This makes it very difficult for the child to escape this infinite loop - even once the victim realises that the person they are talking to is not who they thought.īut online predators do not always catfish their victims - they may as well use their real identities. Once the online predator has the images, they may threaten the victim that if they don’t cooperate, their schoolmates, friends, and family members will see the images. This can be described as “catfishing” - and it doesn’t stop here. To acquire the materials, they oftentimes create fake social media accounts and deceive minors into sending their intimate images - or even meeting offline. An online predator is an individual who is thought to “hunt” their victims on the internet - which is an analogy to how a predatory animal hunts down its prey.

While the problem of child exploitation material predates the internet, social media became a tool in the hands of online predators that they use first to obtain, and then to distribute the images. Acquiring and distributing child sexual abuse imagery online - as well as using it to threaten or blackmail a victim - are forms of online harassment. The terms “child sexual abuse imagery” and “child exploitation material” are used to describe what is commonly known as “child pornography” to stress that it is a serious crime and avoid equating it with adult pornography. The number keeps growing at unprecedented rates - and it is social media that is largely responsible for the explosion in child exploitation material. In 2018, there were 18.4m reports of child sexual abuse imagery worldwide.

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