Identification The prevalence of CSEA online is an ever-present and growing issue. If interventions can be made early enough, then LFF believes that users can be stopped through intervention. Services that LFF and other NGOs provide around the world include brands such as Stop it Now, Safe to Talk and Talking for Change. The objective was identified as preventing searches and attempted consumption of CSEA material. Reducing demand reduces supply and therefore prevents such abhorrent material from being created in the first place. Deterrence messages for those searching for CSEA material and other harmful content were already in place on Aylo’s adult entertainment platforms, who worked directly with LFF and similar organizations around the globe to provide the messaging and the local resources to affected users. The IWF and LFF sought to try other ways of signalling to such users to seek help to change their behaviour. Design The IWF created a working group to help devise the chatbot and ensure expert input into its development. The group met frequently throughout the months leading up to the release of the intervention to ensure all voices were heard and expertise was considered. Frequent discussions took place within the working group throughout the development of the chatbot. Focus groups were used to evaluate the prompts and responses. Partners in the design process beyond the IWF also include LFF and The University of Tasmania (UoT). All three organizations provided anonymous use data to UoT, which analysed it in detail and produced a public report on its success. LFF created the prompts and responses for the chatbot and tested them in focus groups. The combined cross-sector working group proved very successful in ascertaining how the chatbot should function and what metrics were to be analysed. The varied pieces of expertise provided by each party allowed the project to develop at a high standard and achieve its goals. Implementation The reThink project aims to minimize the demand for CSEA material and to make users aware of the Stop It Now! support service when they attempt to search for CSAM on a legal pornography website in the UK. The reThink intervention commenced in February 2021. A warning message was displayed on one of Aylo’s online adult entertainment platforms in the UK whenever a user searched for a term that Aylo had designated as potentially relating to an interest in CSAM. This warning message was displayed for 12 months, unchanged. On 11 March 2022, the warning message was supplemented with a chatbot that had been developed by IWF. The chatbot was a simple conversational agent built on the Google Dialogflow ES platform. The chatbot allowed users to click on buttons to select a path forward to information or to manually enter text. The chatbot functionality was designed to minimize the risk of inappropriate responses, and provided an efficient way for users to quickly receive information about the support services available. Responses are predefined, and not made using generative AI. The chatbot conversations were monitored throughout the length of the intervention, which enabled it to be continuously improved to ensure it was as effective as possible at connecting users with support services. This included adding additional responses and modifying how the chatbot operated to ensure appropriate responses were provided to users. The original warning message operated uninterrupted and unmodified for 14 months, after which it was modified twice to trial different wording and to test the effect of removing the chatbot. The warning message was modified on 11 May 2023, and then again on 8 June. The chatbot was disabled from 6 July through to 3 August. Data collection ended on 31 August 2023. Feedback, measurement and transparency User feedback was extremely limited due to the type of intervention and the users it was targeting, though responses entered into the chatbot by users are being used for future developmental changes. The entire project was evaluated by a third party – UoT – and their detailed analysis is available online.13 In evaluating whether the reThink chatbot was effective, the following metrics were analysed: –Number of sessions containing CSAM-related searches –Total number of CSAM-related search queries –Number of chatbot views per session –Number of chatbot triggers per session –Search types after chatbot trigger Reducing demand reduces supply and therefore prevents such abhorrent material from being created in the first place. The Intervention Journey: A Roadmap to Effective Digital Safety Measures 23

The Intervention Journey A Roadmap to Effective Digital Safety Measures 2025