With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that the study that revealed this was looking primarily at women between the ages of 11 and 18, something that indicates that teenagers might not be as safe online as we had initially thought. This is concerning because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up harming these young women and causing long lasting trauma, and what’s somewhat odd is that over half of the underage girls that received these types of unwanted images reported them to the authorities or even to their parents.
This study was conducted by the University College London, and it uncovered that the primary motive for about a third of women not reporting cyberflashing is that they don’t think that there would be any good that could come of that. It’s clear that a lot of work needs to be done in order to ensure that young women in particular can feel safe online.
With the rise of social media and the rather low age at which children can make social media accounts, it has now become more essential than ever to protect children from sexual abuse. Cyberflashing is one of the most pervasive forms of child sexual abuse that is occurring, and it’s high time that social media platforms take steps to curb it.
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