Naples man accused of raping teen after online meeting:

25-year-old Senat Chounem of Naples, Florida, has been charged with the alleged rape of a 16-year-old girl that he met on MeetMe. For those of you who may not know, MeetMe is a social networking site in the vein of MySpace. It’s used by a lot of people who are just looking to hook up. Also, this isn’t a case of “she said she was 18” either.

Police say that after meeting the girl on MeetMe they continued to communicate on the messaging app Kik. More on that later. Chounem and a friend picked up the girl at her house and took her to a party where the pair are said to have raped the girl. Police were able to arrest Chounem at home, where he lived with his mommy, after posing as another underage girl.

Now the article I linked to seemed to focus more on the Kik segment of the article rather than the MeetMe aspect. While Kik is something to be concerned about the controversy in this story is overblown. On MeetMe anyone can message you or see your profile. On Kik, your username has to be given out to anyone you want to message you. It can’t just be discovered on Kik itself.

Either way, parents should be aware of both of these things. MeetMe is a website and Kik is a smartphone app. Check your kids’ computers and phones to see if they use either of these and check to see who their friends are. Kids tend to be more willing to give out their Kik username since it’s not their phone number but that can still lead to danger.