The latest report on how social media is abused to exploit the young has revealed that Instagram is the biggest platform that is used for grooming offences.
Grooming is defined by the the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) as the act of building an emotional connection with a child to gain their trust for the purpose of sexual abuse or exploitation.
According to the latest report by NSPCC, more than 5,000 online grooming offences have been recorded in 18 months with a 200 percent rise in recorded instances in the use of Instagram to target and abuse children in the 18-month period between 2017 to 2018.
The report highlighted that grooming offences involved one major social media platform or another in 70 per cent of the cases. It was found that Instagram was used in 32 percent of those instances, Facebook in 23 percent, and Snapchat in 14 percent.
