Deepfakes, Loot Boxes, and Scams: the internet we created is hurting our children. This is how to fix it
10 March 2025, 19:00
The phrase “move fast and break things” was an internal motto at Facebook during its early years.
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But it came to represent a Silicon Valley mindset, which fundamentally shaped the evolution of the internet.
Perhaps it was hard to imagine how central the internet would become to children’s lives, let alone the possibility children could be the ‘thing’ that was broken. But this is the reality that many parents, schools and charities grapple with today.
I work for Nominet, guardians of the UK’s national domain name registry. My role includes managing a fund that helps charities and other organisations respond to new online harms impacting children. We’re a small organisation compared to tech businesses who make billions of pounds from society’s internet usage, but we’re committed to supporting young people and leaving the internet a better place than we found it.
The Internet Watch Foundation, an organisation we’ve long supported, has been sounding the alarm about child sexual abuse imagery created by Artificial Intelligence. Their research found more than 3,000 AI-generated criminal abuse images on a single dark web forum – with hundreds more reported every week.
This horrendous content is no longer constrained to the bleakest corners of the dark web. Later in March I’m travelling to South Korea, where last year hundreds of schools discovered male students were using chatrooms to share deepfake sexually explicit images of their female classmates. Over 80% of those arrested were teenagers, and local reports suggest many resented being charged in a context where "everyone is doing it." Back in the UK, the non-profit Internet Matters estimates that more than half a million teenagers have already encountered AI-generated nude deepfakes.
Another organisation we support, Parent Zone, is leading research on the challenge of Child Financial Harms. While they receive limited attention from authorities – 62% of parents say it’s a problem that needs addressing.
We risk a generation getting their first financial education in a largely unregulated space, introduced to a form of gambling through so-called loot-boxes via online games, and exposed to fraud and scams. At best this breeds distrust and cynicism; at worst it can be traumatic or pull children into dangerous, criminal spaces.
Why are we continuously having to react to new harms impacting our children? The truth is it’s a sign of our collective failure to imagine and intentionally create something better. But in recent years – following pressure from parents, charities and campaigners – the UK has pioneered online safety legislation; the arrival of the Online Safety Act demonstrates we have it in our power to act before harms emerge. Together, we can decide on the internet we want and build the internet that young people deserve.
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Adam Groves is Social Impact Lead at Nominet. He works directly with charities and organisations that aim to make the internet safer for young people and is also a Churchill Fellow researching new and emerging online harms.
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