When I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, the internet was a luxury. It was the source of many arguments about who in our house got to take their turn on the computer to ‘surf’ the net whilst complaints sounded out over who was commandeering the phone line.
It felt thrilling to be part of a generation experiencing this technological revolution. In just a few decades, the world wide web has gone from a new and intriguing concept at a desk in the living room or office to a daily necessity in the palm of our hands with the explosion of mobile phone use and other connected devices.
Many children growing up now, particularly in the West, use the internet in most aspects of their lives – learning, socializing and playing. For them it doesn’t feel thrilling; it feels essential.
Sadly, the digital world as it exists in the 21st century is often not a safe space for children. Child sexual exploitation and abuse online is a topic of particular concern and presents huge challenges for child protection.
The WeProtect Global Alliance’s recent Global Threat Assessment[1] report highlights how the threat of child sexual abuse online has increased at an unprecedented level, both in scale and in complexity.
To give a sense of this scale, last year, the ‘CyberTipline’ run by the US-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children received 29.3 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation, an increase of 35% from 2020. At every moment, hundreds of thousands of predators are estimated to be looking to connect with children for sexual purposes and much of the abuse happens via private messaging.
Child sexual abuse is nothing new, but the internet has enabled it to manifest in different forms and to exacerbate the risks to children through content, contact, conduct and contract[2].
The research, the statistics, and the accounts from survivors make it abundantly clear that the risk to children online is very real, and yet it seems we have done very little, as a society, to counter it.
If we imagine a digital space as if it were a playground or a park, where children might expect to congregate, we would expect there to be safety measures: CCTV, park guards, guardrails and safety checks on equipment, for example. If it were a nursery, school or a college, we would assume employment checks, training for staff, procedures and consequences for those who fell foul of these rules or broke the law.
If it were a place where we wouldn’t expect children to be, such as an adult store or a bar, there would be age checks. If people openly discussed abusing children in a library, shopping center or office, the police would be called.
I find it staggering that there are so little safety measures such as these online, both in places where children should be (like gaming platforms) but also where they shouldn’t (like pornography sites).
The impact of a laissez-faire approach has resulted in millions of images of children being abused circulating on the net, reappearing once taken down, often thousands of times – each a fresh trauma for the victim. It has meant that offenders can connect to plan their approaches, share tactics and trade videos. It has left children vulnerable to being targeted for extortion and blackmail.
It can be tempting to lay the blame at the feet of technology companies who certainly could and should be doing more. But this is something that society must tackle collectively.
The regulation of online harms is relatively immature compared to other sectors – such as aviation, food, and financial services. On the topic of child sexual abuse online, we rely on mainly voluntary action by technology companies to find this illegal content. Some do more than others, some do nothing at all. Transparency is generally limited, and accountability and corrective action are inconsistent.
Given so many children across the world are gaining access to the internet – coupled with the scale and severity of the risk – there is no time to lose in making the case for increased regulation of digital services.
As a result of the ever-increasing reports of abuse and broader concerns over child welfare online, there has been significant movement towards regulation in the past few years – with an emphasis on ‘safety by design’ and prevention of harms.
Australia was the first to have an ‘Online Safety Act’, Ireland next, and the UK is hot on their heels with an ambitious bill going through Parliament. The European Union plans to publish a bold new law focused on child sexual abuse, which would call for the mandatory detection, reporting and removal of abuse content.
There is often much challenge to these laws coming into force. Some feel this type of legislation can undermine data protection and that the internet should not be regulated by governments.
As with any law, there must be sufficient scrutiny and accountability to protect all of our rights, including that of freedom of speech and privacy. It isn’t a silver bullet – we still need improvements in our broader child protection, education and criminal justice systems, without such regulation, we are continuing to allow children to go into digital spaces with little to no safety measures.
Young people growing up now – and those of the future – are reliant on society’s collective ability to create a safe digital world for them to explore the many benefits of the internet and thrive as digital citizens. Child protection is not just a legal duty but a moral one, and the internet
should be no exception. ❦

Resources
[1] https://www.weprotect.org/global-threat-assessment-21/
[2] https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/71817/ssoar-2021-livingstone_et_al-The_4Cs_Classifying_Online_Risk.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y&lnkname=ssoar-2021-livingstone_et_al-The_4Cs_Classifying_Online_Risk.pdf

About the Author
Chloe Setter is Head of Advocacy, Policy & Research at WeProtect Global Alliance, which brings together members from across government, civil society and the private sector to transform the global response to child sexual exploitation and abuse online.
She was formerly the Head of Anti-Trafficking for JK Rowling’s international NGO, Lumos, and the Head of Advocacy at ECPAT UK, where she helped to bring about the country’s first modern slavery law.
Chloe set up and chaired the first dedicated children’s anti-trafficking group for the UK Government and the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Journal of Modern Slavery and the Tech Coalition’s Safe Online Research Fund. She is a fellow of the Vital Voices Global Freedom Exchange and has authored multiple publications on child exploitation.

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