Скачать или смотреть The contacting of adolescents on social media by suspicious accounts

Event: 2025 Applied Research in Crime and Justice Conference
Date: 5 August 2025

Name of presenter: Richard Wortley, University College London
Title: The contacting of adolescents on social media by suspicious accounts

Aim: Online social networks (OSN) have become the most common internet platform for accessing minors for child sexual exploitation (CSE). This paper investigates features of a minor’s online profile that increase the risk of being targeted by ‘suspicious’ accounts. Method: Two experiments were carried out involving fictitious accounts, purportedly of 13-year-old children, posted on a popular OSN. Both experiments employed a 2X2 factorial design. Experiment 1 varied the sex (male/female) and ethnicity (British/Indian) of the minor’s profile; experiment 2 varied profile image (photo/avatar) and guardianship (parental management specified/not specified). Results: For experiment 1, of the 207 contacts made to the accounts, 55% were suspicious. Suspicious account holders favoured contacting girls over boys, and British over Indian adolescents. For experiment 2, of the 302 contacts, 66% were suspicious. Accounts with photos and no guardianship received more contacts overall, but there was no difference between contacts by benign and suspicious accounts. For both studies, inspection of the suspicious accounts revealed disturbing cases of extensive contact with unrelated minors and/or explicit sexual content. Conclusion: The findings have implications for the prevention of CSE, both in terms of the online behaviour of potential victims, and the development of safer online environments by OSN companies.