DNA, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s foundation for sex trafficking awareness, has launched its social media campaign this week, “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls.” If you get past the absurdity of their ads (and they are absurd on so many levels) and visit the DNA Facebook page you’ll encounter some shocking statistics about the prostitution industry. For example, over 12 million people are at risk for sex slavery around the world and the average age of entry into sex slavery is 13 years old.
Moore and Kutcher’s solution? Raise awareness and take action, like reporting any suspicious ads you see on Craigslist or Backpage.
In order to spread the word, the actress and actor/angel investor have leveraged their Hollywood connections to get Justin Timberlake, Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper, Jamie Foxx and even “Old Spice Guy” Isaiah Mustafa to make these silly silly videos. Notable personalities like media cyclone Arianna Huffington have also added their visages to the mix (she’s at the end of Kutcher’s video).
Where Dorsey comes is in that DNA has actually partnered with tech companies like Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft in order to come up with ways to reduce the 76% of sex trade transactions that take place online. Microsoft for example is working on something called Photo DNA, which identifies and tags pornographic images, allowing service providers to remove all their replications simultaneously.
The initiative also includes a Facebook campaign which allows users to have their picture added to the gallery of “Real Men” and “Women Who Prefer Real Men,” as well as take part in the video. I really wish they would rig it so Eva Langoria would say my name though, just like they did with Dorsey. I’d love to hear her try to pronounce “Tsotsis.”
Kutcher is an investor in Flipboard, Blekko, Path and Zaarly among other other things.