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Online gangs of teenage boys sharing extreme material are ‘emerging threat’ in UK (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 week ago by blackn1ght@feddit.uk to c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk

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[–] Emperor@feddit.uk 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I was listening to a report on this earlier. Grim stuff. I worry for young people having to grow up in this kind of environment.

Online communities known as “Com” networks represent an “emerging threat”, reports of which have increased sixfold in the UK from 2022 to 2024. The agency’s analysts estimate that millions of messages in the UK and other western countries have been shared relating to sexual and physical abuse.

The NCA director general, Graeme Biggar, said: “These groups are not lurking on the dark web, they exist in the same online world and platforms young people use on a daily basis.

If they aren't using E2E encryption then the platforms are seriously dropping the ball, again.

[–] quack@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

From what I understand they tend to use Discord, which doesn’t use E2EE and does very much cooperate with the authorities on stuff like this. A good chunk of them don’t seem particularly bright so just a matter of time while the low-hanging fruit is rounded up, but I can well imagine that the sheer volume of referrals the NCA gets for this kind of thing will take a while to get through.