Parents scare their teens in ‘child predator’ social media experiment

In a video that’s gone viral, teenage girls are traumatized on camera in an attempt to send a powerful message – don’t go anywhere with a stranger.

Professional prankster Coby Persin of Clifton, New Jersey, posted an ad on Craigslist looking for parents who wanted to take part in a social experiment concerning stranger danger. Three sets of parents responded.

In the experiment, which is documented in a YouTube video called The Dangers Of Social Media (Child Predator Social Experiment), Persin sets up a fake Facebook account, pretending to be an attractive 15-year-old boy named Jason Biazzo. He then reaches out to three girls on the social media site, aged 12, 13 and 14, and asks them to meet him alone.

All three girls agree, clueless that they are interacting with a “child predator.”

One girl heads to a park, where she is met by her berating father. Another girl invites the stranger to her house, only to be surprised, and devastated, by her screaming father. Finally, the last minor chillingly agrees to get into the stranger’s van outside her house, where her furious parents are waiting with ski masks covering their faces.

“What would have happened if you came out and it wasn’t us sitting back here, and there were really crazy people sitting back here,” her mother screams.

“What would have happened if this van drove away and it was three strangers sitting in this car,” the father interjects. “What would you have done? What would we have done?”

Although all the girls appear seriously distressed, Persin told CBS2 that the teens and their parents are “heroes” for teaching people about the dangers of online predators.

The video has more than 25 million views and ends with the bolded words: KEEP YOUR KIDS SAFE!