BSG is proud to share the latest research our VP Patrick Toomey has conducted with Thorn focusing on how minors respond to online threats. You can read the full report here. to learn more details about the platforms minors are using in general and how they are responding to potentially harmful experiences online. Overall the data show:
Minors are having online sexual interactions with both peers and individuals they believe to be adults at concerningly similar rates.
Minors are more than twice as likely to use online safety tools to combat potentially harmful online sexual interactions than they are to use offline support systems, such as caregivers or peers.
Blocking is viewed by minors as a more accessible and less punitive tool to respond to online threats. As a result, blocking is much more common than reporting among minors.
Neither blocking nor reporting sufficiently protect minors from continued harassment by other platform users.
We are honored to support Thorn’s crucial work building technology to defend children from sexual abuse and to continue our partnership through which BSG employs our innovative research methodologies and techniques to gain insights directly from minors themselves in order to inform child protection on a greatly expedited timeline as compared to other methods.