A really interesting topic, and very thought provoking - thank you Simon.
17 June 2025
A man from Northern Ireland has been given a life sentence with a minimum of 20 years in jail for the extreme online sexual abuse of children and the manslaughter of a 12-year-old girl, who was one of his victims.
Alexander McCartney from County Armagh admitted 185 charges - including more than 50 blackmail offences.
'Beyond inflated key user metrics, our in-game research revealed an X-rated paedophile hellscape, exposing children to grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely abusive speech.
Roblox is compromising child safety in order to report growth to investors, per our interview with a former senior product designer: “If you’re limiting users’ engagement, it’s hurting your metrics…in a lot of cases, the leadership doesn’t want that.”'
When Andrew Kaung, an analyst on user safety at TikTok, looked at the TikTok content, he was alarmed to find how some teenage boys were being shown posts featuring violence and pornography, and promoting misogynistic views, he tells BBC Panorama. He says, in general, teenage girls were recommended very different content based on their interests.
Performers working in the games industry have spoken of their distress at being asked to work on explicit content without notice, including a scene featuring a sexual assault.
Sex scenes are common in modern games - and are often made by filming human actors who are then digitised into game characters.
They describe feeling "shaken" and "upset" after acting them out.
SWGFL's Synthetic Media Hub is designed to help you and your communities understand synthetic media and the various forms of support available to guide parents, young people, and your communities through the essential online safety and digital literacy skills needed to address, identify and respond to synthetic content.
Criminals are selling guides on social media on how to carry out sextortion, BBC News has learned.
The guides show people how to pose as young women online, trick a victim into sending sexually explicit material and then blackmail them.
On Tuesday, Olamide Shanu appeared in court in London. He is believed to be part of a gang that made £2m from blackmailing adults and children online.
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