Keep up the good work!

Protecting children from abuse is about the most important thing that our moderation teams do, and we're very proud of them for their diligence and resilience. But the work they do, and the images they see, pale into insignificance with the work done by the (very few) staff of the Internet Watch Foundation, a charity supported wholly by donations from the EU and the internet industry. If our moderators encounter an illegal child abuse image, then we report it to the Internet Watch Foundation, who investigate it and have the webpage removed.

Today (26 October) the IWF not only marks its annual Awareness Day, but reflects on its 15 years of tackling online child sexual abuse content. Some facts (and some of them are very disturbing, apologies in advance):

A staggering 87,000 child sexual abuse webpages have been removed in 15 years thanks to the work of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). Since it was launched on 1 December 1996, the IWF has assessed almost 370,000 webpages.

As a result of the IWF’s work with the online industry, the volume of UK-hosted child sexual abuse content has reduced from 18% in 1997 to less than 1% since 2003 and the IWF has kept it that way. Child sexual abuse webpages in the UK are rapidly removed thanks to the responsible actions of the online industry with whom the IWF works.

However there is still a problem with child sexual abuse content hosted around the world.

This photo is licensed under cc by sa 2.0 by tacit requiem

The IWF statistics spanning the past 15 years show 45% of the worldwide webpages assessed and actioned for removal by the IWF featured children aged 10 years and under, including babies.

For the past four complete years (2007 to 2010) this figure is 73.5%. This reflects the increasingly extreme nature of the content assessed and actioned by the IWF analysts.

Since 1996, 40% of the global child sexual abuse content actioned by the IWF involves the rape and sexual torture of children.

For the past four complete years (2007 to 2010) this figure is 53.5%.

A little Q&A:

Where can you make a report? Here: https://www.iwf.org.uk/report

What be reported to the IWF?They can receive reports about child sexual abuse content (images + videos) from anywhere in the world. They can only take reports of criminally obscene adult content and non-photographic child sexual abuse images if they are hosted in the UK.

Do they report content to the police? It depends where it is hosted:

UK hosted sites – They liaise with CEOP who in turn contact the relevant local police force. The police then carry out their own investigations and decide whether they are going to prosecute.
Non UK hosted sites - If there is an INHOPE hotline we do not report to CEOP but input into INHOPE Database for the hotline in that country to pick up and take appropriate action in their own country. The IWF then follow up to ensure the content is removed. If there is no INHOPE hotline , then they report to CEOP and notify the hosting provider

Can I make an anonymous report? Yes you can. You can choose to leave your details in order to receive feedback on what has happened with the suspect content they reported, and whether it does in fact contravene UK law, but the IWF also enables the public make reports anonymously.

How do ISPs use the information from the IWF? Once it has been determined that content is ilegal under UK law, while actions to remove the content are in progress, the IWF updates its URL list of child sexual abuse content which the online industry voluntarily deploys to protect their customers from stumbling across the content. This list is updated twice daily to ensure the URLs which contain child sexual abuse material remain on the list until the content is removed. Typically the list contains around 500 URLs each day.

The IWF is funded by the EU and member companies from the online industry, including internet service providers (ISPs), mobile operators, content providers, hosting providers, filtering companies, search providers, trade associations and the financial sector. They work together to ensure UK networks provide a hostile environment for hosting child sexual abuse images and to protect UK internet users from inadvertent exposure to such content.