No Nudes Teens

Take It Down is a free service from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that can assist families if their child appears in an online nude image, real or fake. Take It Down can remove this content from social media services where it was uploaded; its availability also has links to additional resources available from Know2Protect campaign by federal government.

Children and teens today spend much of their time online, where new risks appear seemingly every day. One such risk is deepfake nudes – technology which makes it easy for anyone to create hyper-realistic explicit images in seconds; deepfake nudes increase harm while normalizing nonconsensual intimate content production, production and dissemination.

Schools and families understand that possessing or distributing nude photographs of other children is illegal, yet many young people don’t fully grasp its ramifications when using interactive technologies like sexting. When asked by researchers whether sexting with friends was harmful, 28% responded in the affirmative citing their belief that deepfake nudes don’t “count as real.”

Adults must begin conversations early on about this emerging threat to children’s wellbeing, yet simply telling their kids not to sext won’t suffice – teens are already navigating an intricate digital environment and it is crucial that we emphasize this fact when talking with children about this. Deepfake nudes should never be treated as humorous pranks or harmless indulgences of curiosity- they represent abuse and sexual exploitation of vulnerable victims.