WHAT SOSA DOES
SOSA provides information and care in every step of the online sex abuse process — from preventing harm to intervening in active abuse to providing critical support to those who have experienced it.
prevention
school presentations
SOSA partners with schools to raise awareness around the pervasiveness of online child sex abuse and exploitation. Through free resources such as webinars, workshops, and school presentations, SOSA provides compassion-led education to young people.
legislative advocacy
SOSA advocates for better and broader internet safety aimed at appropriate risk reduction, urging states to adopt grooming statutes, and raising the age of consent to 18 nationwide. We hope to garner financial support and resources for historically underfunded Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task forces throughout the United States.
community education
Our team educates parents, caregivers, and community members by sharing timely information about grooming, extortion, and more on our social media platforms. We are also developing a resources hub with handouts and landing pages anyone can use and share.
intervention
decoy sprints
In direct collaboration with law enforcement and ICAC teams, we launch underage decoys online, communicate with ACMs, work to identify the perpetrators, and compile evidence to be used in trials.
Our team also advises law enforcement on the methods and language ACMs use to groom kids and teens. Our decoy work is the subject of Undercover Underage — a show on Discovery+.
tech partnerships
We’ve partnered with Spectrum Labs, a company that leverages AI to help consumer internet brands recognize and respond in real-time to harmful and hate content on their platforms — including child predation and CSAM.
SOSA works with Spectrum Labs’ data scientists and research directors to analyze patterns in conversations with perpetrators. Spectrum Labs is then able to inform its machine learning to better detect signs of child abuse and exploitation across social media and gaming platforms.
support
survivor therapy fund
It's important to us that survivors of online sex abuse have access to the restorative care they need, so we are developing a program through which folks can be reimbursed for their therapy or receive it at no cost from a provider SOSA has partnered with. More information about this process is coming soon.
Fighting victim blaming
A culture of victim blaming is a major contributor to victims of online sex abuse not feeling safe to come forward about what they've experienced. SOSA combats this by reminding survivors that what happened to them was not their fault, dispelling myths about whether kids can be culpable (they can't), and spreading awareness about ways communities can help survivors feel safe coming forward.