Courts Hold Big Tech Accountable for Online Harm to Children
children on scales of justice

Collective actions by survivors, parents and child advocates may finally force social media giants to fundamentally change their platforms so they include a “duty of care” for children and do no harm. Implications for these unprecedented challenges to Big Tech are projected to have a global impact on children’s well-being.

  • Last week, a New Mexico jury ordered Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram) to pay $375M in civil penalties for enabling child sexual abuse material on its platforms. This lawsuit, brought by the State’s Attorney General, was the first jury trial to hold Meta accountable for acts committed on its platform.
  • A jury in Los Angeles ordered Meta and YouTube to pay $6M in damages for their negligent use of addictive algorithms that lead to mental health problems for young users.
  • Roblox, the online gaming platform, is facing over 100 lawsuits for enabling the child sexual exploitation and sextortion of children. These lawsuits have already led the platform to require age verification and limit its chat features to “trusted connections” for children.
  • X’s Grok AI has allowed people to create thousands of sexual deepfakes of real people, including children, and share them widely. Due to this, the City of Baltimore and several Tennessee teens are now suing xAI.
AI-Generated CSAM: A Rapidly Growing Crisis 
girl holding phone upset

The alarming rise of AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) circulating in the U.S. and globally requires every parent, youth-serving professional and child advocate to be informed about this unprecedented threat – authorities report more than a 6,000% increase in CSAM in one year (WeProtect Global Alliance, 2026). The facts:

AI technologies are being used regularly to create and spread CSAM through:

  • Deepfakes: AI-generated or altered images and videos that appear to be real, identifiable people. One in 17 youth report being victims of deepfake sexual imagery (Thorn).
  • Nudification tools: AI that digitally removes or alters clothing in photos.
  • AI chatbots & generative models: Systems that can impersonate children or create sexualized content.

UNICEF warns: “The harm from deepfake abuse is real. Immediate action is needed to confront the escalating threat of AI-generated child sexual abuse material.” Children are directly victimized when their image or identity is used. Even without an identifiable child, AI-generated CSAM normalizes sexual exploitation and creates a demand for the material. Governments need to expand their definitions of CSAM to include AI-generated material in order to address this urgent issue. 

Federal Bills To Protect Children From Online Child Sexual Abuse:

Enough Abuse is tracking 11 federal bills in Congress intended to protect children from online exploitation, CSAM, deepfakes, online extremism, sextortion, etc. Learn more on our federal bills page.

Current legal status of AI-generated CSAM at the state level:

45 U.S. states have criminalized AI-generated or modified CSAM. Alaska, Colorado, Ohio Vermont and D.C. have not. A Massachusetts bill is pending action now in Senate Ways & Means. See our interactive map here for details on each state’s law. 

What You Can Do:
  • Keep your social media profiles set to private, especially if you share photos of your children, and encourage your children to do the same.
  • Learn how to talk to your children. Visit our “How Parents Can Fight Back Against Online Abuse” page.
  • Support bills that criminalize AI-Generated CSAM. (Massachusetts citizens, ask for your legislators’ support through our email campaign here.)Download and share our factsheet, “AI-Generated CSAM: A Rapidly Growing Crisis.”
Ways Enough Abuse is Addressing Online Threats
  • We are raising awareness through e-newsletters, social media posts, and blogs on: “What is Financial Sextortion?;” “Roblox: A Playground for Predators;” and “How to Protect Kids on Social Media.”
  • We are working with a teen survivor of online Sextortion to produce the first prevention trainings about online sexual abuse and sextortion ever developed by youth for youth, including: signs that a friend may be being abused; red flags that show a person online may be attempting to exploit them; safety tips for teens to keep safe online and report abuse. A training for parents is also in development.
Our Work to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse in Schools and Youth Organizations

Enough Abuse continues to work with school and youth organization leaders to prevent child sexual abuse by educating thousands of their staff through our Enough! online trainings, providing technical assistance to improve their prevention policies through our Safety S.T.A.R.S. program, advocating for legislation to support prevention efforts in schools, and convening our bi-monthly “States Policy Exchange” to promote prevention legislation in the states. 

Billboards in NYC Times Square that say Enough Abuse, End Child Sexual Abuse. Learn how enoughabuse.org. ENOUGH child sexual abuse.
Empowering the Public To Prevent Child Sexual Abuse

Throughout April, Child Abuse Prevention Month, Enough Abuse will feature 3 live video billboards (pictured left) in New York City’s Times Square. An estimated 40 million people will view our prevention messages and be encouraged to visit enoughabuse.org, which has reached 800K visitors in the past 6 months alone.

View the 15-second video of the billboards here.

We need your support!

For over 65 years, our small but mighty team has advocated effectively to protect our most vulnerable children and youth. We couldn’t do it without supporters like you. Please join the fight against those who are working every day to exploit our children. Donate now to support our work!