Snapchat logged about 20,000 cases last year of adults grooming children online, more than other social media platforms combined
Tech companies including Snapchat and Facebook reported more than 9,600 cases of adults grooming children online in the UK in just six months last year – the equivalent of about 400 a week.
Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), have grown increasingly alarmed about the growing threat from sextortion and other crimes targeting teenagers.
The US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) last year received 546,000 reports from tech firms of adults across the world soliciting children – a 192% increase from 2023.
As many as 9,600 of these reports came from the UK in the first six months of 2024. Snapchat reported far more troubling material to NCMEC than any other platform in that period, its records show.
