In the year 1998, Britney Spears released her debut single “Baby One More Time,” Singer Elton John is knighted in Buckingham Palace in London by Queen Elizabeth II, and “That 70’s Show” airs on television for the first time with the first time actor, Ashton Kutcher, as Michael Kelso (“Historical Events”). Young 20-year-old Ashton, had no idea of how successful he would be as an actor, the people watching and many more later would soon grow to love him. Kutcher also had no idea how much of an influence he would have on not only America but even the world.
Ashton Kutcher is an influential humanitarian due to his advancements in technology, the large growth in his company, and his other charity donations and works.
In 2004, around 450,000 cases of sexual child abuse were being reviewed by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. However, with the rise of social media, in 2015, 450,000 increased tremendously to 25 million cases of sexual child abuse. Thorn, Ashton Kutcher, and Demi Moore’s non-profit company are making technology to help children who are victims of Sex Trafficking and Sexual child abuse.
“63% of victimized kids, thorn encountered had been advertised online.” The internet is being abused too often by predators to lure kids, to encounter other people with the same interest as them, and to circulate or share things such as child pornography. This content often gets shared beyond just the initial people meant to get it and is then shared with more people, and more people, “recirculating the image, perpetuating the abuse and retraumatizing the child.
” (“We Build”). This advancement in technology has largely helped the process of saving children from sexual child abuse, child pornography, and child sex trafficking.
Thorn has many different products and resources designed specifically to help children in this position. one, and the first one made, is called “Spotlight.” “Since 2016, Spotlight has helped law enforcement: Identify an average of 8 kids per day, reduce critical search times by 65% and, find a total of 5,791 victimized kids (so far)” The second, would be “Project Vic” which helps to identify pictures, or videos of sexual child abuse and making finding its source a lot faster. Finally, with The “BEFREE Text Shortcode” a child in a bad position who has a phone may not be able to call anyone to get help or text anything too obvious to anyone without being caught and potentially put in more danger, so Thorn came up with the text shortcode so that one meaningless text can track and save an endangered child’s life. Thorn has been able to help almost 6,000 children (“We Build”).
Ashton Kutcher’s company, Thorn, is not the only reason why Kutcher is an Influential American, Kutcher has also made many donations and even teamed up with Dallas Clark to create “Iowans Helping Iowans.” The fund was launched in response to the floods in 2008 in Iowa. “Iowa has the capacity and a general generosity of people that allow it to be a state where people pro-actively prepare for the worst,” “The fund is all about Iowans helping Iowans and setting up a reserved access for the people that are in need.” Kutcher explains it as a database of Iowans who are ready to lend a hand to people in need during times of catastrophe(“Ashton Kutcher”). Not only did Kutcher largely help create Thorn and Iowans Helping Iowans, but he also created Katalyst which is an organization developed in 2000 whose goal was solely to help charities. Their first charity was Malarianomore.com which was a website taking donations to buy nets for children to prevent malaria.“’Everyone who said they’d donate did,’ he says, sounding very Hollywood. ‘Diddy, Seacrest, and Oprah–they all were intrigued by the echo Ashton created.’ Final tally: nearly 90,000 nets.”
Ashton Kutcher's race against Human Trafficking. (2022, Apr 23). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/ashton-kutcher-s-race-against-human-trafficking/