Technology

This is commonplace. There's a reason that the kids call their youth pastor the freak of the week, because the previous one just got booted for being too creepy and the new one is likely no less.

I have a hypothesis about it, as youth pastors are supposed to council teens while also selling them Jesus (and devotion to this specific church). Counciling really needs to be unconditionally in good faith. Selling them something falls right in to the chasm of serving two masters, and once the pastor is betraying his flock to push the church agenda, it becomes too tempting to also push a personal agenda. And teens struggling with personal problems (and often family or society problems) can be super grateful and easily manipulable when you actually help them.

This is one of the reasons teachers are supposed to be trained, credentialed and professional. Part of that training is being aware of the social dynamics that can be mistaken for romance on egalitarian terms, and it's so not. And then, teachers still occasionally wreck their careers by getting involved with their favored students.

Youth pastors are not trained in this at all, so that even ones who didn't go in intending to be a predator will sometimes yield to temptation.

And tech guys tasked with creating social media for children are not appropriately trained either, and in fact no-one is even thinking of it.