Japan's lonely schoolgirls with little understanding of the importance of protecting their online identities are increasingly posting their most intimate details online, Nikkan Gendai (11/24) says.
The lowbrow afternoon-tabloid adds that there are countless numbers of underhanded men waiting to prey on the gullible girls.
Kenichi Murakoshi, an Osaka man arrested last month, is a case in point.
"Murakoshi went through loads of matchmaking sites, picking up the mobile phone e-mail addresses of hundreds of girls. He then sent out to about 500 girls a message saying, 'If you don't send me a photo of you in the nude, I'll get the yakuza to beat you up," a police insider tells Nikkan Gendai. "About 10 young girls, including a junior high schoolgirl from Kyoto, replied to his mail, sending him naked pictures of themselves."
Almost identical incidents were reported over the summer in Tokyo and Fukuoka. In one of these cases, the man who received the replies kept in touch with the schoolgirls, demanding they have sex with him or he would post their nude photos on the Internet for the whole world to see, the tabloid says.
It has become quite common for Japan's schoolgirls to willingly send their nude photos through their mobile phone e-mail. Journalist Atsushi Hirata, a specialist in the area, elaborates.
"Mobile phones are often a last bastion of hope for girls who are lonely at school. They desperately want to be liked and be popular, so have no qualms at all about listing all their personal information on the Net, in places like matchmaking sites and the like," Hirata tells Nikkan Gendai. "If these kinds of girls get in touch with a guy who tells them how good-looking they are, or makes a fuss over them, many of them are really susceptible to following through if he demands a nude photo because they have an insatiable longing to be loved and don't want to be hated."
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