False: A leaflet distributed in UK schools encourages children to invite pedophiles into their homes.

CONTEXT

Images of a leaflet were distributed across Twitter, Telegram, and other social media during the last weeks of August 2022. The images of the leaflet contain a few art supplies, a pillow, and a child’s drawing in the background. The leaflet reads, "What to do if you see a stranger on the street?" and then gives a series of steps on what to do instead – it instructs the reader to not be afraid nor scream nor cry. The third instruction reads “DO NOT call him a pedophile! This can be just as offensive as n-word!” 

Numerous posts and tweets with engagement in the hundreds of thousands of views claimed that this leaflet had been distributed across British schools and that children in the U.K. were being taught to invite pedophiles into their homes. 

But this isn't true. This is a piece of extremely successful Russian disinformation amplified across non-English-language social media. 

IN FACT

First, the leaflet contains several spelling and grammar mistakes that indicate it was not produced in the U.K. The U.S. spelling of pedophile is used instead of the U.K. "paedophile." Secondly, the phrase “just as offensive as n-word” lacks the grammatical article "the," and would correctly read "the n-word.” Thirdly, the phrase “the n-word" as a stand-in for the racial slur is not common in British English. No logos, contact information, or any other information about the organization that printed the leaflets appears on the leaflet. Combined with the grammar and spelling mistakes, these factors indicate that the leaflet was not likely to have been professionally produced. 

There is also no evidence that this leaflet was ever produced or distributed at scale. There are no other images available of this leaflet – every post with an image of the leaflet uses the same images. Again, as fakenews.pl points out, the material used in British schools to teach children about safeguarding comes from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and does not resemble the messaging nor images on the leaflet at all. 

The first and only set of images of this leaflet appears on the Russian social media site VK. Polish fact-checking organization fakenews.pl identified a post on the City of St. Petersburg VK page from August 8, in which images are shared of the leaflet, claiming that it had been taken back from the U.K. by a Russian tourist and that British children were being told to support pedophiles. No other evidence in that post was given to support those claims. Reverse image searches and searches for the title and content of the leaflet reveal nothing other than the original set of images shared on August 8. 

On August 10, the Twitter account LibsOfTikTok posted a video of a therapist who works with incarcerated adults who have committed sexual offenses. LibsOfTikTok is managed by the conservative influencer Chaya Raichik, who often posts videos that conflate LGBTQ identities with sexual abuse against children. The video was clipped so that it looked like the therapist was advocating for social acceptance of pedophilia as a practice, but the longer unedited video makes it clear that she was condemning sex crimes against children. The original video has been set to private, but an archived version exists. 

However, a number of Russian telegram channels combined this video and narrative with the post about the leaflet. One series of posts from August 15 on a Russian language Telegram channel with 180,000 subscribers posted the leaflet and then immediately posted the video from LibsOfikok with the caption (translated by Google):

“But this is definitely not a fake, he-she is a licensed sex therapist in the USA, in Pennsylvania, says that the designation of a pedophile as a pedophile offends this category of people. It defends pedophiles … Against the background of this video, the pedophile pamphlet from the previous post looks real.” The same posts were picked up by a Russian telegram channel with 400,000 subscribers. 

This combination of narratives was lifted from Telegram by local social media influencers and then spread wildly on other platforms. Images of the leaflet, sometimes with the corresponding video, were tweeted in a number of different languages. Fact-checkers in Iran, Poland, Georgia, and Spain encountered viral tweets or Facebook posts containing these narratives, usually claiming it was a leaflet from a U.K. school. A few Polish politicians even retweeted it. In one case, a U.K. Twitter user posted images of the leaflet that garnered 10k likes, and the top reply was about the LibsOfTikTok video.

VERDICT

There is no evidence that this leaflet was produced or distributed at schools anywhere. British schools do not advocate for greater acceptance of people who commit sexual assaults against children. Images of this leaflet originated on Russian social media, were combined with a post from LibsOfTikTok on Russian language disinformation channels, and then were shared in a number of languages around the world.