'Hyper-Sexualization of Boys and Girls': Child Safety Advocates Demand Action to Protect Kids from Porn

If you have kids, you know they spend a lot of time online, and they use social media to share just about everything, from videos to dance moves to the latest fashion trends. But experts warn that can be very risky behavior as these online platforms have become hubs for sexual predators. 
 
Child safety advocates warn social media exposes kids to harmful content, which can make them vulnerable to sexual exploitation.

"What we see over and over again is the hyper-sexualization of both boys and girls," Lina Nealon of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation told CBN News. 

And that can likely lead to bad results. 

According to the Internet Watch Foundation, 2021 broke all records for online child sexual abuse with 252,000 URL's found containing images or videos of children being sexually abused compared with 153,000 the previous year.  

"Kids have smartphones at unprecedented levels and of course COVID just supercharged child sexual exploitation as kids went online in droves," explained Nealon.

In December, new Twitter CEO and owner Elon Musk named removing child sexual exploitation content from the platform as a top priority.

Shortly after taking over the social media giant, Musk "cleaned out" the three most popular hashtags that had been used to sell child sexual abuse material and added a direct reporting option for child sexual exploitation.

It is a move that Nealon and others applauded.

"He's raised a lot of attention to the issue at large and specifically what was or was not happening on Twitter to combat these issues and he certainly seems to have made some improvements," said Nealon.  

But she adds that more must be done, especially after Twitter also dissolved its Trust and Safety team. While that group was involved in a lot of controversial actions, it also addressed the removal of child sexual abuse material and other human rights violations.

"We don't know if the proper resources have been put in place to tackle these issues," said Nealon. "And a major factor I think a lot of people don't understand is that Twitter has created an ecosystem of exploitation and they're unique in that they allow pornography.  And whenever you allow pornography with little to no age verification or consent of who's depicted, you're guaranteed to have child sex abuse material," she said. 

Twitter's policy on porn is in plain view on the tech giant's website. CBN News reached out to Twitter about that policy and received no response. 

But the issue goes beyond Twitter as this content is also prevalent on Tik Tok, a massive social magnet for teenagers.

Nealon added, "You see young girls literally stripping and dancing and in the comments you see the pedophiles blatantly commenting, offering money, offering gifts."

Meanwhile, many child safety advocates stress the importance of parents talking with their kids about online predatory dangers as well as the need for legislation to protect them.

"We need to change federal and state policies to hold these corporations accountable," Nealon said. "There's so much more they can be doing. They have the resources, the talent to really augment and prioritize child protection, but from what we can see they're prioritizing profit over and over again."