BREAKING: Kid who wanted more Facebook time behind Cartoon Profile Pic

BREAKING NEWS: After this blog posted the previous post on standing up against child abuse, a young teen contacted our webmaster and revealed he was the source of the campaign. The purpose behind his call to action - to get his parents to give him back his Facebook privileges.

"My mom took away facebook saying I spend too much time on Facebook and not enough time on my school work and chores," confesses 15-year-old Martin Tomfoolery in a Facebook chat interview. "After I didn't clean my room for three weeks, she said it was going to be a week without TV. When I said that was like child abuse, she took away my facebook time! That's just wrong!"

Marty, who is certainly no stranger to the viral potential of the social media realm having been behind previous efforts as "Every time you don't "like this" on Facebook, God kills a kitten" or "Retweet this if you want to be like the awesome people who retweeted this - or you really are just a loser, just like we always thought anyway", took to the masses to call attention to his plight.

"To take away my TV, that's just totally unfair. I've already missed all of my favourite shows, so I'll have to find them on Pirate Bay - and you know how slow that is," says Marty, who admits to being a fan of old-school cartoons including the original Spider Man and He-Man series from the 70s and 80s. "But to take away my Facebook time, that's just not right, man. Today, that's like locking a kid up by himself and feeding him nothing but bread and water - it's child abuse. I'm gonna die at school, if I didn't know what's going on twitter and facebook. My stupid parents just have noooooo idea."

Marty, who was unable to log in with his own facebook account (my parents joined Facebook last month, major bummer!) used a friend's account to spread the word.

"I figured, if I could show that everyone thought what my mom was doing was child abuse, then she'd get scared I'd sue her or something and I could get my Facebook back," says Marty, who was inspired by a case in Quebec where a 12 year old successfully sued her parents for grounding her for posting inappropriate images of herself on Facebook.

When asked about the success of his campaign, Marty appeared genuinely surprised. "To be honest, I didn't think it'd really get much hype. But I mean, people WANT to put up pictures of their favourite cartoon characters anyway. You just have to give them a good reason to do it," he says. "That's like, the secret to being popular."

Marty has since had his facebook privileges restored to him (Without facebook, he had spent the weekend cleaning his room, but Marty strongly believes the level of support he received onliine had something to do with his mother's final decision). Asked about his next campaign cause, the teen replied thoughtfully, "Maybe update your profile pic to your favourite childhood toy or first pet or something." He hasn't decided on a worthy cause behind his campaign but is considering a few interesting political offers, he says.

Facebook Cartoon Profile Pic to Fight Child Abuse December 6 - WTF???

Okay I have to comment on this because it's driving me mental. Just as I can't understand the double standards and complete confusion of the dating world - I understand even LESS the idiocy behind some social media "meme"s and what we do on the online world to really demonstrate how overly accepting and unquestioning we are about advice, networks and supporting generalisations and ideals without thinking for ourselves.

Change your Facebook Profile Pic to a Cartoon to Fight Child Abuse

Last weekend, I received a message from a dear friend on Facebook:

The challenge? Change your FB profile picture to a cartoon from your childhood. The goal? To not see a human face on FB until Monday, December 6th. Join the fight against child abuse and copy and paste to your status to invite your friends to do the same.

Now while I loved this dear friend dearly, I always believed she was of the more "gullible" sort - well meaning, but well gullible. I certainly didn't think her post and status would be the first of many an internet phenomenon.

Before I knew it, within 24 hours, my entire facebook feed was overtaken by status update and cartoon characters proclaiming I should change my profile picture for the goal to "not see a human face" to fight child abuse.

Many authorative (by authorative, I mean awesome blogs like mashable) reported on the trend, but were unable to trace the source of the campaign to any particular NGO or special interest group. Some say that it was a game that had originated in Greece.

What I say is - HUH???

Maybe I have too much faith in my network and friends but I thought everyone would see through the idiocy of such a declaration - I mean I LIKE seeing my facebook feed taken over wiht awesome cartoon characters - but I have so far received NO RESPONSE from any one as to the nature of this campaign, namely:

What sort of child abuse are we fighting? Is it...

• is it the cases where teens sue their parents for slapping them in the faces or for not signing permission slips?
• or is it the baby girls in china that are drowned or sold off because they're female?
• or is it child abductors who are known to use toys and cartoons to lure kids in?

Seriously, folks, I would like to ask that we try this again - let's get this right and create a real cause and a real page with real statistics on child abuse for someone to think about and decide how they want to make a difference? Or if the whole point was just to get a lot of awesome cartoon characters on FB (which I would like to think is why so many people joined the cause) let's call a spade a spade and have National Cartoon Week where everyone can post as their profile picture a cartoon from their early childhood. Let's just please not hide behind some seemingly blanket good cause and belittle the seriousness of violence against children - and look to raise awareness in a proper and real way.