The internet has become an everyday part of childhood, but it has also created new opportunities for predators to target vulnerable children. Reports of a particularly disturbing form of online exploitation are rising sharply.
In 2025, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) received more than 3,000 reports of “sadistic online exploitation” involving children worldwide — a 125% increase from the previous year. Experts warn that child exploitation reports represent only a fraction of incidents.
Predators may approach children through social media, online games like Roblox®, and messaging platforms, often starting with what appears to be an ordinary conversation. They can then use grooming, manipulation, threats, or sexual images to gain control over a child.
Understanding the risks does not mean keeping children away from the internet entirely. It means helping them use it more safely and creating an environment where they feel comfortable coming to a trusted adult if something feels wrong.
Knowing how online exploitation happens, where children may be vulnerable, and what parents can do to respond can help protect children before a dangerous situation escalates.
What Is Child Exploitation?
Child exploitation is the use, manipulation, or abuse of a child for another person’s benefit or gratification. It can take many forms, including sexual exploitation, forced labor, trafficking, and online abuse.
Exploitation doesn't always involve physical force. Predators may rely on grooming, manipulation, threats, blackmail, or other forms of coercion to gain control over a child.
Exploitation of children can include:
- Sexual exploitation: Coercing or manipulating a child to participate in sexual activity or create or share sexual images or videos.
- Online exploitation: Grooming, sextortion, blackmail, or other forms of abuse carried out through social media, gaming platforms, or messaging apps.
- Trafficking and forced labor: Recruiting, transporting, or controlling a child for forced labor, commercial sex, or other activities that benefit another person.
- Physical or psychological exploitation: Manipulating or coercing a child into acts that cause physical or emotional harm.
- Criminal exploitation: Using threats, manipulation, or force to involve a child in criminal activity.
Child exploitation can happen in person or online, and different forms of exploitation may overlap. At its core, exploitation occurs when someone takes advantage of a child’s vulnerability, trust, or dependence for their own benefit.
Recognizing the different forms exploitation can take is an important first step toward protecting children from harm.
Examples of Child Exploitation Online
Online child exploitation occurs when someone uses the internet to groom, manipulate, threaten, or otherwise take advantage of a child for sexual, financial, or personal gain.
Predators can reach children through platforms they use every day, including social media, online games, and messaging apps. In some cases, companies have known about risks to young users but have failed to put adequate safeguards in place to protect them.
Online child exploitation can take several forms, including:
- Online grooming: Building a relationship with a child to gain their trust and gradually manipulate them into sexual or abusive situations.
- Sexual exploitation: Coercing or manipulating a child into creating or sharing sexually explicit images or videos.
- Sextortion: Threatening to share a child's sexual images or information unless the child sends more images, money, or complies with other demands.
- Cyberstalking and harassment: Repeatedly monitoring, threatening, humiliating, or harassing a child online.
- Coercion into self-harm: Manipulating or threatening a child into hurting themselves, another person, or an animal.
- Doxing and exposure of personal information: Obtaining and sharing a child's private information to intimidate, threaten, or control them.
- Exploitation through online communities: Targeting vulnerable children through gaming communities, social media groups, or other online networks where predators can identify and groom potential victims.
Online exploitation does not always begin with an obvious threat. An adult predator may first present themselves as a peer, romantic interest, or source of support before gradually establishing control.
"One person the FBI put in prison for this crime was a man in his 40s who worked as a youth minister, so he could learn how teens talked to each other. Then, he created social media profiles where he pretended to be a teenage girl. This 'girl' would start talking to boys online and encourage them to make videos."
– Federal Bureau of Investigation
The combination of easy access to children, anonymous accounts, lack of age verification, and the ability to move conversations between platforms can allow exploitation to escalate quickly.
Ultimately, online child exploitation is about using technology to gain access to and control a child.
How Does Child Sexual Exploitation Happen Online?
Online child exploitation often begins with something that seems harmless: a message, a gaming interaction, or an offer of friendship. Due to lax safety protocols, predators can use platforms where children already spend time to identify vulnerable children, build trust, and gradually gain control.
In some cases, perpetrators specifically look for children who have shared personal struggles online, then use that information to make themselves appear supportive or understanding before the relationship becomes abusive.
The process can unfold gradually, making it difficult for a child or parent to recognize what is happening:
- Finding a target: A predator identifies a child through social media, online games like Roblox, messaging platforms, or communities where children discuss personal interests or struggles.
- Making contact: The predator sends messages, joins conversations, plays games with the child, or otherwise finds a way to establish a connection.
- Building trust: They may pretend to be a friend, romantic interest, or someone who understands what the child is going through.
- Moving to private communication: The predator may encourage the child to move the conversation to a private messaging app or another platform with less visibility like Discord®, Telegram, or Snapchat.
- Requesting personal or sexual content: Once trust has been established, the predator may ask the child for private information, photos, videos, or sexually explicit images.
- Gaining leverage: The predator can use those images, personal information, or other secrets as leverage, threatening to expose or embarrass the child if they do not comply.
- Escalating the abuse: Demands may become increasingly harmful, including requests for additional images, money, self-harm, harm to others, or other abusive acts.
- Maintaining control: Even if a child tries to stop communicating, threats, fear, and manipulation can make it difficult to break away. Some perpetrators also maintain multiple accounts, allowing them to continue contacting victims after an account is removed.
The important takeaway is that online exploitation does not necessarily start with an obvious threat or abusive demand. It can begin with ordinary online interaction and gradually develop into manipulation, coercion, and control.
Over 80% of cyber tips about potential abuse came through social media platforms, specifically TikTok, Snapchat, Google, Facebook, and X. In 2025, more than 52,000 tips were received compared to less than 5,000 in 2019.
Is Sexual Exploitation Sexual Abuse?
Yes. Sexual exploitation of a child is a form of child sexual abuse. It occurs when someone uses, manipulates, coerces, or deceives a child into sexual activity or sexually exploitative situations. Sexual exploitation does not have to involve physical contact to be abuse.
A child may be sexually exploited through the creation or sharing of sexual images, online grooming, sextortion, trafficking, or being pressured to perform sexual acts for money, gifts, attention, or another benefit.
Online exploitation can also qualify as sexual abuse even when the perpetrator never meets the child in person. The important distinction is that a child cannot be responsible for or consent to their own sexual exploitation.
Grooming, manipulation, threats, or apparent cooperation do not make the exploitation acceptable or make the child responsible for what happened.
Sexual exploitation should be understood as abuse perpetrated against a child, regardless of how the perpetrator gained control or whether the abuse occurred online or in person.
How to Keep Your Child Safe from Online Sexual Exploitation
Keeping children safe online starts with more than parental controls. Open, ongoing conversations can help children recognize inappropriate behavior and feel comfortable telling a trusted adult when something does not feel right.
NCMEC and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) both recommend combining age-appropriate discussions with clear family rules, privacy protections, and technology safeguards.
Parents can take several steps to reduce the risk of online exploitation:
- Talk about online safety early and often: Explain that not everyone online is who they claim to be and encourage children to tell you if someone makes them uncomfortable, asks for private information, or pressures them to keep a secret.
- Know the platforms your child uses: Learn about the social media apps, games, chat features, and online communities your child uses. Ask them to show you how they work.
- Set clear rules: Establish boundaries around which apps children can use, who they can communicate with, what information they can share, and when devices can be used.
- Protect personal information: Teach children not to share their home address, phone number, school, passwords, location, or other identifying information publicly or with people they do not know.
- Use privacy and parental controls: Depending on your child's age and maturity, use settings that restrict content, limit communications, manage screen time, and provide information about online activity.
- Teach children to recognize manipulation: Help them understand that grooming can start with attention, compliments, friendship, or sympathy before becoming more controlling or threatening.
- Encourage children to save evidence: If someone threatens, harasses, or attempts to exploit them, tell them not to engage further and to save relevant messages, usernames, images, or other evidence when it is safe to do so.
- Make sure they know they won't be blamed: Children may be afraid to tell an adult because they think they will get in trouble. Reassure them that they can come to you, even if they made a mistake or broke a family rule.
- Act if you see warning signs: If you believe your child is being exploited, focus on their safety and support rather than blaming or interrogating them. NCMEC provides resources for families and a CyberTipline for reporting suspected online child exploitation.
No single setting, app, or parental-control tool can completely prevent online sexual exploitation. The strongest protection comes from combining reasonable technology safeguards with knowledge, communication, and trust.
When children know what manipulation can look like and that they can turn to a trusted adult without fear of punishment, they are better positioned to recognize dangerous situations and ask for help.
Get Help Filing a Child Sexual Abuse Lawsuit
If your child has been sexually exploited or abused, you may have legal options. Filing a child abuse lawsuit may allow your family to seek compensation from the person responsible or an institution that failed to protect your child.
At Sokolove Law, our sexual abuse attorneys have more than 45 years of experience helping survivors and families pursue justice.
Because laws and filing deadlines vary by state, speaking with an attorney can help you understand what legal options may be available in your case.
Contact Sokolove Law for a free legal case review and take the first step toward understanding your rights and options.
