was going viral across social media in 2010, a warning that claimed the competition was fake or run by criminals began to proliferate. Where exactly this warning came from is unknown, and it is difficult to tell why the warning started in the first place. It could have possibly been started maliciously by a disgruntled parent, or the result of incorrectly assuming the competition was counterfeit when it wasn’t, or perhaps the warning was directed at a spammy impostor competition.
Either way, claims made in the above warning that police advised against joining the Next baby competition are false, since we cannot find any advisory from any police or law enforcement agency that warned against this particular competition, either from 2010 or now.
As such, these warnings are not accurate, and are referring to a real baby competition that was held in 2010. The claim that it is run by paedophiles is simply false, and police have not advised against entering it. At the time of publication, Next has not launched another baby boutique competition since 2010.
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The warning bears a resemblance to other similarly themed Facebook warnings, including the claim that Facebook users should not join a group called “Becoming a mother or father was the greatest gift of my life” because, according to the hoax, it was run by deviants.
With this said, it is important for parents to understand the potential and inherent risks when uploading photos of their children into the public domain, as these types of competitions often require. There is little stopping crooks or spammers from taking such photos, and using them for nefarious purposes. One good example is photos being used for the purposes of Facebook like-farming, by attaching fake captions to photos in order to exploit Facebook users into liking or sharing the photo across social media. More information on that can be seen here.
However the warnings above are false and should not be circulated.