WASHINGTON, DC (June 15, 2023) – The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) is warning potential Reddit investors ahead of its potential IPO that the company needs to do even more to combat sexually-explicit content, which may include image-based sexual abuse, child sexual abuse material, and other non-consensual content.
“Reddit rightly decided to restrict NSFW (i.e. sexually explicit) content from third party apps – a move that NCOSE had called on the company to make. Even Reddit CEO Steve Huffman acknowledged that the company has to be ‘strict’ about where this kind of content ‘shows up’ because the ‘regulatory environment has gotten much stricter about adult content,’” said Haley McNamara, vice president of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
“But before Reddit can offer an IPO, the company ultimately needs to confront the pervasive problem of image-based sexual abuse, child sexual abuse material, and non-consensual content that can be found on its platform. To do this, Reddit must remove sexually explicit content unless it can enact meaningful age and consent verification of those depicted in pornography,” she said.
NCOSE, along with 320 anti-sexual exploitation and violence experts from 31 countries, recently sent a letter to Huffman demanding that Reddit stop facilitating image-based sexual abuse.
On April 13th, 2023, within 3 seconds of searching, NCOSE researchers were able to find posts and threads with high indicators of adult image based sexual abuse, such as “leaked” content, trading of encrypted links indicating additional trading/selling of image-based sexual abuse, and other posts violating Reddit’s policies such as “nip slips.” NCOSE also found posts with high indications of networking for trading child sexual abuse materials.
Forbes revealed that AI-generated pornography, some of which is “built on non-consensual images of real people,” is flourishing on Reddit.
“Potential Reddit investors need to understand that without additional measures to confront the scourge of abuse on the platform, they are potentially liable. We urge investors to use their influence to ensure Reddit implements meaningful changes,” McNamara added.
Reddit is on the 2023 Dirty Dozen List, an annual list of mainstream entities that facilitate, enable, and even profit from sexual abuse and exploitation.
About National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE)
Founded in 1962, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) is the leading national non-partisan organization exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation such as child sexual abuse, prostitution, sex trafficking and the public health harms of pornography.
