TY  - INPR
ID  - discovery10195493
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2024.106955
N2  - Online child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is a growing problem. Prevention charities, such as
Stop It Now! UK, use online messaging to dissuade users from viewing CSAM and to encourage
them to consider anonymous therapeutic interventions. This experiment used a honeypot website
that purported to contain barely legal pornography, which we treated as a proxy for CSAM. We
examined whether warnings would dissuade males (18?30 years) from visiting the website.
Participants (n = 474) who attempted to access the site were randomly allocated to one of four
conditions. The control group went straight to the landing page (control; n = 100). The experimental groups encountered different warning messages: deterrence-themed with an image (D3; n
= 117); therapeutic-themed (T1; n = 120); and therapeutic-themed with an image (T3; n = 137).
We measured the click through to the site. Three quarters of the control group attempted to enter
the pornography site, compared with 35 % to 47 % of the experimental groups. All messages were
effective: D3 (odds ratio [OR] = 5.02), T1 (OR = 4.06) and T2 (OR = 3.05). Images did not
enhance warning effectiveness. We argue that therapeutic and deterrent warnings are useful for
CSAM-prevention.
AV  - public
SN  - 0145-2134
Y1  - 2024/09//
TI  - The effect of therapeutic and deterrent messages on Internet users attempting to access ?barely legal? pornography
JF  - Child Abuse & Neglect
PB  - Elsevier BV
A1  - Prichard, Jeremy
A1  - Wortley, Richard
A1  - Watters, Paul
A1  - Spiranovic, Caroline
A1  - Scanlan, Joel
KW  - Child sexual exploitation material
KW  - 
Situational crime prevention
KW  - 
Pop-ups
KW  - 
Warning banners
KW  - 
Therapeutic messages
VL  - 155
N1  - © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
ER  -