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Are Pornography Algorithms Creating Abusers?

Ending Sexploitation

Release Date: 04/10/2025

Unveiling Sextortion's Impact on Youth show art Unveiling Sextortion's Impact on Youth

Ending Sexploitation

This week, we hear from Kathryn Rifenbark, the Director for CyberTipline, Public Reports, in the Exploited Children Division (ECD) at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). In this talk from the 2024 CESE Summit, she shares about the impact of Sextortion on today’s young people and talks about a powerful new service that can be used to help. Self-generated content is a normative behavior of today’s youth. But it can have a destructive impact when it’s non-consensually shared or when they have been blackmailed or coerced into producing it. Take It Down is...

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Busting the Myths of Prostitution show art Busting the Myths of Prostitution

Ending Sexploitation

In this episode, we get to hear from Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls for the United Nations. We were honored to have her join us to speak at the 2024 CESE Global Summit, and this session is titled “Beyond Consent: Prostitution, Pornography, and Human Rights” in which she looks at prostitution as sexual exploitation and a violation of the human right to dignity. She also looks specifically at pornography and other forms of technology facilitated forms of prostitution as she busts 7 myths about prostitution. Reem Alsalem is an independent consultant on...

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Porn Companies Sued Over Age Verification Law show art Porn Companies Sued Over Age Verification Law

Ending Sexploitation

Haley McNamara and Dani Pinter discuss the groundbreaking lawsuits against multiple pornography websites that were recently filed in Kansas. These cases are the first of their kind as the new Age Verification Law was allegedly violated when a minor was able to access sexually explicit content without any age verification efforts from multiple websites. Haley and Dani talk about the real people affected in this case as well as the larger effects of pornography on children.      Read the blog:   Read the New York Times article:    Read about the upcoming...

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Not a Fantasy show art Not a Fantasy

Ending Sexploitation

Lisa Thompson joins Haley McNamara to discuss the recent launch of a groundbreaking new report, Not a Fantasy: How the Pornography Industry Exploits Image-based Sexual Abuse in Real Life, which exposes how the pornography industry facilitates, normalizes, and profits from image-based sexual abuse (IBSA). Lisa shares her journey into this work to end sexual exploitation and how she was able to bring this report to life. Haley and Lisa chat through some of the details of the report as well, including 9 ways the pornography industry fuels IBSA.       Learn more and...

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TAKE IT DOWN Act Passes Congress! show art TAKE IT DOWN Act Passes Congress!

Ending Sexploitation

The Take It Down Act has passed congress! As it heads to the president’s desk for signing, Haley McNamara sits down with Eleanor Gaetan (VP and Director of Public Policy at NCOSE) to discuss what this law does, why it’s needed, and what’s next on the horizon for protecting kids online. They also discuss the momentum we are seeing at the state level for the Safer Devices for Kids Act, which requires device manufacturers to have safety settings ON by default. Contact us here: Read more about the TAKE IT DOWN Act passing: Learn about the Safer Devices for Kids Act: Watch the video...

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AngelQ - A Kid Safe Super Browser show art AngelQ - A Kid Safe Super Browser

Ending Sexploitation

Tim Estes joins Haley for this week’s episode to discuss the launch of an incredible new platform: AngelQ. Among his many other accomplishments, Tim is the CEO and Founder of Angel AI. He chats with Haley about how AngelQ got started and what parents can do with this tool. They also discuss the recent report of a disturbing conversation that journalists from the Wall Street Journal were able to generate from the Meta AI chat service. This just emphasizes the need for smart and safe AI tools like the one that Tim and the team at AngelQ have created. AngelQ is an AI-driven tool that creates...

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The Campaign to Remove a R*pe Game from Steam show art The Campaign to Remove a R*pe Game from Steam

Ending Sexploitation

Haley McNamara and Dani Pinter sit down with Melinda Tankard Reist, Co-Founder and Movement Director of Collective Shout, for a discussion around the recent successful campaign to remove a sexually violent game called “No Mercy” from Steam. Melinda describes how the game allows players to sexually assault your family members and rewards you for doing so. In less than a week, this campaign garnered over 70,000 signatures and over 3,000 emails sent to the CEO of Valve to remove this game. Despite the backlash and threats, Melinda and the team at Collective Shout continue their work to...

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Deepfake Technology and A.I. in Sexual Exploitation show art Deepfake Technology and A.I. in Sexual Exploitation

Ending Sexploitation

“Children being the targets of this deepfake technology is our worst nightmare” Haley and Dani discuss the current state of artificial intelligence and deepfake technology in the realm of sexual exploitation. Overwhelmingly, these tools are used for pornographic material, and 10% of teenagers have reported being aware of deepfake pornography depicting someone they know. They also dig into how this leads to desensitization towards sexualizing children and overwhelming law enforcement. -- Urge your representatives to pass the TAKE IT DOWN Act: -- Urge Apple and Google to have better...

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Are Pornography Algorithms Creating Abusers? show art Are Pornography Algorithms Creating Abusers?

Ending Sexploitation

Haley McNamara and Dani Pinter discuss The Guardian article: "‘I didn’t start out wanting to see kids’: are porn algorithms feeding a generation of paedophiles – or creating one?" They talk about the chilling reality of how pornography platforms algorithms cause escalation for so many of their visitors. Read the full article on The Guardian here: Learn more about the harms of pornography:  

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The Dirty Dozen List Presents: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act show art The Dirty Dozen List Presents: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

Ending Sexploitation

Haley McNamara (NCOSE Senior VP of Programs and Initiatives) and Dani Pinter (Senior VP and Director at the NCOSE Law Center) talk about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) and why it's essential for it to end. They also discuss the history of the Dirty Dozen List and what led to this unique version of the list in 2025. Since its inception in 1996, Section 230 has effectively provided blanket immunity to big tech companies for harms facilitated on their platforms. It's time to call for a full repeal of CDA Section 230! Learn more and take action here: Watch the video version...

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More Episodes

Haley McNamara and Dani Pinter discuss The Guardian article: "‘I didn’t start out wanting to see kids’: are porn algorithms feeding a generation of paedophiles – or creating one?"

They talk about the chilling reality of how pornography platforms algorithms cause escalation for so many of their visitors.

Read the full article on The Guardian here: https://tinyurl.com/yc48mczp

Learn more about the harms of pornography: https://endsexualexploitation.org/issues/pornography/