Complaints in Greece about illegal content online rose 18.5% in 2023

Complaints about illegal content on the Internet increased 18.5% in 2023, compared with the previous year, with most of them relating to financial fraud, according to data released on Wednesday by SafeLine.gr, the Greek Safer Internet Center of the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas.

The center said there was also a significant increase in complaints about child abuse and exploitation content. Parents have been calling the helpline (help-line.gr) run by the foundation for advice on how to limit their children’s involvement with technology.

Complaints about financial fraud increased by 14.9%, data breaches by 6.7%, and trafficking in child sexual abuse and exploitation content by 5.4%.

The global Internet safety organization INHOPE (of which SafeLine.gr is a member) has warned of new ways of disseminating child sexual abuse material by people who are unaware of the content of the pages they open.

The trend is for many children to engage in strange or even criminal behavior in order to make easy money by following the advice and instructions of influencers they treat as mentors.

INHOPE reports the alarming activity of websites that operate and are maintained through the pyramid scheme: In essence, they offer their users links and then allow them to accumulate points and thus access even more material, provided that they distribute the content online to as many users as possible.

Another method is to share specific websites with child sexual abuse content in the form of spam to all social media. The more people click on them, the more points are earned for the original user, allowing them to access more child sexual abuse videos.

In practice, unsuspecting users open these links without knowing what they contain and become part of a chain that allows the illegal content on the sites to spread as far as possible. “This particular form of distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) has been identified as a new trend by the content analysts of the INHOPE global network. To date, there is no INHOPE data that provides a more detailed statistical picture of these platforms,” SafeLine.gr reports.

Parents turned to help-line.gr mainly to ask for help in their efforts to get their children away from screens, online games and social networks. Several parents, especially in recent months, have called the helpline for expert help in protecting their children from incidents of child sexual abuse or exploitation. Many children seem to be influenced by highly influential people through social media networks, who guide them to do various things to make easy money.

However, SafeLine.gr points out that it is very important that both parents and children are informed about safe use of the Internet and educated on how to recognize a dangerous environment and what the right response should be to protect themselves.

The SaferInternet4Kids.gr website provides information and materials on the safe use of the Internet and social networks, which can be used to interactively educate children and young people of all ages.