MEMPHIS, TN (abc24.com) - Memphis Police are investigating an internet video that shows a 14-year-old girl performing oral sex on a teen boy outside a school.
The cops were called by a concerned parent when she saw the video pop up on her child's Facebook page. Memphis teens say they know the girl, but police can't determine if the girl in the video actually lives in Memphis. However, they say the fact that this video has gone viral is a concern on its own.
It's a scandal that's rocking the internet and rocking Memphis City School students, too.
Within hours of the video hitting the internet, on Twitter the hashtags with the girls name, "#shes14" and "#sketchers", referencing the shoes the girl wears in the video, all became trending topics.
A 14-year-old girl is now making headlines for the wrong reason. Russell, a 14-year-old Memphis student, says he heard about the video at lunch on Tuesday, October 18th, and he was immediately upset.
"They took the video down," he tells abc24.com, "and I say why would they put the video up on the web for her to get degraded?"
YouTube took the first video down, but hundreds of responses have followed. Many still display the explicit image prominently on the search page.
Social networking expert James Ruffer explains that once a video goes viral, websites start cashing in. More hits bring in bigger advertisers and bigger bucks.
"It's kind of demoralizing that YouTube is making money off the fact that underage people are doing sexual things on their network," say Ruffer, "and they should be more proactive about taking things like that down."
On Facebook there's a fan page set up for the girl with more than 29,000 fans. There are pages and pages of people who support what police say could be one of the largest cases of distribution of child pornography in American history.
"If you can find it," says Ruffer, "then the people at YouTube or Google can find it. So they should be more proactive about keywords or search to find things associated with that and remove those as well. If they're not doing that, then shame on them. They really should be doing that, especially for underage kids and minors."
The Sex Crimes Unit of the Memphis Police Department is actively investigating the video. The Department of Child Services and the Memphis FBI branch are also aware of the situation.
Meanwhile, there are campaigns across Facebook and Twitter to get these "fan" pages taken down.
A spokesperson with Memphis City Schools says they still don't know if the girl in the video is a student or if she lives in Memphis.
Ruffer says the websites can identify the source of the video and hand that information over to authorities. That's what Memphis police are now investigating.
Ruffer also tells parents, if their children are on a social networking website, they should be also. He says parents should "follow" and "like" the same things their kids do, that way they know what is being posted.
