General Curated Newsletter

Ending Sexploitation Podcast: Roblox Sued and Instagram “Gore”

Roblox continues to be one of the most popular AND most dangerous online platforms for kids.

Haley McNamara (CSO and Executive Director at NCOSE) is joined by Tim Nester (VP of Communications at NCOSE) to discuss the current state of Roblox safety – or lack thereof – as well as the recent lawsuits that families are filing against the gaming company. Then Tim and Haley dive into recent reports about the Instagram algorithm that has been serving up violent content that many are labeling as “gore” content.

Tune in and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcast platform.

📣ACTION: Demand Roblox Stop Treating Child Safety Like a Game!

KOSA “Duty of Care”: What is it and Why Does it Matter?

“There were bad videos that gave me nightmares one time. Told me to hurt my family.”

The above quote is from an 11-year-old girl talking about her experiences on YouTube.

Social media algorithms are addictive and predatory, tormenting children on the Internet. Tech executives have shown us time and time again that they are not interested in protecting child users if it negatively affects their bottom line. This is why we must pass the Kids Online Safety Act.

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is a bill that would hold Tech accountable to the bare minimum when it comes to protecting child users online. The most important feature of the KOSA is the “duty of care,” which essentially requires Tech to design their platforms with a reasonable amount of care to protect child users.

Read about what exactly the duty of care does, what it doesn't do, and why it's important here.

📣ACTION: Tell Congress to Pass the Kids Online Safety Act!

11,000+ Searches for Child Abuse on Pornhub in 1 Month in Flanders

In Flanders, the Stop it Now! helpline has launched a pilot project where an A.I. chatbot they developed is embedded on Pornhub. This chatbot engages with and deter users seeking out child abuse content. Disturbingly, in the first month of this pilot project, the chatbot was triggered over 11,000 time.

This means that there were over 11,000 searches for child abuse on Pornhub, in only 1 month and only in Flanders.

We are so grateful to Stop It Now! for launching this important tool, and hope that the project can be expanded to the U.S. At the same time, we are disturbed (though not surprised) that thousands of predators know that Pornhub is the place to find child abuse content.

📣ACTION: Donate to the NCOSE Law Center to Hold Pornhub & Other Mega-Exploiters Accountable

The NCOSE Law Center is providing pro-bono legal representation several survivors who were exploited on Pornhub. As our survivor clients always remain free of fees, your support is a big part of what makes lawsuits like this possible. Please consider becoming a monthly donor to the NCOSE Law Center to sustain this fight for justice.

Business Insider: Sora might have a 'pervert' problem on its hands

Business Insider reporter, Katie Notopolous, described her experience being fetishized on OpenAI's new video generation technology, known as Sora. This platform is not available to the general public yet, only people who are invited on may use it.

Sora has a functions which allows users to grant permission for their likeness to be used by anyone on the platform for video creation. Notopolous enabled this function, but was disturbed to find that her image was immediately being used for sexual purposes.

The videos weren't pornographic in nature, but Notopolous recognized them as "fetish content." Videos of her appearing pregnant, alongside other fetishes, were pervasive.

"Like I said, I'd been having a lot of fun on Sora, letting friends and even strangers make silly videos with my face. But the idea that someone was making a video that had some potential sexual gratification element made me feel fairly icked out."