WASHINGTON, DC (April 9, 2025) – The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) called for urgent action to protect children from the harms of pornography, given new reports that pornography website algorithms take users to more extreme material, desensitizing them, and spurring their escalation to actual child sexual abuse material.
The story reported that 850 men per month are being arrested for online child abuse offenses in England and Wales, with “more than 50% of those who admitted watching online child abuse said they weren’t seeking these images when they were first exposed to them,” and they started watching because of the algorithms and clicking through links. “Material so violent it would have been considered highly extreme a generation ago is now readily available on iPads, desktops and the phones in teenagers’ pockets,” the article reports.
“Pornography website algorithms lead users to violent, racist, and even criminal content like child sexual abuse material, rape, and sexual assault – this is a feature, not a bug, of these exploitative websites. Research has shown that pornography users can become desensitized to pornography, and men who spoke to the UK newspaper attested to this fact. What this shows is that pornography can be harmful to users of all ages, and that pornography algorithms are helping to fuel a child abuse crisis across the globe,” Haley McNamara, Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Programs, National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
“Personal responsibility of any abuser is paramount, full stop. At the same time as the crisis of online child sexual abuse materials continues to rise, we are a foolish society if we do not take the on-ramps and escalating factors seriously,” she said, adding that, “We know that Pornhub and other pornography websites have profited from the sexual abuse of women, children, and men on their platforms. This will only continue if the pornography industry isn’t held accountable.”
NCMEC’s CyberTipline received over 36 million reports of suspected child sexual abuse in 2023 alone, a clear sign that child sexual abuse is rising exponentially. In 2023, more than 1 in 3 minors (35%) reported having an online sexual interaction, 1 in 4 (28%) with someone they believed to be an adult. Most sex trafficking victims are recruited and advertised online. There have been 812 reports of sextortion per week to NCMEC.
“We urge Congress to pass the TAKE IT DOWN Act, Kids Online Safety Act, and to ultimately, to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, in order to stem the tide of sexual exploitation caused in part by pornography use,” McNamara added.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation named Section 230 to its 2025 Dirty Dozen List because Section 230 is the greatest enabler of online sexual exploitation. Instead of naming 12 companies, the list highlights 12 survivors who have been prevented from receiving justice because of Section 230.
About National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE)
Founded in 1962, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) is the leading national non-profit 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.
