MPF receives record number of cases of sexual exploitation on the internet

Reports of the presence of images of child sexual abuse and exploitation on the internet broke a record in 2023 – the result is the highest in the historical series, which began in 2006.

There were 71,867 complaints last year, a number 28% higher than the previous record, registered in 2008 (56,115 complaints). In relation to 2022, there was an increase of 77.1%. The data, released this Tuesday (6.Feb.2024), are from the NGO (non-governmental organization) Safernet. Here's the complete of the document (PDF – 66 kB).

According to the NGO, 3 main factors motivated the increase in reports of images of child sexual abuse and exploitation:

• the mass layoffs carried out by big techswhich affected the security, integrity and content moderation teams of some platforms;
• the proliferation of the sale of self-generated nude and sexual images by teenagers; It is
• the use of artificial intelligence to create this type of content.

Reports of images of child sexual abuse and exploitation, in addition to other human rights violations or hate crimes on the internet (xenophobia, human trafficking, religious intolerance, neo-Nazism, support for crimes against life, racism, LGBTphobia, and misogyny) were also records. In 2023, Safernet received a total of 101,313 complaints – the previous record, registered in 2008, totaled 89,247 complaints.

Among hate crimes committed on the internet, the highlights, compared to 2022, were 252.25% of reports of xenophobia, and 29.97% of religious intolerance on the internet. According to the NGO, the growth in complaints about these 2 crimes is linked to the war in the Gaza Strip, Palestine, in the Middle East.

There was a drop in the number of reports of 3 hate crimes between 2023 and 2022: racism, which fell 20.36%; LGBTphobia (-60.57%) and misogyny (-57.56%). According to Safernet, the drop in reports of these types of crimes in 2023 was already expected, since these reports increase in election years, a behavior recorded in 2018, 2020 and 2022.

With information from Brazil Agency.