'Most Beautiful Teen' Facebook Contest Shut Down As Parents Raise Concerns About Bullying, Safety (VIDEO)

A controversial online competition has captured the attention of concerned parents.

The "Most Beautiful Teen" contest, which started on Facebook, encouraged young adults to upload pictures to the site and vote on who they think should be declared the winner.

Photos often gave way to a series of rude, inappropriate and mean-spirited comments. And as some participants uploaded provocative pictures, the situation quickly began spiraling out of control.

Marcy Kemp-Rank's 15-year-old daughter participated in the contest, but her mother began to worry the competition encouraged online bullying after reading some of the remarks, ABC News reports.

"I couldn't handle hearing [the comments] because it just made me very upset and angry," Marcy Kemp-Rank told the station.

To another mom, the site's public accessibility has raised major red flags about the safety of the minors involved.

"Underneath my daughter's picture was comments from two men, asking how old she was and then one asked if she knew what a pedophile was and to look it up,"Paula Jones told the U.K.'s Leigh Reporter.

And Jones is not the only one to notice the potential dangers of the photo gallery.

"It is an absolute pool for people that like this sort of thing for the absolute wrong reason," John Abell, New York bureau chief for Wired.com, told ABC News.

Facebook later shut down the page, saying the contest violated some of the company's terms of use.

Nevertheless, the New York Daily News reports that several alternate versions of the contest remain scattered throughout the web.

A few Tumblr users caught wind of the contest and took to the social blogging platform to express their feelings.

One user said she can't believe such a competition existed in the first place.

"Asking random people to determine if you're attractive? Everyone is beautiful, who are we people to judge others appearances?" the blogger wrote.

What do you think of the contest? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Comments

[jwhite878]

04:56 PM on 07/25/2012

If you don't want to hear mean things said about you on the internet, you shouldn't post your picture to be judged on the internet.

[Gerry148]

10:56 AM on 07/10/2012

I for one miss this contest :/.....I had so much fun making fun of everyone. I guess no one here understands the idea of "trolling"

[Ty bow95]

07:45 PM on 06/25/2012

While it's good that they removed this contest, there's still hundreds more of them out there..

http://www.change.org/petitions/facebook-inc-remove-beauty-contests-from-facebook

[Srushti Saxena]

10:27 PM on 06/02/2012

I'm so glad they removed this competition. Along with the cutest couple competition, it truly disgusted me.

[Marilyn Badthing]

11:18 PM on 03/28/2012

Want a less violent world, where young people will grow into compassionate, senstive, less insulting adults who possess class? Then let's start a page (not a contest) where teens will post something beautiful that they've done in this world, and others can post their thoughts and feelings about THAT. Who wins? All of us as well as our future generations.

[emilyanneocol]

12:27 AM on 03/28/2012

All the people saying 1)this isn't bullying, 2)this is one-sided, 3)the parents didn't teach their kids well enough and 4)the kids are too sensitive are the reason things like this happen.
1)This is bullying. Just because there is no physical pain doesn't mean it isn't bullying. It's cyber bullying and sadly happens everywhere. Emotional pain is worse than physical because it doesn't fade away as easily, nor as quickly.
2)The report obviously has to be one-sided. Just like reports you write in school all have to be one-sided. It just wouldn't make sense if you tetter totter on the 2 views. As for the comments, they are going both ways.
3)You cannot judge how well a parent is teaching their child. Children are mainly influenced by their friends. Parents can instill the best values in their kids and their peers will, in a sense, corrupt that. This is true for the simple fact that you care more what your peers think because you want to fit in. Your parents will always love you and you know that.
4)The kids are not being too sensitive. They are being kids. They still live in their parents houses because they still need their parents. Yes, one comment shouldn't break your self-esteem, however when you have mutiple upon mutiple strangers telling you how ugly you are when your self-image is still fragile how exactly are you supposed to take that in stride?
Although, the whole contest was ridiculous.

[Katherine Flinn]

06:55 PM on 03/26/2012

Reason #423 that Tumblr is better than Facebook: We really DO believe that everyone is beautiful, for the most part.

[MidNightLove]

11:43 PM on 03/23/2012

Thanks mom for holding my hand,

What will we do when trying to fight for that job promotion? Call our moms?

This generation will never learn anything, and we will get our feelings hurt easily.

[Goldie Treasure]

09:41 AM on 03/23/2012

This generation of young people is just so sad, thank God I grew up in the 90's. It wasn't perfect but we didn't do dumb stuff like this, and the teens/kids weren't so vicious.

[MissTake1989]

09:15 PM on 03/22/2012

Do parents understand that one day children have to stand on their own in the real world?

The Chinese must laugh so hard...

[lex19999]

09:35 PM on 03/22/2012

No 1 cares what the chinese do.

[MissTake1989]

05:00 AM on 03/23/2012

No 1?

Or hicks on their way to Walmart who have no concept of the global economy....?

[BigWillyG]

10:56 PM on 03/19/2012

If this caused a media "panic" I loved to see what happens when someone shows the folks at CNN 4chan or the concept of Rule 34.

[Gerry148]

10:54 AM on 07/10/2012

bahahahahahahaha!

[luveanne]

02:58 PM on 03/19/2012

Hmmm. I find it interesting that theres only one side to this.
But, still good though. Very interesting.
I have a facebook and I didn't know about this competition lol

[bill5martin]

04:49 AM on 03/19/2012

I am glad they took it down. It doesn't surprise me that people were being rude. Considering how popular facebook is today. Theere are always people who just get jelous. I am glad nothing bad happened. Like one of the people that posted their and got bad feedback didn't hurt themselves. Considering it was teenagers, who take things more personally and who have a large percentage of their lives based around this site. So all their friends saw the comments too.

[On the MIKE]

03:47 AM on 03/19/2012

"Bully" is the new buzz word, over using it (or missusig it) will only diminish its value when a real problems arises, but go ahead continue to cry "wolf" eventually everyone will stop responding.

the real problem here is not bullying, the problem here, as I see it, is the parents of these kids submiting themselvs, failed to teach them more about their self-worth than they learned from the wrong scorces.

that and I gleened the idea that maybe some of the entries might have crossed the line, age to content, into a leagle grey area. which could have been the intent of the founder all along.

[beobnoxious]

03:01 AM on 03/19/2012

well you cant be young and hot forever 1 dont see the problem. 1ts 2012 let th1s generat1on do what they do