%O © 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/).
%X 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.
%K Child sexual exploitation material,
Situational crime prevention,
Pop-ups,
Warning banners,
Therapeutic messages
%J Child Abuse & Neglect
%L discovery10195493
%I Elsevier BV
%D 2024
%T The effect of therapeutic and deterrent messages on Internet users attempting to access ‘barely legal’ pornography
%A Jeremy Prichard
%A Richard Wortley
%A Paul Watters
%A Caroline Spiranovic
%A Joel Scanlan
%V 155