12 year old involved in inappropriate conversation over Instagram

[lovely123]

Hi, need some advice...
My 12 year old son does not have a smartphone but all his friends do and they chat over Skype/Instagram, so I gave him permission to use my phone so he could talk to his friends.
Last night he was using my phone, when I took it off him I discovered he was involved in a conversation with 2 other boys from his school and they were taking about a girl....
without going into too much detail the short version is...the girl is a friend of Boy A but Boy B became quite offensive and was using obscene words to describe what Boy A may do to the girl.
This is a shock as I did not even know these boys would know these types of words, maybe I am too naive!
My son thankfully was not involved in saying anything obscene but he was in the conversation...

How do I handle this? I need him to know that him or any of his acquaintances MUST NOT disrespect women like this, no matter who she is.

[MattDillonsPants]

Oh it's awful isn't it? I feel for you. You're going to have to have a very open conversation with him about the law and child pornography basically.

Explain to him that even children can get into trouble with the police for this sort of thing. Speak to school also....they can and will help.

They won't tell your son off...but they will talk to the whole class about this and it will be taken more seriously I expect.

Also have a word with your son about objectifying females and why it's wrong to speak about them like that OR to stand by whilst others do. Ask him how he'd react if it was one of his relatives the boy was speaking about.

[sunnydayinmay]

I had an interesting talk with my 12 year old about the word "wank" this week. A friend was posting complete filth on a watsapp chat.

He showed me, we deleted the chat, and talked about why it was wrong to post it. All you can is to be open and clear about it

[lovely123]

Thanks guys, good advice, I think I need to show him the seriousness of speaking like this and the trouble it an get him into, but most importantly it is just not pleasant.

[sunnydayinmay]

My ds describes it as "gangster" behaviour. Thing is, you cannot stop them coming across it, but you can make them see that it is immature, causes hurt, may be illegal etc at worst.

I tell ds that you should never say something over social media that you wouldn't say out loud in front of a teacher.