200,000 young people may have been groomed online

One in twenty-five 11-17 year olds have sent, received or been asked to send sexual content to an adult, according to an NSPCC survey.

The survey revealed for the first time the extent of grooming and inappropriate behaviour on the most popular social networking sites. It found that young people who used Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Twitch were the most likely to report experiencing grooming activity.

The NSPCC is concerned about the extent to which young people are sharing sexual images, leaving them more vulnerable to grooming and exploitation. Offenders are then using these images to blackmail children to generate more.

The NSPCC's #WildWestWeb campaign calls on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to keep the Government's promise and force tech firms to exercise a duty of care to children on their platforms.

The NSPCC is also calling on the government to establish an independent regulator who can put in place mandatory child safety rules for social networks; safe accounts for children; and detailed reporting on how social networks are keeping children safe.

Peter Wanless, NSPCC Chief Executive, said: “The scale of risk that children face on social networks revealed in this research cannot be ignored and tackling it with robust and comprehensive legislation needs to be a priority for this government.

“Tech firms need to be forced to get a grip of the abuse taking place on their sites by using technology to identify suspicious behaviour and designing young people’s accounts with built-in protections.”