Adding to Graham Platner’s growing list of disturbing scandals, new reporting reveals that he maintains an active account on Kik—an anonymous messaging app widely scrutinized for aiding and abetting child exploitation and described by both the National Center on Sexual Exploitation and a convicted child molester as a “predator’s paradise.”
Platner’s campaign confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that the Kik account is legitimate and belongs to him. Platner launched the account in June 2016, when he was 31 years old.
What Maine voters need to know:
Kik has been repeatedly identified as a breeding ground for child exploitation, with a long-documented history of grooming and abuse:
- The app has been described as a “predator’s paradise” because of its anonymity, lack of age verification, and overwhelmingly young user population—with 70 percent of Kik users between 13 and 24 years old.
- A Forbes investigation found that Kik had a “huge child exploitation problem,” while the BBC reported the app was involved in more than 1,100 child sexual abuse cases in the U.K. alone between 2013 and 2018.
- The National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s even added Kik to its “Dirty Dozen” list for companies accused of profiting from or enabling sexual exploitation.
Kik has been linked to disturbing predator, rape, child pornography, and murder cases:
- Law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and Canada launched a joint operation called “Kik Leads” specifically to track down child predators on the app.
- Across the country, Kik has been used by predators to prey on minors, distribute child sexual abuse material (CSAM), arrange sexual assaults, and communicate with children anonymously.
- Numerous bills have been introduced in the Senate to crack down on the dangers of CSAM, content that has devastatingly become prolific across Kik.
Kik-related crimes have already happened in Maine:
- Multiple Maine cases have involved Kik, including men soliciting nude images from underage girls, seeking or distributing CSAM, and producing or sharing videos of children being raped in Kik chatrooms.
- These are not abstract concerns; Kik’s dangers have already reached Maine families directly.
The bottom line: Graham Platner’s active account on an app notorious for child exploitation, anonymous sexual activity, and predatory behavior raises serious questions he must answer. Given his already scandal-plagued history—including bragging about masturbating in public restrooms and sending sexually-explicit texts to multiple women as a married man—Maine voters deserve to know why he maintains an active account on an app known as a “predator’s paradise.”
###