Online grooming through Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram is becoming "quicker" and "easier," child-safety experts have warned, with children as young as five now being targeted through social media, gaming and messaging platforms. The warning, reported by the BBC, follows the conviction of three men jailed for grooming a 17-year-old girl on Snapchat before raping her.
Data compiled by the children's charity NSPCC shows the scale of the problem. Sexual communication offences involving children in England's South West region more than doubled since the offence was introduced seven years ago, reaching 756 cases in 2024/25. Nationally, Snapchat was mentioned in 324 counselling sessions about online sexual abuse run by Childline between April 2025 and March 2026 — a 19% rise on the previous year — with TikTok and Instagram the next most frequently named platforms. Separately, the Internet Watch Foundation has reported a sharp rise in young people contacting its confidential helpline over fears that sexual images of themselves have been or could be shared online, a form of exploitation known as "sextortion."
Platform and regulatory response
Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, told the BBC it restricts contact between adults and teenagers they are not already connected to, and uses behavioral signals and technology to detect and remove accounts showing signs of grooming or a sexual interest in children. Snapchat and TikTok did not immediately respond to the BBC's requests for comment. The warnings come against a backdrop of mounting regulatory pressure: Ofcom has pushed Snap, Meta and Roblox to adopt further child-safety measures and is also scrutinizing TikTok's and YouTube's recommendation systems, as separate NSPCC research has found offenders often make first contact on open platforms before moving children to encrypted messaging apps where abuse is harder to detect.
Child-safety campaigners say the response so far does not go far enough. James Simmons-Read, who leads the Children's Society's national exploitation prevention programme, said the UK's social media ban for under-16s, due to take effect in 2027, "doesn't go far enough" and could be bypassed by criminals or discourage young people from reporting abuse. A UK government spokesperson said it is preparing legislation that would make it impossible for children to take, share or view nude images on their devices, which it said would make Britain the first country to do so, and that tech companies "must be part of the solution."
Charities including the NSPCC and the IWF are pressing for the Online Safety Act to be strengthened further, arguing regulators currently focus too heavily on responding after harm occurs rather than preventing it. Campaigners and child-protection officers are also urging parents to talk openly with children about online risks rather than restricting device access, warning that confiscating phones can make children feel blamed and less likely to report abuse.