An organization in the UK that specializes in fighting against the display of sexually explicti content on the Internet recently published a study showcasing the trend in youth-produced sexual content posted online.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) released a report last month that outlined “a disturbing trend” of “younger children … producing sexually explicit content which is being distributed online.” CLICK HERE to read the complete report.
IWF analyzed 3,803 images and videos from September through November 2014 for the study, and the results showed among other things, that 17.5 percent of the content depictedchildren who are 15 or younger.
“Of particular concern is that the young people depicted took no steps to conceal their identity or location, even in many cases using their real names,” concluded the researchers.
“In some instances, it is apparent that this content is being knowingly created to appear on public websites, however, as 100 percent of the content depicting children aged 15 years or younger had been harvested from its original upload location and further distributed via third party websites, control over its removal or onward distribution has been lost.”
Other key findings of the IWF study also revealed that 93.1 percent of the surveyed content depicting children aged 15 or younger had featured girls while 85.9 percent of the same content were created using webcam.
The IWF researchers found the common usage of a webcam “surprising as it challenges the traditional notion that youth-produced sexual content is created and distributed via mobile phone or other mobile device.”
On the limitations of the study however, IWF stated that the three-month “snapshot of data” was “not possible to extrapolate from this data the exact figures relating to the amount of youth-produced sexual content in existence online.”
“IWF does not generally have direct contact with individuals depicted in the content it is called upon to assess,” continued the report.
“As such, all findings, conclusions and observations in the study are based solely on analysis of the content of the images and videos assessed during the course of the study, using IWF’s standard processes for assessing potential child sexual abuse material.”
