To the Editor:
Re “Predators Leer as Moms Put Girls on Instagram” (front page, Feb. 25):
I just finished reading your article exploring this proliferating phenomenon of moms posting pictures of their sometimes scantily clad underage daughters on the social media platform Instagram. They are effectively selling their daughters’ images to generate income.
I found aspects of this practice to be quite disturbing. These kids may be harassed by oglers and pedophiles. They will have to live with the aftermath of their mothers’ decisions without understanding the short- and long-range implications. It smacks of child abuse, in my opinion.
The second major concern that struck me is the absence of any reference to Dad. Where are these men while their wives or ex-wives are posting these photos? Could all these moms be single parents? I think not.
Stan Feinberg
Wantagh, N.Y.
To the Editor:
It is not only mothers who are lining their personal family pockets on the backs of their daughters. Dean Stockton, who runs a clothing business that also profits from these Instagram accounts, is quoted as saying, “So sometimes you got to use things of this world to get you where you need to be, as long as it’s not harming anyone.”
Not harming anyone? Anyone who is profiting from the proliferation of pedophiles and sexual predators is contributing to a great evil in our society.
I can’t help but consider the daughters of the adult account managers as victims. These young girls and teens are being raised with a twisted and false sense of worth and for what purpose? Money? Celebrity? Are these mothers filling a hole in their own psyches to the detriment of their own daughters’?
Your reporters have done an excellent job pointing out the true dangers of this practice, as well as the challenges and obligations that Instagram and others must accept as accomplices.
Irene Q. Powell
Gettysburg, Pa.
The writer is a board member of the Adams County Children’s Advocacy Center.
To the Editor:
I’m sure I’m not the only one who found virtually everyone involved in the Instagram exploitation of girls to be appalling: the parents who do this to their children for money; the brands that pay for the exploitation; Meta executives who — surprise, surprise — couldn’t care less. None of these actors seem likely to change any of this.
I found myself wondering, however, whether existing (or enhanced) child labor laws couldn’t be used to prosecute these people. Aren’t these children essentially underage workers? Shouldn’t we treat being a juvenile “influencer” under these circumstances like any other form of labor from which children should be protected?
Steven Conn
Yellow Springs, Ohio
To the Editor:
Like most readers, I’ll bet, I read with increasing disbelief about the behavior of the mothers who sell their daughters’ images on the internet. I kept asking myself how they could do this. I eventually concluded that they simply don’t understand the evil of what they are doing, despite some lame and self-serving expressions of doubt.
Where I reached that conclusion was the quotation from the mom who seemed to express umbrage at what the federal agent told her: “They told everyone to get off Instagram,” she said. “‘You’re in over your head. Get off.’ That’s what they told us.”
That advice is so self-evidently right and proper that I was stunned at the mom’s negative reaction. Her umbrage goes a long way in explaining how these moms can do what they do: They inhabit a different moral universe from anything we have seen before.
I fear for where this developing amoral universe will take its inhabitants and the rest of us, for even those of us who don’t inhabit that universe will be affected by the behavior of those who do.
To the Editor:
Re “Mitch McConnell Endorses Trump, Whom He Once Denounced” (nytimes.com, March 6):
Now that the Senate Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell, has endorsed the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, the question is whether Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor, will similarly put to the side Mr. Trump’s insults to her intellect, his slurs to the public service of her spouse, his racially tinged — if not worse — innuendo about her ethnicity, and his depraved indifference to the values and norms of our democratic republic.
Or will she, unlike Mr. McConnell, decide that when it comes to her self-respect and to the sustainability of our constitutional order, her endorsement of Mr. Trump would be one bridge too far.
Chuck Cutolo
Westbury, N.Y.
A Glimpse of the Lives Lost in Gaza
To the Editor:
Re “Lives Ended in Gaza” (front page, March 4):
The New York Times is the champion of describing the actual humans whom we lose in violence. I read every one of the mini-biographies of the lost souls of 9/11, sometimes crying over them.
Now we have the precious lost humans in Gaza, who sound like so many of us. War is terrible.
Taddy McAllister
San Antonio
To the Editor:
Reading the pages featuring tragic portrayals of men, women and children who have lost their lives in the Gaza war, we must not forget that Hamas bears responsibility for their deaths.
Hamas launched the unprovoked massacre of Israeli civilians on Oct. 7 that precipitated Israel’s military response, sheltered among the residential population, and stashed weapons in schools, hospitals and mosques.
Were it not for Hamas’s atrocities and violations of the Geneva Convention, every single one of those pictured would still be alive.
Jeffrey L. Rubenstein
New York
The writer is a professor of Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University.
To the Editor:
Re “Housing Plan Gets a Yes. Community Says No” (front page, March 3):
Florence, S.C., is not the only place in America where it is needlessly difficult to construct new housing. However, it appears to be a recent example of a problem plaguing America’s housing supply — exclusionary zoning.
Commonly understood, the goal of zoning is to segregate land uses. But its sordid history reveals that it has often been co-opted by city councils and vocal rabble-rousers to segregate something else: people. These forces manipulate city codes to keep low-income residents out, and the obvious result of this exclusion is less supply — making housing more expensive for everyone.
Exclusionary zoning is not just morally wrong; it is economically counterproductive and increasingly constitutionally suspect. America is in the midst of a housing affordability crisis. We can dig ourselves out of it, so long as we break free from the zoning forces that have made it illegal to build affordable housing.
Ari Bargil
Miami
The writer is a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm that fights arbitrary zoning regulations nationwide.