How to remove nude photos of children from social media

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Sexualized films and nude images of children and adolescents may arise from:

• Teenagers explore their sexuality and share photos voluntarily with a friend.
• Predators film the child via screen using manipulation or threats.
• Some teens are tempted by good pay.

Whatever the case is, suddenly nude pictures and films of the child can be spread all over the internet, and it may become a huge burden for the person who has been filmed. What can be done in this situation?

‘Take It Down’ removes nudes from the internet

The website Take It Down has agreements with Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, and some others to remove nude photos of people under the age of 18. They also have an agreement with giant Pornhub. In 2020, Pornhub had to delete 10 million videos under heavy pressure for spreading sexual assault videos.

If you notify Take It Down, they notify the apps and websites they have an agreement with. Then the service providers will do what they can to find the images and remove them.

You do not have to leave your name and address when you contact Take It Down. It’s anonymous.

Take It Down does not make a copy of the nudes in their work. So, how does Take It Down know which images to remove? You have to let Take It Down “scan” the relevant nudes on your computer. A technical search code will thus be created and Take It Down will pass that on to the apps.

Images consist of many small dots (pixels) placed in precise places. By scanning an image, one can create a kind of mathematical fingerprint of the image, without having taken a copy of the image. It is not possible to use the photo’s fingerprint to recreate the image, but it can be used to detect if there are copies of the image elsewhere.

Take It Down is a US organization, but you do not have to live in the United States to get help from them. You can also be over 18, but the photos must have been taken when you were under 18.

You have to let Take It Down scan the original photos on the device where the images are found, such as your child’s phone. You should not download copies from others and let Take It Down scan them. If you can’t let them access the photos on the original device, contact cybertipline.org for help.

Take It Down is a service provided by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

The service does not ensure that the images are removed from the entire internet, only from the apps and websites that Take It Down has an agreement with. It may be worthwhile to be quick with an inquiry because perhaps the pictures have only been spread in some social media and have not yet been spread further.

Nudes of children are prohibited

Nude photos and videos of children under the age of 18 are illegal to take, store, or share. There is an exception in the law: The penalty may lapse for anyone who takes and possesses a photo of a person between the ages of 16 and 18 if the person has given consent and the two are approximately equal in age and development. (§ 311). But the consent can be withdrawn, and then the image is illegal.

Children can also be punished

In Norway, the age of criminal consent is 15 years. This means that children over the age of 14 can be punished if they share a nude photo of a friend without obtaining consent. It is not common for children to be punished for this, but we have found some examples of children over the age of criminal consent having to pay fines of several thousand kroner. The police can also seize the phone.

10 tips on how to remove nudes

BEFORE THE IMAGES SPREAD:

1) Be positively interested in your child’s digital life regularly, i.e., before anything negative happens. The child should be confident in being able to contact you as a parent. It might be easy for the child if you often talk about your child’s digital life.

2) Talk to your teens about the risk of spreading nude photos and that it might be dangerous.

Tell your children that they can become:

• Manipulated by friends from games and the internet. This is called
• Lured to undress on screen or share nude photos in return for receiving cash, free concert tickets or in-game benefits.
• Threatened to send increasingly coarse images. The threat is that the nude photos sent earlier will be shared with the teenager’s family and friends.

In such cases, it is important to tell someone you trust and take screen evidence so that the perpetrators can be stopped by the police.

Some teens may share nude photos without being tempted. Children can also explore their sexuality and can send nude photos to a friend or boyfriend/girlfriend without manipulation or intimidation involved. However, there may arise unfriendliness later and the images might be spread online. Or maybe a third party will steal the phone and share the photos.

3) Tell him or her that it is not at all common for children to share nude photos. Statistics show that only one in ten children aged 13-16 have shared nude photos. Someone might start nagging about getting nude photos and say that “everyone shares,” but that’s not true.

AFTER THE IMAGES SPREAD:

4) Cooperation with the child. On the one hand, it is important to act quickly so that the images are deleted in the first stages before they spread further. On the other hand, the child may feel despondent if the parents quickly involve the police, school and other parents and lose all influence on what measures are taken. Use discretion.

5) Do you know who spread the images? Consider whether that person, who may be a school friend or ex-boyfriend, might have the conscience to regret it and then help you stop the spread. It may be mentioned to him that children from the age of fifteen years of age can also be fined for sharing nude photos. Adults can face up to two years in prison.

6) If the images are a result of abuse, you may be entitled to free legal assistance.

7) Contact the apps and websites where the images have been spread and report that they have violated the rules for using the app.

• This webpage has instructions on how to report nude photos in apps and websites.
• Here’s how you can report in games.
• Here’s how you can report on social media.

8) Get professional help: Submit an anonymous form at Takeitdown.

9) Contact Slettmeg.

10) Contact the police.

(Translated from Norwegian by Ratan Samadder)