PERRY, Ga. — A Perry man is charged with sharing child pornography through the Kik messenger app.
A federal grand jury this week indicted David Franklin Browder III on one count of distributing child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography.
Court documents say the case against Browder started with a complaint in Canada through the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The documents say the Kik messenger service gave investigators the IP address of the user, "yappydappy," who uploaded the child-porn files.
Then through Windstream, they matched that IP address to Browder's home address in Perry.
According to the criminal complaint, investigators found more than 20 child-porn images on Browder's cell phone.
The complaint says Browder told them he started viewing child pornography when he was 12. He said he didn't want to hurt children personally and that viewing the pornography helped "curb things away."
Kik is a mobile-messaging app launched in 2010 and four years ago, the company claimed 300 million registered users. Because of its potential to put children at risk, some experts have included Kik on lists of phone apps that parents should be concerned about.
Browder is being held in the Butts County jail. No trial date has been set for his federal charges.
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