A story about the internet

Nearly every category of crime today leaves a lasting digital footprint that victims struggle to escape.

Every day, non-consensual images produced through trafficking, child exploitation, domestic violence, extortion and other forms of criminal abuse circulate freely and become embedded throughout the entire internet ecosystem.

These enduring records of abuse perpetuate ongoing threats to victims’ safety, disrupt communities, tear at the fabric of civic life, and impact every layer of our society.

A victim’s ability to obtain employment, pursue education, start a family, and regain control of their lives sit downstream of their ability to remove images depicting their abuse from public circulation.

We grew up being told,
“Once it’s online, it’s there forever.”

But there is nothing magical about the internet that requires images of abuse to be viewable online forever.

The internet is not some celestial realm where laws cannot be enforced — it is terrestrial and governable.

Children deserve to explore themselves and the internet — the most profound invention in human history — without every possible consequence of that freedom dragging the rest of their lives into an abyss.

We all deserve a free and humane internet where the laws that were meant to protect us can actually be enforced.

Internet infrastructure should be governed with mercy and humanity.

It should protect innocent people when bad things happen to them.

We will be fighting in the trenches of the internet alongside survivors until every image of their abuse either comes down or is no longer accessible to the general public.

NCVIC is developing new protocols for intervention on the open web, grounded in standards that platforms, victims, and the public can trust.