Online child abuse and sexual exploitation policy

Section 1: What is Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation?

A Child is anyone under the age of 18.

Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) involves forcing or enticing a child to take part in sexual activity, whether or not the child is aware of what is happening. This may include activities such as involving children in looking at, or in the production of, sexual images, watching sexual activities, encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways or grooming a child in preparation for abuse.

Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) is a form of CSA. It occurs where an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, manipulate or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18 into sexual activity (a) in exchange for something the victim needs or wants, and/or (b) the financial advantage or increased status of the perpetrator or facilitator. The victim may have been sexually exploited even if the activity appears consensual.

Online CSAE Offending can take a number of different forms which include:

Online Grooming: The act of developing a relationship with a child to enable their abuse and exploitation both online and offline. Online platforms, such as social media, messaging and live streaming, can be used to facilitate this offending.

Live Streaming: Live streaming services can be used by Child Sex Offenders (CSOs) to incite victims to commit or watch sexual acts via webcam. CSOs also stream or watch live contact sexual abuse or indecent images of children with other offenders. In some instances CSOs will pay facilitators to stream live contact abuse, with the offender directing what sexual acts are perpetrated against the victim.

Online coercion and blackmail: The coercion or blackmail of a child by technological means, using sexual images and/or videos depicting that child, for the purposes of sexual gain (e.g. to obtain new IIOC or bring about a sexual encounter), financial gain or other personal gain.

Possession, production and sharing of IIOC and Prohibited Images: CSOs can use online platforms to store and share IIOC and prohibited images. Online platforms can also be used to facilitate the production of IIOC, for example screen-recording of CSEA perpetrated over live streaming.

Indecent Images of Children (IIOC) are images of, or depicting, a child or part of a child which are judged to be in breach of recognised standards of propriety. Examples of images considered to be indecent are those depicting a child engaging in sexual activity or in a sexual manner, through posing, actions, clothing etc. IIOC includes photographs, videos, pseudo-photographs and tracings.

Prohibited Images of Children are non-photographic images, for example CGI, cartoons etc, which portray a child engaging in sexual activity, a sexual act being performed in the presence of a child or focus on the child’s genital or anal region.   

Section 2: Key safety principles

 

To help keep our younger users safe from harm online on the Grow App, we have implemented the following principles:

All users are required to be 13 years old or over to use the app, which is in line with other social networks. Every user must agree to our Terms and Conditions and they are also required to complete their date of birth on sign-up. If the user inputs an age less than 13, they are displayed an error message stating they cannot create a Grow account.

When a new user under 18 signs up to Grow, they are asked to decide whether they would like a private profile. Setting their profile to private gives them more control over who can see what they post and who follows them.

The app has no direct messaging, so every interaction made to a post (known as comments) are fully public.

In cases where a member of the community finds something on Grow they are uncomfortable with, they can block the profile that created it. This does multiple things:

    • They will not be able to see any comments or likes from that profile.

    • The blocked profile can not see or search for the user that blocked them, including any of their posts, comments and likes.

    • They will no longer see any more posts from that profile in their feeds.

All content (posts and comments) is subject to viewing from our moderator team and appropriate action can be taken if it breaks our community guidelines

Users are encouraged to report content themselves which they believe breaks our guidelines and this is then followed up by our moderator team.

We have a wide variety of moderation tools such as in-app reports, image classification and a banning process to remove harmful profiles and content from the platform to ensure the safety of our users.

Section 3: Reporting

We are committed to creating a safe and respectful environment for everyone in our community. If we identify or receive reports of suspicious content or behaviour that may involve child sexual abuse or exploitation, we take immediate action by reporting it to INHOPE, a global network of hotlines dedicated to combating child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

INHOPE collaborates with law enforcement and internet platforms worldwide to ensure such content is removed and investigated. For more information about INHOPE or to learn about their work, visit their website at https://www.inhope.org

Last updated: January 23rd, 2025