When teens post inappropriate photos or videos of themselves in the Internet, they often end up being victims of unwanted attention. The case of Allison Stokke is very different. She did not post her photo herself, nor was the photo inappropriate. But still, she has to deal with bizarre popularity and lewd comments on the Internet.

If this happens to you or your child how can you protect yourself?

Allison Stokke is one of the top high school pole vaulters in the US.  Stokke won the 2004 California state pole vaulting title, has broken five national records and earned a scholarship to the University of California.

However, in cyberspace, people think of her very differently because of one unfortunate photo, which was taken by a track and field journalist, and posted on a sports blog.

According to Washington Post, on May 8, blogger Matt Ufford received Stokke’s picture in an e-mail from one of his readers. Readers of Ufford’s WithLeather.com are into athletes and good-looking women, and as an attractive, 18-year-old-pole vaulter, Stokke qualified as both. She was, therefore, a “no-brainer to write about,” Ufford told the Washington Post.

The blog made Stokke a star with dozens and dozens of message boards blogs linking to Ufford’s post.

Stokke’s internet celebrity spawned an unofficial fan page at www.allisonstokke.com (which has now been taken down) and fan groups on Myspace.com.

Ufford has since removed the offending picture because of objections from the photographer who took the phonto.

However, that has not been enough to keep the genie in the bottle. In less than a month her popularity has spread like wildfire all over the Internet.

Search for ”Allison Stokke” in Google and you’ll get more than 460,000 results. A MySpace page set up by fans was swamped with thousands of messages. An amateur video interview from her past posted on YouTube has been viewed more than 700,000 times.

The problem is all of this attention is unwanted and out of control.

Stokke told the Washington Post that the attention made her very uncomfortable. As the newspaper said: “Her body had been stolen and turned into a public commodity, critiqued in fan forums devoted to everything from hip-hop to Hollywood.”

Said Stokke: “Even if none of it is illegal, it just all feels really demeaning. I worked so hard for pole vaulting and all this other stuff, and it’s almost like that doesn’t matter. Nobody sees that. Nobody really sees me.”

“Some of the comments are pretty crude, and some people make comments that no dad wants to hear about their daughter,” said Allan Stokke, Allison’s father and a well-known Orange County defense attorney.

But what makes it worse is that experts say that Stokkes has very little control over where or how photos are used, even those taken when she was a child. The photographer who takes a photo can sue, but not Stokke.

All of it is very unfair to Stokke. But maybe after reading about Stokke’s plight, people will think twice before forwarding a photo or posting a panting remark.

We chose not to post a photo of Allison Stokke.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 at 5:56 am under Technology.

Read more entries by Ruben Francia.
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