Caught in the Net

Two filmmakers take adult actresses to pose as underage children in this gripping documentary on online safety.

In an online space that is void of regulation, two filmmakers conduct an experiment to shed light on the true extent of the problem pervading online chatrooms. The project is simple; employ young women (crucially over the age of 18) to pose as twelve-year olds on social media sites like Facebook and Skype – and film the results. Immediately the girls are inundated with friend requests from older men looking to ‘chat’. The overwhelming attention they receive raises alarming questions regarding the threats that children face when the using the internet.

Caught In The Net opens on two statistics; 60% of Czech children are online without any parental controls and 41% of children had received pornographic images over the internet. What follows is an unspooling of those statistics that is often uncomfortable yet compulsively fascinating.