New Report: An Alarming Increase of Online Threats to Children

A recent report confirmed that there is an increase in online threats among children.

One in three internet users in the world is a child as children's use of the internet and mobile technology has soared due to the shift from television to online viewing, accessibility and demand of mobile devices, and usage of technology for educational purposes.

The distinction between the online and offline world is no longer clear for many children across the world.

According to Dig Watch, promoting the benefits of technology must come with fostering a safe and secure online environment for the children, and stakeholders need to be careful in balancing the need to guard them and respect their digital rights.

Although the internet can do something that can benefit the users, it also became a space for sexual abuse content as abusers find it easy to access and at the same time have interaction with vulnerable young people.

Reports of online threats

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) suggests that unsuitable photos and videos of children are spreading online increases the risk that children will be exposed to such as well.

The center released a new report on Thursday that they received a record of 29.3 million tips to its CyberTipline in 2021 that involved the possible sexual abuse of children - a 35% increase since 2020.

The reports of online enticement of young people also increased by almost 17%, an alarming trend that the NCMEC describes as when "a child is being groomed to take sexually explicit images and/or ultimately meet face-to-face with someone for sexual purposes, or to engage in a sexual conversation online or, in some instances, to sell/trade the child's sexual images," per The Pulse of NH.

The increase in data appears to coincide with a rise in children spending most of their time behind computer and phone screens.

Researchers from the University of Calgary in Canada examined studies involving more than 89,000 kids globally and reported that more than 75% of kids younger than 2 and 64% of children between the age of 2 and 5 had more screen time than pediatricians recommend.

What parents can do?

According to the NCMEC, social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are aggressively tracking and ousting suspected child sex abuse content on their platforms and are immediately reporting them to the center.

When a certain content depicts a child being sexually abused and is discovered online, the two clear priorities are to remove the content from the public and find the victim, hence, this doesn't work at all times as abusers have recently begun using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to create deep fakes, a tool that allows them to exchange the faces of victims in moving imagery, making the identification of victims more complex.

Parents must keep an eye on the online activity of their children, know what type of social media platform they use and what are they searching and posting online, and be involved in knowing who their kids are communicating with online.

Lindsey Olson, Executive Director, Exploited Children Division, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children stated that there was a huge increase in those types of reports throughout the pandemic, per NBC News.