Jonathan Bha­gan

In­ter­net plat­forms such as X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter), Red­dit and Face­book are hotbeds of dan­ger­ous rad­i­cal ide­olo­gies.

Since the as­sas­si­na­tion of Char­lie Kirk on Sep­tem­ber 10, the In­ter­net has been ablaze with po­lit­i­cal di­a­logue and calls for Chris­t­ian na­tion­al­ist ral­lies across the West­ern world.

How­ev­er, be­com­ing a rad­i­calised left or right-winger is on­ly one of the many dan­gers that in­ter­net use presents for chil­dren. Par­ents need to mon­i­tor their chil­dren’s on­line ac­tiv­i­ty, as the in­ter­net is full of both meta­phys­i­cal and phys­i­cal dan­gers.

The lat­est da­ta from the child pro­tec­tion non-prof­it Thorn shows that 1 in 3 boys are in dan­ger of some sort of sex­u­al con­tact on­line. Thorn’s Youth Per­spec­tives Re­port is based on a sur­vey of thou­sands of youths; their 2024 re­port found trou­bling in­creas­es in on­line sex­u­al groom­ing and ac­tiv­i­ty.

A re­cent post from Thorn’s web­site is quot­ed as fol­lows: “In 2024, one in three (33 per cent) boys aged 9 to 12 re­port­ed hav­ing an on­line sex­u­al in­ter­ac­tion. This is the high­est rate we’ve record­ed since start­ing to gath­er da­ta five years ago. But the risks ex­tend far be­yond sex­u­al con­tent. Near­ly three in five (59 per cent) younger boys re­port­ed feel­ing bul­lied or made un­com­fort­able on­line. These aren’t iso­lat­ed in­ci­dents—they rep­re­sent a con­cern­ing pat­tern of in­creased tar­get­ing and ha­rass­ment.

What makes this da­ta par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing is that it rep­re­sents a shift in preda­to­ry tac­tics, not changes in boys’ be­hav­iour. The da­ta shows that 9 to 12-year-old boys are not en­gag­ing in riski­er on­line ac­tiv­i­ties—in fact, their rates of shar­ing in­ti­mate im­ages re­mained vir­tu­al­ly un­changed from 2023 (-3 per cent for shar­ing their own con­tent, -3 per cent for shar­ing oth­ers’ con­tent).

In­stead, per­pe­tra­tors ap­pear to be in­creas­ing­ly in­ten­tion­al in how they iden­ti­fy and tar­get younger male vic­tims. They’re cast­ing wider nets across plat­forms where boys feel safest, in­clud­ing gam­ing en­vi­ron­ments, so­cial plat­forms, and mes­sag­ing apps, where they can build pri­vate re­la­tion­ships.

The da­ta re­veals ex­act­ly how these harm­ful in­ter­ac­tions are un­fold­ing. Two large re­port­ing in­creas­es among younger boys were in “be­ing sent sex­u­al mes­sages” (+12%) and “be­ing asked to send a nude pho­to or video” (+9%). Cru­cial­ly, both of these ex­pe­ri­ences in­volve be­ing con­tact­ed and so­licit­ed by some­one else, not ini­ti­at­ing risky be­hav­iour them­selves. In fact, 1 in 3 (30 per cent) 9 to 12-year-olds re­port­ed hav­ing an on­line sex­u­al in­ter­ac­tion with some­one they be­lieved to be an adult, trend­ing up nine per­cent­age points since 2020.”

The re­port fur­ther high­lights the prob­lem that 1 in 5 mi­nors who ex­pe­ri­enced a harm­ful in­ter­ac­tion on­line did not ask for help. This may be due to the shame­ful na­ture of the in­ter­ac­tion or due to threats by the on­line groomer that if the boy tells any­one, some harm will come to them.

The US case of Doe v Twit­ter al­leged that the so­cial me­dia plat­form Twit­ter (al­so known as X) aid­ed in­di­vid­u­als who sex­u­al­ly ex­ploit­ed two young boys over so­cial me­dia. One of the two boys was black­mailed and forced to pro­duce sex­u­al con­tent with an­oth­er boy. The con­tent was shared on the so­cial me­dia plat­form Twit­ter, and Twit­ter failed to re­move it prompt­ly.

The rise of AI al­so al­lows preda­tors to take in­no­cent pho­tos of a child and dig­i­tal­ly ma­nip­u­late them to cre­ate im­ages that can be used to em­bar­rass and scan­dalise a child. While AI com­pa­nies that pro­vide cloud-based ser­vices try to cen­sor their prod­ucts, open-source AI tools can be down­loaded by crim­i­nals who can re­pro­gramme them to run on a home com­put­er and pro­duce porno­graph­ic con­tent.

Young boys may be in an on­line game like Fort­nite or Roblox and be­friend strangers who pre­tend to be chil­dren. These strangers may move in­ter­ac­tions to Snapchat, In­sta­gram or What­sApp and then groom chil­dren in­to send­ing them pho­tos. Even if no com­pro­mis­ing nude pho­tos are sent, the face of a young boy may be ma­nip­u­lat­ed by AI in­to cre­at­ing sex­u­al con­tent used for black­mail.

This sort of sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion can lead to the death of a child, as seen in the re­cent­ly filed case of Re­bec­ca Dal­las v Roblox Cor­po­ra­tion. Re­bec­ca’s son, Ethan Dal­las, com­mit­ted sui­cide af­ter be­ing groomed on­line from the age of 12 un­til 15. The in­ter­ac­tion start­ed on Roblox but was moved to Dis­cord, where Ethan Dal­las was en­cour­aged to send sex­u­al con­tent to a child preda­tor.

Re­bec­ca Dal­las is now su­ing Roblox and Dis­cord for wrong­ful death, fraud­u­lent con­ceal­ment and mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions, neg­li­gent mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion and strict li­a­bil­i­ty. She al­leges that the Roblox cor­po­ra­tion mis­rep­re­sent­ed its plat­form as a safe space but had in­suf­fi­cient safe­guards to guard chil­dren against pae­dophiles.

Par­ents in T&T should com­mu­ni­cate with their chil­dren reg­u­lar­ly about the dan­gers of meet­ing peo­ple on­line. Par­ents should en­sure their chil­dren have age-ap­pro­pri­ate sex ed­u­ca­tion at an ear­ly age to pre­vent the con­fu­sion that may re­sult from be­ing sex­u­al­ly groomed on­line.

Ide­al­ly, chil­dren who are on plat­forms like Roblox should on­ly be play­ing with chil­dren known to the par­ent. There is al­ways a risk in al­low­ing a child to in­ter­act with strangers on­line, even in child­ish set­tings that may seem to be in­no­cent and play­ful.

In clos­ing, it should be stressed that both girl and boy chil­dren are at a high risk of be­ing sex­u­al­ly groomed on­line.