Safety
Helping Kids Thrive Online Health, Safety, & Privacy
For purposes of this report, the term “safety” encompasses protection from harms in both the online and physical worlds that youth may experience because of online engagement and interactions. Youth face a multitude of safety issues and associated harms online: they range from cyberbullying and online harassment, to encouraging self-harm, to grooming and child sexual exploitation. Much of the research on safety has focused on quantifying these harms—such as when youth of different ages encounter violence online or sextortion, and there is less material on the efficacy of different measures to keep kids safe.79 Importantly, these risks to safety affect both youth physical and mental health.
Focus Issue: Cyberbullying and Other Forms of Online Harassment and Abuse
Cyberbullying is a major concern for youth using online platforms.80 Nearly 16% of U.S. high school students reported being cyberbullied in 2021.81 Another study conducted by the Pew Research Center suggests that cyberbullying is particularly common for youth. Of those surveyed, nearly half (49%) of 15–17-year-olds, and 42% of those ages 13–14, reported being threatened or harassed, or receiving explicit images that they did not request.82 Moreover, LGBTQI+ youth, youth from racial and ethnic minority groups, and youth with disabilities are more likely to experience cyberbullying than their peers.83 84 85 According to one survey, students with disabilities, for example, are more likely than their peers without disabilities to be victims of, and engage in, cyberbullying, controlling for grade, gender, and race.86
Bullying among children and youth is defined as “any unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or group of youths who are not siblings or current dating partners that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. Bullying may inflict harm or distress on the targeted youth including physical, psychological, social, or educational harm.”87 Bullying can happen relationally through social isolation and rumor spreading and can have negative health effects such as depression, anxiety, and substance abuse that last into adulthood.88 89 Cyberbullying has been noted as one of the most prevalent preceding risk factors for youth suicide-related behaviors.90
Cyberbullying can take place through digital Internet-connected devices and online spaces such as social media, online games, websites, instant messaging, chat rooms, text messages, and forums.91 Harmful norms around masculinity and femininity can also increase the prevalence of cyberbullying, and influence its perpetration (e.g., the use of homophobic slurs against both LGBTQI+ and heterosexual youth).92 93 94 Other forms of technology-facilitated abuse, such as cyberstalking, or the public sharing of private sexual images, both real and AI-generated, can take place in the context of dating violence, with different considerations and implications for youth safety.
It is important to note that violence does not occur in isolation; different forms of violence are often interconnected.95 This means that exposure to one type of violence can increase the risk of involvement in other types of violence in the short- and long-term.96 For instance, research suggests that witnessing violence97 and associating with peers engaging in high-risk behaviors98 99 can increase the risk for cyberbullying perpetration, as can social isolation, lack of social support,100 101 and substance use.102 103 104 105 106 107
Thus, efforts to prevent one form of violence may also prevent other forms of violence and associated negative health outcomes. For example, teen-dating violence-prevention efforts can reduce exposure to bullying,108 and bullying prevention efforts, online and offline, can improve youth mental health.109
However, there is limited understanding about the effectiveness of focused bullying prevention efforts, including cyberbullying prevention strategies, outside the school environment.110 111 112 Rigorous and timely evaluations of strategies to foster safe and healthy online environments for youth are needed113 to prevent cyberbullying across different online platforms (e.g., social media, online gaming, forums, and electronic sports or esports) and populations (e.g., children, adolescents, older youth, and youth with developmental/physical disabilities or from different racial/ethnic backgrounds).
Youth report being skeptical of social media companies’ willingness and ability to effectively respond to bullying online via their content moderation systems and other interventions.114 115 116 They express that the process of using safety tools when they encounter toxic online behaviors is overwhelming.117
Finally, it is important to highlight protective factors that may mitigate harms associated with bullying and forms of youth violence. Research suggests that positive, prosocial interpersonal relationships with parents/caregivers, other adults, or peers may protect against bullying,118 119 other forms of youth violence,120 and suicidality or self-harm.121Thus, creating protective community environments through community norms or culture change can have protective effects against different forms of violence including bullying,122 adverse childhood experiences,123 sexual violence,124 and suicide or self-harm.125
As with the sense of community in offline contexts, virtual community has been associated with benefits to physical and mental health126—some of which are shared factors (e.g., connectedness) to protect against different forms of violence. Norms that support online civility and reject violence online could increase overall satisfaction with platform experience.127
Focus Issue: Bias and Discrimination
Online spaces are critical for young people seeking community, including those who belong to marginalized groups or otherwise face discrimination. For example, 69% of LGBTQI+ youth report finding affirming spaces online.128 These youth reported fewer depressive symptoms than their peers and experienced other benefits of online communal spaces.129
Different demographic groups and marginalized communities also experience bias and discrimination online.130 131 In December 2023, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) held a workshop titled “Understanding and Addressing the Health Impacts of Online Abuse and Harassment” to identify gaps, opportunities, and challenges in advancing a research agenda to better understand the clinical, health, and developmental impacts of online harassment and abuse and develop innovative prevention and intervention efforts. Researchers pointed out that online spaces may be particularly unsafe for disabled Americans, women, nonbinary individuals, people of color, individuals identifying as LGBTQI+, and youth.132 133 134
Evidence suggests that social media may pose unique harms to the well-being of girls and young women.135 136 137 Research shows that girls are more likely than boys to engage with social media, image, or text messaging platforms, rather than other forms of online platforms (e.g., games).138 Girls are often exposed to harms in a way that differs from other people. A recent report notes that girls might be more likely than boys to be exposed to pornographic content that they did not request, exposed to content promoting self-harming, and experience offline harms after online attacks.139 Girls’ online experience is correlated with disproportionately negative impacts on well-being. Girls report negative experiences, such as social exclusion and cyberbullying.140 In addition, girls are exposed to a range of gender-based discrimination and other gender-based online harm. Although girls can derive benefit from online games, research indicates that a majority of female gamers experience gender-based harassment and discrimination online.141 Many digital spaces, such as online gaming, foster misogyny, which can intersect with anti-LGBTQI+ prejudice and racism: these include, for example, virtual depictions of sexual violence within games, sexual harassment through in-game chat features, threats of sexual violence, and targeting of female gamers both online and offline.142 143 144
In addition, adolescents of color frequently experience racism online,145 146 which has been linked to mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms.147 148 149 150 Increased rates of PTSD symptoms and depression symptoms are also linked to suicidal ideation.151 Thus, exposure to racism online may contribute to the growing rate of suicide among Black children and teens.152 One study found the suicide rate among Black youth ages 10–17 years to have increased 144% between 2007 and 2020, the greatest increase of any racial or ethnic group in the country.153
Young people from different demographic groups can also find their ability to gather and engage in online spaces compromised by biases in platform moderation policies. For example, due to broad or mistakenly applied content policies, LGBTQI+ and Black content creators have seen their content disproportionately demonetized and reduced in distribution on online platforms.154 155 This can affect young people’s ability both to speak out online and to hear from others from diverse or shared backgrounds, ultimately increasing feelings of isolation and undermining their ability to find or form supportive communities online. Collection, use, and sharing of young people’s personal information also creates specific risks relating to bias and discrimination, which can take a variety of forms online and affect youth in different ways.156 157 For example, online ad exchanges use geolocation to serve ads that reach users of all ages, including youth, with specific ads based on their location.158 As a result, youth from marginalized communities can be subject to further entrenchment of discrimination through technology (“digital red-lining”).159 160 161 162
Focus Issue: Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
Online services can expose children to an array of harms involving sexual exploitation, including sex trafficking, sextortion, and invasions of intimate privacy. Perpetrators of child sexual exploitation use a myriad of platforms, including social media, gaming systems, and private messaging and chat apps, and undertake a variety of methods in their efforts to sexually exploit children online. For example, perpetrators often engage in “grooming” behavior, in which they establish a connection with the targeted minor by offering support, attention, and friendship—thereby gaining the minor’s trust and, in turn, increasing the chances that the minor will engage in sexually explicit acts with or for the offender.163 Perpetrators may also use their online connection with minors to persuade, induce, entice, or coerce them into engaging in sexually explicit conduct, including, for example, commercial sex acts.164 Perpetrators may be known to the victim (e.g., a family member or other adult), or strangers that they meet online.
These are not always one-off crimes involving single perpetrators and single online platforms. More sophisticated perpetrators work in concert with one another to sexually victimize minors. Some perpetrators collaborate on identifying minors to victimize, thinking through ways to victimize them, and sharing tips on how to avoid getting caught.165 Criminal networks abroad undertake organized sextortion schemes targeting minors in the United States.166 (Sextortion generally refers to the act of an offender threatening to distribute sexually explicit images of an individual unless the individual pays money or sends additional images to the offender or accedes to some other demand.167) Moreover, it is becoming increasingly common for perpetrators to make initial contact with a minor on one platform only to move their communications to a different, sometimes encrypted, platform as the discussions become more sexualized.168
Sextortion presents a particularly grave and increasing threat to the health and safety of minors online.169 In 2023, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC)’s CyberTipline received more than 186,000 reports of online enticement—including sextortion—and between 2021 and 2023, the number of online enticement reports increased by more than 300%.170 171 It is likely that the number of reported cases, the majority of which come from providers through CyberTips, is a small fraction of the number of total incidents of sextortion.
Sextortion has devastating effects on victims. More than 20 minors, all teenage boys, in the United States have died by suicide as a direct consequence.172 173 More generally, victims often endure effects such as shame, embarrassment, anxiety, and depression.174 175 Studies on sextortion of minors have found emerging threats, including online sexual harassment and the lack of secure technical mitigations to prevent the distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).176 177 However, there remain critical questions on how coercion occurs, how minors may become victims of exploitation or abuse, and how best to prevent sextortion.178
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are becoming increasingly easy to use, and their outputs—photos, videos, and grooming language—are becoming increasingly realistic, compounding some harms of social media and online platforms. Offenders have already started using AI to generate CSAM (e.g., manipulating benign images of actual minors to "nudify" or remove clothing from children, or make it appear that minors are engaged in sexually explicit conduct, including new fake images of existing CSAM victims, or wholly AI-generated CSAM showing a non-existent child). This problem is multi-faceted and severe. In addition to concerns that such material will normalize engagement with CSAM depicting actual minors and lead to the victimization of actual minors, deepfake imagery involving real minors can cause significant harm to the depicted minor. Moreover, the proliferation of AI-generated material of fake minors on online platforms may cause law enforcement to spend their limited time and resources investigating crimes against a minor who does not, in fact, exist.179
Youth sometimes consensually share intimate images with one another, which can pose nuanced legal180 and well-being181 issues. Like other forms of sexual violence, image-based sexual harassment and abuse, including non-consensual distribution of images, is rarely reported.182 183 There are also major gaps in understanding the prevalence of these harms, as well as the effectiveness of technical mitigations.
79 Ofcom, "Understanding Pathways to Online Violent Content Among Children," (2024).
80 Pew Research Center, “Teens and Cyberbullying 2022” (December, 2022).
81 H. Clayton, G. Kilmer, S. DeGue, L. Estefan, V. Le, N. Suarez, B. Lyons, J. Thornton. "Dating Violence, Sexual Violence, and Bullying Victimization among High School Students – Youth Risk Behavior Survey," United States, (2021): MMWR supp. 2023:72(1).
82 Emily A., Vogels, Pew Research Center, December 2022, “Teens and Cyberbullying,” (2022).
83 S. Galea et al., "Social Media and Adolescent Health (Comm. on the Impact of Social Media on Adol. Health," Board on Pop. Health and Public Health Prac.; Health and Med. Div.; Nat’l Acad. of Sci., Eng’g, and Med.).
84 See also Comment of #ShePersisted on NTIA KOHS RFC at 4 (noting intersectional impact-based research indicating LGBTQIA users and users of color may face greater cyberbullying, for example); and Combined Comment of Common Sense Media, Center for Digital Democracy, Fairplay on NTIA KOHS RFC at 6-9.
85 Ruderman Family Foundation, "The Ruderman White Paper on Social Media, Cyberbullying, and Mental Health: A Comparison of Adolescents With and Without Disabilities."
86 Ruderman Family Foundation, "The Ruderman White Paper on Social Media, Cyberbullying, and Mental Health: A Comparison of Adolescents With and Without Disabilities"
87 R. Gladden, A. Vivolo-Kantor, M. Hamburger, C. Lumpkin "Bullying Surveillance Among Youths: Uniform Definitions for Public Health and Recommended Data Elements, Version 1.0." Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC; (2014).
88 CDC, "Fast Facts: Preventing Bullying. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control," CDC; (September 28, 2023)
89 StopBullying.gov. "Effects of Bullying. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services," (May 21, 2021).
90 S. Sumner, B. Ferguson, B. Bason, J. Dink, E. Yard, M. Hertz, B. Hilkert, K. Holland, M. Mercado-Crespo, S. Tang, C. Jones. "Association of Online Risk Factors with Subsequent Youth Suicide-Related Behaviors in the US," JAMA Network Open, 4(9):e2125860. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.25860.
91 R. Gladden, A. Vivolo-Kantor, M. Hamburger, C. Lumpkin. "Bullying Surveillance Among Youths: Uniform Definitions for Public Health and Recommended Data Elements, Version 1.0." Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC, (2014)
CONTINUE HERE 92 Wilkins N, Tsao B, Hertz M, Davis R, Klevens J., "Connecting the Dots: An Overview of the Links Among Multiple Forms of Violence," Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC and Oakland, CA: Prevention Institute, (2014)
95 Espelage DL, Swearer SM., "Addressing research gaps in the intersection between homophobia and bullying," School Psychology Review, 37(2), (2008):155-159.
96 Clayton HB, Kilmer G, DeGue S, Estefan LF, Le VD, Suarez NA, Lyons BH, Thornton JE., "Dating Violence, Sexual Violence, and Bullying Victimization among High School Students – Youth Risk Behavior Survey," United States, (2021): MMWR supp. 2023:72(1).
97 Wilkins N, Tsao B, Hertz M, Davis R, Klevens J., "Connecting the Dots: An Overview of the Links Among Multiple Forms of Violence," Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC and Oakland, CA: Prevention Institute, (2014)
98 Wilkins N, Tsao B, Hertz M, Davis R, Klevens J., "Connecting the Dots: An Overview of the Links Among Multiple Forms of Violence," Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC and Oakland, CA: Prevention Institute, (2014)
99 Hong JS, Espelage DL. "A review of research on bullying and peer victimization in school: An ecological system analysis," Aggression and Violent Behavior, 17(4) (2012): 311-322.
100 Hong JS, Espelage DL. "A review of research on bullying and peer victimization in school: An ecological system analysis," Aggression and Violent Behavior, 17(4) (2012): 311-322.
101 Wilkins N, Tsao B, Hertz M, Davis R, Klevens J., "Connecting the Dots: An Overview of the Links Among Multiple Forms of Violence," Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC and Oakland, CA: Prevention Institute, (2014)
102 Wilkins N, Tsao B, Hertz M, Davis R, Klevens J., "Connecting the Dots: An Overview of the Links Among Multiple Forms of Violence," Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC and Oakland, CA: Prevention Institute, (2014)
103 Nansel TR, Overpeck MD, Haynie DL, Ruan WJ, Scheidt PC., "Relationships between bullying and violence among US youth," Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 157(4), (2003):348-353.
104 Wilkins N, Tsao B, Hertz M, Davis R, Klevens J., "Connecting the Dots: An Overview of the Links Among Multiple Forms of Violence," Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC and Oakland, CA: Prevention Institute, (2014)
105 Pichel et. al., "Analysis of the relationship between school bullying, cyberbullying, and substance use," Children and Youth Services Rev. Vol. 134, at 7.
106 CDC, "Suicide Prevention Resource for Action: A Compilation of the Best Available Evidence," Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
107 Sumner SA, Ferguson B, Bason B, Dink J, Yard E, Hertz M, Hilkert B, Holland K, Mercado-Crespo MC, Tang S, Jones CM, "Association of Online Risk Factors with Subsequent Youth Suicide-Related Behaviors in the US.," JAMA Network Open, 4(9):e2125860. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.25860.
108 Wilkins N, Tsao B, Hertz M, Davis R, Klevens J., "Connecting the Dots: An Overview of the Links Among Multiple Forms of Violence," Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC and Oakland, CA: Prevention Institute, (2014)
109 Espelage DL, Swearer SM., "Addressing research gaps in the intersection between homophobia and bullying," School Psychology Review, 37(2), (2008):155-159.
110 Pichel et. al., "Analysis of the relationship between school bullying, cyberbullying, and substance use," Children and Youth Services, Rev. Vol. 134, at 7.
111 Vivolo-Kantor AM, Niolon PH, Estefan LF, Le VD, Tracy AJ, Latzman NE, Little TD, Lang KM, DeGue S, Tharp AT, "Middle School Effects of the Dating Matters ® Comprehensive Teen Dating Violence Prevention Model on Physical Violence, Bullying, and Cyberbullying: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial," Prevention Science, 22, 151-161.
112 Community Preventive Services Task Force. "Violence Prevention: School-based Anti-Bullying Interventions – Findings and Rationale Statement," (December, 2021).
113 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, "Preventing Bullying Through Science, Policy, and Practice," The National Academies Press.
114 Gaffney, H., Ttofi, M. M., & Farrington, D. P., "Evaluating the effectiveness of school-bullying prevention programs: An updated meta-analytical review," Aggression and Violent Behavior, 45, (2019): 111-133.
115 Hensums, M., De Mooij, B., Kuijper, S. C., Fekkes, M., & Overbeek, G., "What works for whom in schoolbased anti-bullying interventions? An individual participant data meta-analysis." Prevention Science, 24(8), (2023): 1435-1446.
116 Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, "Social Media and Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory." U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
117 Schoenebeck S, Scott CF, Hurley EG, Chang T, Selkie E., "Youth trust in social media companies and expectations of justice: Accountability and repair after online harassment," Proceedings of the ACM on Human- Computer Interaction, 5, (2021): 1–18.
118 Pew Research Center, "Teens and Cyberbullying," (December, 2022).
119 Family Online Safety Institute, "Managing the Narrative: Young People’s Use of Online Safety Tools" (2021).
120 Family Online Safety Institute, "Managing the Narrative: Young People’s Use of Online Safety Tools" (2021).
121 Wilkins N, Tsao B, Hertz M, Davis R, Klevens J., "Connecting the Dots: An Overview of the Links Among Multiple Forms of Violence," Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC and Oakland, CA: Prevention Institute, (2014)
122 Salmivalli C, Huttunen A, Lagerspetz KM., Peer networks and bullying in schools. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, ;38(4), (1997):305-312.
123 David-Ferdon C, Vivolo-Kantor AM, Dahlberg LL, Marshall KJ, Rainford N, Hall JE., "A comprehensive technical package for the prevention of youth violence and associated risk behaviors," Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (2016).
124 CDC, "Suicide Prevention Resource for Action: A Compilation of the Best Available Evidence," Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (2022)
125 David-Ferdon C, Vivolo-Kantor AM, Dahlberg LL, Marshall KJ, Rainford N, Hall JE., "A comprehensive technical package for the prevention of youth violence and associated risk behaviors," Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (2016)
126 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Prevention Resource for Action: A Compilation of the Best Available Evidence," Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (2019).
127 Basile KC, DeGue S, Jones K, Freire K, Dills J, Smith SG, Raiford JL., "Sexual Violence Prevention Resource for Action: A Compilation of the Best Available Evidence," Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (2016)
128 CDC, "Suicide Prevention Resource for Action: A Compilation of the Best Available Evidence," Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (2022)
129 Kairam SR, Mercado MC, Sumner SA., "A Socio-Ecological Approach to Modeling Sense of Virtual Community (SOVC) in Livestreaming Communities," Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., 6, (2022): CSCW2, Article 356
130 Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, "Creating a Positive Foundation for Greater Civility in the Digital World," Boston, MA: Boston Children’s Hospital, (2023)
131 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, "The Trevor Project, at 14," (2021).
132 Sandro Galea et al., "Social Media and Adolescent Health," Comm. on the Impact of Social Media on Adol. Health; Board on Pop. Health and Public Health Prac.; Health and Med. Div.; Nat’l Acad. of Sci., Eng’g, and Med.
133 McDaniel, Allison, "Women in Gaming: A Study of Female Players’ Experiences in Online FPS Games," Honors Theses. 427, 28, (2016)
134 See also Comment of #ShePersisted on NTIA KOHS RFC at 4 (noting intersectional impact-based research indicating LGBTQIA users and users of color may face greater cyberbullying, for example); and Combined Comment of Common Sense Media, Center for Digital Democracy, Fairplay on NTIA KOHS RFC at 6-9.
135 See Comment from 5 Rights to NTIA KOHS RFC, 2023 (screen time with a parent or caregiver can be beneficial).
136 Kowalski et. al., "Cyberbullying among college students with disabilities," Comp. in Human Behavior, 57 (2016) 416-427 at 417.
137 Huynh J, Chien J, Nguyen AT, Honda D, Cho EE, Xiong M, Doan TT, Ngo TD, "The mental health of Asian American adolescents and young adults amid the rise of anti-Asian racism," Front Public Health, (Jan, 2023): 10:958517. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.958517. PMID: 36711363; PMCID: PMC9880072
138 "Online and ICT facilitated violence against women and girls during COVID-19," UN Women (2020): Brief-Online-and-ICT-facilitated-violence-against-women-and-girls-during-COVID-19-en.pdf (unwomen.org).
139 Ofcom, "Protecting children from harms online," Volume 3, (May 8, 2024): The causes and impacts of online harms to children, pp39-.
140 "Teens and Mental Health: How Girls Really Feel About Social Medi, Common Sense," at 46 (Mar. 30, 2023). how-girls-really-feel-about-social-media-researchreport_final_1.pdf (commonsensemedia.org)
141 Monica Anderson, Michelle Faverio, and Jeffrey Gottfried, "Teens, Social Media and Technology," Pew Research Center, 2023.
142 Ofcom, "Protecting children from harms online," Volume 3: The causes and impacts of online harms to children, pp39-, (May 8, 2024).
143 Ofcom, "Protecting children from harms online," Volume 3: The causes and impacts of online harms to children, pp39-, (May 8, 2024).
144 Olatz Lopez-Fernandez et al., "Female Gaming, Gaming Addiction, and the Role of Women Within Gaming Culture: A Narrative Literature Review," Frontiers in Psych. Vol. 10 454, 6.
145 Olatz Lopez-Fernandez et al., "Female Gaming, Gaming Addiction, and the Role of Women Within Gaming Culture: A Narrative Literature Review," Frontiers in Psych. Vol. 10 454, 6.
146 Stoever, Jane K., "Title IX, Esports, and #EToo," (July 27, 2021). 89 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 857 (2021), UC Irvine School of Law Research Paper No. 2021-42,at 8818810896.
147 Stoever, Jane K., "Title IX, Esports, and #EToo," (July 27, 2021). 89 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 857 (2021), UC Irvine School of Law Research Paper No. 2021-42,at 8810896.
148 Protecting children from harms online Volume 3: The causes and impacts of online harms to children, pp 113-116, (May 8, 2024).
149 "Young people’s experiences of online misogyny and image-based abuse," Internetmatters.org, (September, 2023).
150 English D, Lambert SF, Tynes BM, Bowleg L, Zea MC, Howard LC., "Daily multidimensional racial discrimination among Black U.S. American adolescents," J Appl Dev Psychol. at 6. (2020): Jan-Feb;66:101068. doi: 10.1016/j.appdev.2019.101068. Epub 2019 Dec 11. PMID: 33994610; PMCID: PMC8117402.
151 "A Double-Edged Sword: How Diverse Communities of Young People Think About the Multifaceted Relationship Between Social Media and Mental Health, Common Sense Media," at 7 2024-double-edged-swordhopelab-report_final-release-for-web-v2.pdf (commonsensemedia.org).
152 Sandro Galea et al., "Social Media and Adolescent Health," Comm. on the Impact of Social Media on Adol. Health; Board on Pop. Health and Public Health Prac.; Health and Med. Div.; Nat’l Acad. of Sci., Eng’g, and Med.
153 Ana-Maria Bliuc et al, "Online networks of racial hate: A systematic review of 10 years of research on cyber-racism, Computers in Human Behavior" 87, (2018): 75-86
154 Huynh J, Chien J, Nguyen AT, Honda D, Cho EE, Xiong M, Doan TT, Ngo TD., "The mental health of Asian American adolescents and young adults amid the rise of anti-Asian racism," Front Public Health. (2023): Jan 13;10:958517. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.958517. PMID: 36711363; PMCID: PMC9880072.
155 Umaña-Taylor AJ, Tynes BM, Toomey RB, Williams DR, Mitchell KJ., "Latino adolescents' perceived discrimination in online and offline settings: an examination of cultural risk and protective factors," Dev Psychol. 51(1), (2015 Jan): 87-100. doi: 10.1037/a0038432. PMID: 25546597; PMCID: PMC4752111.
156 Brendesha M. Tynes et, al., "Online Racial Discrimination, Suicidal Ideation, and Traumatic Stress in a National Sample of Black Adolescents," 315 (Mar, 2024).
157 Tynes BM, Maxie-Moreman A, Hoang TH, Willis HA, English D., "Online Racial Discrimination, Suicidal Ideation, and Traumatic Stress in a National Sample of Black Adolescents," JAMA Psychiatry. 81(3), (2024): 312–316. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2023.4961.
158 Janelle Cubbage and Leslie Adams, Still Ringing the Alarm, An Enduring Call to Action for Black Youth Suicide Prevention, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Mental Health, 4 (2023).
159 Kendra Calhoun and Alexia Fawcett, “They Edited Out her Nip Nops”: Linguistic Innovation as Textual Censorship Avoidance on TikTok” Language@ Internet, 21: art. 1. (2023).
160 Kalhan Rosenblatt, “Months after TikTok apologized to Black creators, many say little has changed.” NBC News, (Feb. 29, 2021).
161
162 Kashmir Hill, "Another Arrest, and Jail Time, Due to a Bad Facial Recognition Match," New York Times, (Dec. 29, 2020).
163 See Ho-Chun Herbert Chang, et al., "Targeted Ads and/as Racial Discrimination: Exploring Trends in New York City Ads for College Scholarships," (2021).
164 Gilliard, C., "Prepared testimony and statement for the record of Christopher Gilliard PhD," Hearing on Banking on your Data the Role of Big Data in Your Financial Services, Before the House Financial Services Committee Task Force on Financial Technology, (2019).
165 Ho-Chun Herbert Chang et al., "Targeted Ads and/as Racial Discrimination: Exploring Trends in New York City Ads for College Scholarships," (2021)
166 Guy Birchall et al., "Chinese Users Claim iPhone X Face Recognition Can’t Tell Them Apart", NY Post, (Dec 21, 2017).
167 Kashmir Hill, Another Arrest, and Jail Time, Due to a Bad Facial Recognition Match, NYTIMES, (Dec. 29, 2020).
168 FTC complaint against Fortnite, paragraph 40 ("All the while, kids have been bullied, threatened, and harassed, including sexually, through Fortnite. Numerous news stories chronicle reports of predators blackmailing, extorting, or coercing children and teens they met through Fortnite into sharing explicit images or meeting offline for sexual activity. Such issues are also the subject of numerous player support tickets submitted to Epic by distressed parents and players.") See 2223087EpicGamesComplaint.
169 Josh Campbell & Jason Kravarik, “A 17-year-old boy died by suicide hours after being scammed. The FBI says it’s part of a troubling increase in ‘sextortion’ cases,” CNN, (May 23, 2022).
170 NTIA KOHS RFC, Comment from END Online Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Children Coalition.
171 Western District of Washington | FBI and Partners Issue National Public Safety Alert on Financial Sextortion Schemes | United States Department of Justice; WeProtect Global Alliance, GlobalThreat-Assessment-2023-English.pdf (weprotect.org) at 20.
172 In the typical sextortion scheme, the offender (i) makes contact with the targeted minor on social media and pretends to be a peer of the targeted minor; (ii) persuades the targeted minor to send sexually explicit images or videos of him- or herself to the offender (or creates such images himself through the use of AI); and then (iii) threatens to widely distribute the sexually explicit images and videos of the targeted minor (for example, to the minor’s parents, coaches, religious leaders, school, etc.) unless the minor sends money or additional imagery to the offender.
173 See FTC complaint against Fortnite, paragraph 40 ("All the while, kids have been bullied, threatened, and harassed, including sexually, through Fortnite. Numerous news stories chronicle reports of predators blackmailing, extorting, or coercing children and teens they met through Fortnite into sharing explicit images or meeting offline for sexual activity. Such issues are also the subject of numerous player support tickets submitted to Epic by distressed parents and players.") See 2223087EpicGamesComplaint. For a much more robust assessment of the risks of online child sexual exploitation and abuse, please see the Department of Justice’s 2023 “National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention & Interdiction,” and the associated subject matter expert working group reports.
174 For a more robust discussion of sextortion, see Dep’t of Justice, “National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction,” Subject-Matter Expert Report on “Sextortion, Crowdsourcing, Enticement, and Coercion” (2023).
175 2023 CyberTipline Data (missingkids.org) (2023).
176 NCMEC, “Sextortion.” Unsurprisingly, the problem is international in scope. See, e.g., Internet Watch Foundation, “Hotline reports ‘shocking’ rise in the sextortion of boys” (Sept. 18, 2023) (“The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has found that in the first six months of 2023 reports of confirmed child sexual abuse involving ‘sextortion’ surged by 257% compared with the whole of 2022.”); WeProtect Global Alliance, “Global Threat Assessment 2023” at 20 (“Of known cases, many schemes orchestrated by offshore criminal syndicates reportedly originate from countries such as Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, and the Philippines, and target children from more affluent countries.”).
177 Josh Campbell & Jason Kravarik, “A 17-year-old boy died by suicide hours after being scammed. The FBI says it’s part of a troubling increase in ‘sextortion’ cases,” CNN (May 23, 2022).
178 WeProtect Global Alliance, “Global Threat Assessment 2023”
179 Danielle Keats Citron, “Sexual Privacy,” 128 Yale L.J. 1870, 1926 (2019).
180 Turner HA, Finkelhor D, Colburn D., "Contexts and Characteristics of Imaged-Based Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Children: Incident Dynamics in a National Sample," Child Maltreat. 20 (Feb, 2024):10775595241233970. doi: 10.1177/10775595241233970. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38378143.
181 Finkelhor D, Turner H, Colburn D., "Prevalence of Online Sexual Offenses Against Children in the US.," JAMA (Oct, 2022): Netw Open. 3;5(10):e2234471. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.34471. PMID: 36239942; PMCID: PMC9568794.
182 Natasha Hanacek, "Face Analysis Technology Evaluation (FATE) Age Estimation & Verification," NIST, (May 28, 2024).
183 One effort to address questions of media content provenance (history/source) issues is the technical standard developed by the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity.
184 Strasburger, V. C., Zimmerman, H., Temple, J. R., & Madigan, S., "Teenagers, sexting, and the law," Pediatrics, 143(5).
185 Temple, J. R., Le, V. D., van den Berg, P., Ling, Y., Paul, J. A., & Temple, B. W., "Brief report: Teen sexting and psychosocial health," Journal of Adolescence, 37(1), (2014): 33-36.
186 Rose, J; Regehr, K; Milne, B, "Understanding and Combatting Youth Experiences of Image-Based Sexual Harassment and Abuse," Department of Education, Practice and Society, UCL Institute of Education, (2021)
187 Janis Wolak, J.D., David Finkelhor, Ph.D., Wendy Walsh, Ph.D., and Leah Treitman, Sextortion of Minors: Characteristic and Dynamics, Journal of Adolescent Health.