Record number of UK under 18s facing ‘sextortion’ online as experts say no time to lose on nudity blockers for teens’ phones
Child protection groups brace for record numbers as half-year ‘sextortion’ reports have already eclipsed 2025 total.
Published: Fri 13 Mar 2020
We teamed up with comedian Arron Crascall, football YouTuber Eman Sv2 and our partner the victim-support charity the Marie Collins Foundation to raise awareness of the important issue of child sexual abuse imagery online via social media.
The creative concept, ‘Something’s not right’, encouraged young people to think twice about the content they see online, the law around sexual images of children (IIOC), the harm caused to the victims featured in the image and the importance of reporting sexual images or videos of someone who looks under 18 to the IWF.
The influencers’ great reach on social media – Arron has over 4.9m followers on Instagram, while Eman has 104K followers on Instagram and over 1.32m followers on YouTube – meant that we could deliver this important message to a much wider audience and inform many more young people about the importance of reporting child sexual abuse images or videos, if they ever stumble across them online.
Both Arron and Eman shared a post with an apparently accidental photo ‘mishap’. Arron pretended to be lifting 100kg only for the mirror behind him to reveal that the brunt of the weight was being carried by someone else. Eman - well-known by his followers as a big Arsenal fan - paired his club tee with Spurs socks (these clubs being notorious rivals!). Their followers were quick to call them out on it, with Arron’s initial mishap post quickly generating 1,700 comments (and a whopping 150,000 likes!). 12 hours later, they shared ‘reveal’ posts with fans, explaining the issue and encouraging followers to report any images or videos of under 18s to the IWF quickly, easily and anonymously.

Initial response:

Arron and Eman also shared their motivations for getting involved: to help their followers navigate the internet safely and to protect children from further harm. The whole approach has been captured in this behind the scenes video.
Thank you Arron and Eman for helping us to reach your followers with our important message! Together, we can have a great impact in the lives of many child victims of sexual abuse worldwide.

For more information about the campaign go to https://iwf.org.uk/onesimplereport
If you are a victim of online sexual abuse or have been in the past, help is available at:
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As EU negotiations on the Child Sexual Abuse Regulation resume in Brussels, the Internet Watch Foundation places a choice before the public and policymakers – to either push for legislation that protects children online or make it easier for child sexual abuse content to spread.