When police connected the case to an online platform, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were mentioned in about 25% of cases of child abuse images offenses, according to freedom of information requests made by the children’s charity NSPCC to 35 police agencies.
According to the numbers, there has been a 25% annual increase in child abuse image crimes reported by UK police departments, amounting to 160,000 offenses since 2017.
The goal of last year’s Online Safety Act is to hold social media companies more accountable for the content that appears on their sites.
The regulator, Ofcom, is developing rules on how the regulations will be applied, but there are worries that if enforcement is delayed, it may take years before the restrictions are put into place.
The NSPCC’s ChildLine counselling service received a message from a 14-year-old girl who was misled by an adult into sending pictures of herself in the nude: “One night I was speaking with this guy online who I’d never met and he made me feel this.
