Predictors of online child sexual exploitation through image-sharing

Background

There is growing concern about youth online safety, including the risks of youths having their nude/near-nude images and videos solicited and reshared by adults and similar-age peers online. As such, it is important to identify correlates of youths having their images solicited and nonconsensually reshared online.

Objective

We looked at predictors of image-sharing behaviors in a sample of Australian parent-youth dyads.

Participants and setting

Participants were 1349 Australian parent-youth dyads (youth Mage = 15.5, SD = 1.1, 54.1% female) who completed an anonymous online survey.

Methods

Questions about demographic characteristics, parental internet mediation, youth social supports, online bullying victimization, online sexual experiences, and internet knowledge were asked. The outcome variables were youths being solicited to send images to someone online and having their images nonconsensually reshared online in the past year.

Findings

Results showed that being a girl, experiencing online bullying, and having online sexual experiences were predictive of youth having their images solicited by someone online. Being younger, experiencing online bullying, having online sexual experiences, and having less internet knowledge were associated with youth having their images nonconsensually reshared online.

Conclusions

These results have implications for parent and youth interventions. In addition to improving youth knowledge about resources for those experiencing solicitation online, interventions may benefit from taking a gendered approach, as being a girl has been a consistent predictor of victimization across studies. Future research should also aim to better understand the victimization experiences of non-White youths and youths belonging to the LGBTIQ+ ​community.