We’ve signed an open letter with Demos calling for UK political parties to commit to a cross-party agreement on AI

The National Crime Agency (NCA) has issued an alert as number of young people targeted in sextortion scams doubles.

Nine out of 10 (91%) UK cases dealt with by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) in 2023 concerned male victims, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said. standard.co.uk/news/uk/childr…

📢 An essential story from National Crime Agency (NCA). We cannot expect children and young people to protect themselves and constantly be looking out for harm online.

There is anonymous support and guidance for teenagers on our  #Shore website: shorespace.org.uk

theguardian.com/society/2024/a…

Helpful long read rounding up where we are currently with grassroots campaigns and possible Government proposals for action on children's smartphone use.

🚨@ofcom consultation alert klaxon: #medialiteracy strategy out today.
📅Deadline for responses: 24 June. ⬇️

NEW: in the latest of our #OnlineSafetyAct explainers, Prof Lorna Woods & Alexandros K. Antoniou Essex Law School set out what the child safety duties cover and how they work. A consultation from Ofcom on these duties and related codes and guidance is due shortly. onlinesafetyact.net/analysis/the-o…

“2023 was an incredibly fast paced year. It was a year when end to end encryption was debated across policy forums and the press. Sexually coerced extortion, or sextortion has quickly become a threat in the lives of many children at the hands of organised crime gangs. AI…

Offenders are targeting children under six, on devices that can be found in most family homes and exploiting them into perverse sexual activities. The tech companies need to get their act together and make sure their platforms are safe for children. bbc.in/3JtLqNB

(1/4) ⚠️‘Most extreme year on record’ sees three to six year olds being targeted and groomed or coerced into sexual activities via webcams by ‘opportunistic’ predators. #BehindTheScreens

More reporting on today's Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) report from Mark Sellman in The Times and The Sunday Times 👇 #OnlineSafetyAct thetimes.co.uk/article/c64520…

Meta’s ads run on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and more. Since 2022 they’ve been running ads for services that offer to “undress” photos of women and girls with AI. We’ve identified two campaigns, 404 just found several more. This isn’t just user-generated content.

Grim findings in the annual report from Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), whose CEO Susie Hargreaves says that the #OnlineSafetyAct , which became law last year and imposes a duty of care on social media companies to protect children, “needs to work”.

The new law is based on the perpetrator's intent to cause harm, rather than the victim's consent.

We've seen with other offences how difficult intent is to evidence - enabling perpetrators to evade justice.

We call on government to close this loophole ‼️
endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/government-cri…

Another *extraordinary* update: the nudify app behind the abuse of so many women, especially teenage girls, #ClothOff has also been blocked for UK users.
This reduces the easy access & normalisation of AI generated sexual abuse. Criminalisation makes a difference #Change

Change is possible! largest most notorious deepfake sexual abuse website has blocked access to UK users. This follows announcement this week to criminalise creation as well as sharing. This has always been my main justification for using the criminal law theconversation.com/deepfake-porn-…

10 years in 10 posts. When we did the first Children's Media Lives for Ofcom a decade ago, some of the children in this year's research weren't yet born. A🧵on the changes we've seen since 2014 and what children are seeing, doing & sharing online in 2024. revealingreality.co.uk/the-difference…

Our new research reveals the media habits of children and adults across the UK.

We found that infant children are increasingly present - and independent - online.

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This. 👇 #OnlineSafetyAct