Snapchat has shared an update on its efforts to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse, as part of its participation in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s “Know2Protect” program, which aims to raise public awareness about the risks of child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) online.
Launched in April last year, Know2Protect aims to help younger audiences understand the risks and dangers of online connection, and the support systems available to them to both take action on and to report such incidents.
Snap was a founding participant in the program, and over the past year, it’s worked with the Know2Protect team to implement more awareness and assistance features in the app, while also conducting awareness pushes with users.
And now, Snap’s conducted new research to see whether its efforts are having an effect.
According to Snap’s research (conducted via polls on Snap):
- 24% of teens said they had shared intimate imagery, unchanged from last year, while 33% reported having been groomed online, a slight reduction in incidence.
- 35% of study participants indicated they had been catfished, which is down one percentage point year-over-year.
- Among those who shared intimate imagery, more than 55% said that they had been deceived about a person’s identity. Concerns about catfishing have increased by four percentage points compared to a year ago
- 50% of those who admitted to having shared intimate imagery said that they lost control of the material once it was released. “This was even more significant for teens, where nearly two-thirds of respondents (63%) said they lost control of their photos and videos – a 13-point jump since the last round of research in October 2024, and 20 percentage points higher than the 18-to-24-year-olds.”
- 61% of respondents shared intimate images with people they knew or met online only.
These are some concerning data points, which highlight the scope of the challenge that both Snap and the Know2Protect project are aiming to address.
And while the numbers themselves remain a significant concern, Snap also reports that awareness of the Know2Protect project is increasing.
“Nearly three in 10 (28%) who had heard of Know2Protect demonstrated familiarity with the campaign, a 17-point jump since October 2024. In addition, almost half (46%) of those who reported being aware of Know2Protect were able to describe campaign elements in an open-ended question format, as compared to one-third six months ago. Encouragingly, nearly nine in 10 (89%) said the campaign caused them to seek out more information about online safety, a 12-point pop since October 2024.”
That suggests that the project is having an impact in helping youngsters become more aware of the risks and dangers associated with online interaction, and the assistance and support resources available.
Snap also notes that it’s implementing more of its own protective measures, like PhotoDNA, which uses Google’s CSAI Match to find and remove duplicates of known illegal images and videos.
It’s also added more in-app warnings to alert teens and young people about possible suspect friend requests, and it regularly adds functionality to its Family Center suite of parental tools.
This is a key area of concern, and while the data hasn’t changed much since the implementation of the Know2Protect program, there are some indicators that it’s slowly gaining traction, while Snap’s own detection and enforcement processes continue to evolve.
So while the data here is pretty bleak, and the improvement of AI deepfakes is going to complicate things further, this remains a critical element of focus, especially for Snap, which is hugely popular among younger audiences.
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