Snapchat and Facebook: Apps used as child abuse image crimes rise – The Argus

A children’s charity has called for action as child abuse image crimes have reached record levels in the county. An investigation by the NSPCC has revealed that more than 800 crimes involving the sharing and possession of indecent images of children were recorded by Sussex in the year to March 2022. The data was obtained by the charity through freedom of information requests. It shows that in the past five years, these crimes have increased by more than 30 per cent in Sussex.   Nationally offences increased to the highest figure on record, more than 30,000, suggesting the heightened risk seen during the pandemic has not gone away. The NSPCC warns that unregulated social media is fuelling the unprecedented scale of online child sexual abuse and behind every offence could be multiple child victims who are continually revictimized as images are shared.  The charity said the issue of young people being groomed into sharing images of their own abuse is pervasive and tech bosses are failing to stop their sites being used by offenders to organise, commit and share child sexual abuse. New research shows Snapchat is the social media site offenders most used to share child abuse images nationally. The
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