She told Sky News it is “easy and straightforward” now to produce AI-generated child sexual abuse images and then advertise and share them online. All ‘self-generated’ child sexual abuse imagery is horrific, and our analysts sadly see it every day, but seeing so many very young children in these images and videos is particularly distressing. The images seen can range from a display of genitals to a child penetrating themselves or another child and all for the gratification of an unknown predator. The government is requesting accountability from the platform akin to what the United States has done. They faced lawsuits, accusations, and questions from senators about their efforts to prevent online sexual exploitation of children. Child pornography is often produced through online solicitation, coercion and covert photographing.
While the Supreme Court has ruled that computer-generated images based on real children are illegal, the Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition decision complicates efforts to criminalize fully AI-generated content. Many states have enacted laws against AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM), but these may conflict with the Ashcroft ruling. The difficulty in distinguishing real from fake images due to AI advancements may necessitate new legal approaches to protect minors effectively. Child pornography, now called child sexual abuse material or CSAM is not a victimless crime.
Understanding harmful sexual behaviour
- We know that seeing images and videos of child sexual abuse online is upsetting.
- Sometimes they may leave clues in order to get caught, as they don’t know how to talk about something so personal or private.
- Child pornography is often produced through online solicitation, coercion and covert photographing.
- Apple knowingly ignoring child porn is a “never-ending nightmare,” lawsuit says.
- By category among teen offenders, 40.2 percent of the violations were secretly taking pictures and video or persuading victims to send nudes.
Suspects were identified after crime agencies traced the site’s cryptocurrency transactions back to them. The site was “one of the first to offer sickening videos for sale using the cryptocurrency bitcoin,” the UK’s National Crime Agency said. One Australian alone spent almost $300,000 on live streamed material, the report found.
Nasarenko pushed legislation signed last month by Gov. Gavin Newsom which makes clear that AI-generated child sexual abuse material is illegal under California law. Nasarenko said his office could not prosecute eight cases involving AI-generated content between last December and mid-September because California’s law had required prosecutors to prove the imagery depicted a real child. The terms ‘child pornography’ and ‘child porn’ are regularly used by media when reporting on, for example, news from criminal investigations and convictions. Each time a media outlet uses one of these phrases it reinforces a perception that child sexual abuse can be consensual. It also, in turn, helps to diminish the crime and perpetuate the abuse by mutualising the experience of both the perpetrator and the victim involved.
It may seem like the best solution is to restrict or remove access to digital media, but this can actually increase the risk of harm. A youth may then become more secretive about their digital media use, and they therefore may not reach out when something concerning or harmful happens. Instead, it’s crucial that children and youth have the tools and the education to navigate social media, the internet, and other digital media safely. See our guide for Keeping Children and Youth Safe Online to find tips on preparing for internet safety. Unclear language can lead to confusion, misunderstanding or even harm, as in the case of the term ‘child pornography’. This phrase, which continues to be used today, 1, 1 is a perfect example of how harmful language can child porn be.
Severity: Multiple children, ‘Self-generated’ and 3-6-years-old
The city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was shaken by revelations in December 2023 that two local teenage boys shared hundreds of nude images of girls in their community over a private chat on the social chat platform Discord. Witnesses said the photos easily could have been mistaken for real ones, but they were fake. The boys had used an artificial intelligence tool to superimpose real photos of girls’ faces onto sexually explicit images. We know that seeing images and videos of child sexual abuse online is upsetting. It is perhaps surprising that there is not a higher ratio of multiple child images in the ‘self-generated’ 3-6 age group. It would be easy to assume that a child of that age would only engage in this type of activity on camera with the encouragement in person of an older child, leading the way, but shockingly this is not what we have seen.
In Brazil, the Statute of the Child and Adolescent defines the sale or exhibition of photos and videos of explicit sex scenes involving children and adolescents as a crime. It is also a crime to disseminate these images by any means and to possess files of this type. In SaferNet’s view, anyone who consumes images of child sexual violence is also an accomplice to child sexual abuse and exploitation. However, web crimes against children have become more sophisticated over time, Safernet explained during an event in São Paulo.
