By Naomi Miles, CEO, CEASE
Working in the area of sexual abuse, harm and exploitation, there is no shortage of alarming statistics and bad news, so good news is both rare and welcome.
And here it is: the UK is set to become the first country to require device-level protections that prevent children from accessing pornography and from taking, sending or receiving nude images on their smartphones.
For years, CEASE and many others have argued that if we are serious about protecting children online, we must move beyond simply responding to harm after it has occurred and start addressing the conditions that make that harm possible in the first place. This announcement represents a significant and hard-won shift in approach that we’ve long called for.
This is long overdue. By almost every available measure, indicators of sexual harm affecting children have been moving in the wrong direction. Reports of online grooming, image-based sexual abuse, harmful sexual behaviour, sexual extortion and child sexual abuse material have all risen sharply.
The most significant drivers has been the rapid expansion of internet-enabled and mobile technologies. The internet and the smartphone have transformed not only how children communicate, but also the environment in which they develop. They have created unprecedented opportunities for harmful sexual content to shape children’s attitudes, expectations and behaviour, while simultaneously giving predators, groomers and abusers vastly greater access to potential victims.
In recognition of years of campaigning in this area, Strategic Director Dr Elly Hanson was invited by Government officials to help communicate the announcement. Her statement included
“Young people’s social media feeds are awash with sexualised content fundamentally because many people profit from this – social media algorithms amplify arousing content to hook people in, OnlyFans mandates its creators have a social media presence, driving buyers to the site, corporates place products in sexualised posts, and agencies managing porn performers are always pushing for PR. This parasitic ecosystem is preying on young people, shaping their sexual norms towards corporate profit and away from a sexuality rooted in respect and connection.
As a psychologist with a focus on online harms, I am disturbed by the way in which this bombard of sexual content on social media is shaping young people’s sexuality towards corporate profit, violating their right to author a sexuality rooted in respect and connection. Instead this content teaches that sex is about transaction, performance and objectification. Research finds that when people objectify women, they come to see them as being less intelligent, less sensitive to pain and less deserving of ethical treatment. These are all steps towards their mistreatment, and all this helps explain the high rates of harmful sexual behaviour we’re dealing with right now.
Children today are growing up in an online environment saturated with sexually explicit and highly sexualised content. A growing body of evidence suggests this content shapes young people’s attitudes, expectations and behaviour, influencing how they understand sex, relationships and consent, and normalising a more transactional and objectifying view of sexuality.
What’s more, a culture that normalises sexual objectification, exposure and entitlement leaves children more vulnerable to exploitation, whilst simultaneously giving predators unprecedented access to potential victims. Combined with technologies that make it easier than ever to contact, groom and exchange sexual images with children, it creates a perfect storm for coercion, abuse and sexual exploitation.
It should come as no surprise that an estimated 90% of child sexual abuse material identified online is now self-generated. Sometimes images are shared voluntarily, though never in a social vacuum: peer pressure, social norms and cultural expectations all play a role. Sometimes children feel pressured by a boyfriend or girlfriend; sometimes they are manipulated, groomed or threatened by adults. Whatever the circumstances, once an image exists it can be shared, weaponised for blackmail or used for sexual extortion. What begins as a private exchange can quickly become the gateway to further abuse.
The threat posed by online predators remains enormous. The National Crime Agency estimates that 840,000 adults in the UK pose a sexual threat to children. Exploiting features across social media, gaming and messaging platforms, mean that they’re able to identify, contact and groom children at unprecedented scale, often through platforms many parents regard as safe and familiar such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft.
What chance do children have when the current of online culture is flowing against them? What chance do parents have of keeping them out of harm’s reach?
For many years, CEASE and numerous other organisations have called for interventions that tackle these harms at source rather than simply responding after the damage has been done.
This is why we welcome the Government’s proposal.
Device-level protections address the problem upstream, preventing many opportunities for abuse from arising in the first place. Whilst ambitious, they are entirely proportionate to the scale of the problem.
We have spent years relying on partial solutions. Age verification is an important step forward, but patchy compliance and workarounds mean many children continue to access pornography with ease. Law enforcement agencies are working tirelessly, yet the scale of abuse remains overwhelming. The reality is that we cannot arrest, educate or regulate our way out of a problem that technology continues to generate at scale.
Nor should the burden of managing these risks fall primarily on children, parents, schools and law enforcement. For too long, they have been left to deal with the consequences whilst technology companies have profited from products and platforms that expose children to these risks. It is time for the industry to shoulder a greater share of responsibility.
Device-level protections have the potential to make grooming harder, reduce exposure to pornography, disrupt pathways into abuse and give children breathing space to grow up. The Government must now follow through with legislation to ensure these protections are implemented in full and without delay. The safety of children cannot depend on voluntary action or goodwill alone; it requires clear legal obligations and meaningful accountability.
Our children have waited long enough.