PornHub uses chatbot to intercept more than 4 million calls about child sexual abuse

PornHub chatbot stopped 4 million searches for child abuse content. The tool, which was launched in September 2022, was designed to interfere with users consuming such content on the internet.

“The actual raw research numbers are pretty scary,” said University of Tasmania senior lecturer Joel Scanlan, one of the project leaders. According to him, the bot issued more than 4.4 million alerts on PornHub UK to intercept searches for child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

It looks like the warning is having an impact on users. “There is a significant reduction in response time in the number of studies,” the professor said.

It is also worth noting that the study counts the number of interventions and the same person may be notified more than once. Study shows ‘significant drop’ in CSAM searches on PornHuband some of this may be a result of chatbot alerts.

PornHub currently includes a list of 34,000 banned terms in multiple languages ​​to prevent CSAM searches. The bot is another measure to host this type of content and appears as soon as the user searches for one of the relevant terms.

The chatbot was developed in partnership with the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a non-profit organization tackling the circulation of CSAM on the internet, and the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, a charity fighting to prevent child sexual exploitation.

Intervention via chatbot

Once the chatbot detects a search for CSAM, it will contact the user and launch a simple survey. The person will then have to respond by clicking on the buttons or typing a response, and will eventually be informed that it is illegal to search for such material.

According to website wired1,656 requested more information via the chatbot, while 490 people clicked on the “Stop Now” website, which has more details about such content. Eventually, around 68 people contacted Lucy Faithfull’s anonymous helpline asking for help..

The chatbot testing period has ended, but the chatbot and prompts will remain active on PornHub UK. There are currently no plans to close it, but no expansion plans have been mentioned by the organizations involved.