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A public prankster turned to a serious subject for his latest viral video, and his efforts have generated support and criticism on social media.
Joey Saladino, who goes by JoeySalads on YouTube and other social media platforms, is known for pulling pranks. His YouTube channel has almost 300,000 subscribers.
Recently, Saladino conducted a social experiment highlighting the serious subject of child abduction. The prankster visited a New York park and asked parents if they thought their children would talk to a stranger. He then asked for permission to approach the children.
The parents seemed confident their children would follow the rules they had been taught regarding interactions with strangers.
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Saladino had a puppy with him, and used that to lure the children.
The prankster was able to talk to the children with ease and lead them away from the playground with the promise of seeing more puppies.
The parents were shocked by the results.
http://youtu.be/gGIDHrYKJ2s
Many YouTube viewers commended Saladino for making the video and showing how easy it is for children to be abducted, no matter what they've been taught about strangers.
But at least one viewer was not impressed with the prank star's experiment. In a blog post on Reason, Lenore Skenazy criticizes the video for "peddling outrageously false claims." Skenazy points out that the video doesn't make clear if the children saw Saladino talking to their mothers before they were approached and he doesn't reveal how many children refused to talk to him.
Skenazy also takes Saladino to task for a statistic about child abductions he includes in the video. Saladino claims 700 children are abducted each day in America, but the vast majority of those abductions are by family members.
The video has generated more than 4.7 million page views in less than a week.
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