Thorn and All Tech Is Human release joint report on platform design features that facilitate child exploitation

Child safety organisation Thorn and technology ethics nonprofit All Tech Is Human published a joint research report on 29 October 2026 identifying specific platform design features that facilitate grooming, sextortion and exploitation of minors, based on analysis of more than 1,200 law enforcement case files and interviews with 85 survivors and safeguarding professionals. The report highlights anonymity in account creation, recommendation algorithms that surface child users to adults with no prior connection, ephemeral messaging that auto-deletes evidence, and frictionless cross-platform content sharing as structural enablers of abuse, and calls on platforms to adopt safety-by-design principles including friction at the point of contact initiation, pattern-based detection of harmful communication and transparent reporting pathways for minors and caregivers.

The operational gap the Thorn and All Tech Is Human report identifies is the need for detection systems that assess risk as interactions unfold rather than relying solely on post-hoc reporting or content removal after abuse has occurred. By analysing the shape and progression of a conversation—sustained targeting, escalation, isolation, coercion—rather than reading every message for keyword matches, AI-driven pattern detection surfaces high-risk exchanges in real time and enables intervention before exploitation occurs. Guardii's technology, backed by Startmate and operational across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other environments studied in the report, offers platforms, parents and safeguarding professionals the proactive detection capability the research identifies as essential to closing the design vulnerabilities that offenders currently exploit.