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More than 1000 reports of image-based abuse were received in the first three months of 2022.

More than 1000 reports of image based abuse were received in the first three months of 2022.

The number of young Australians who have reported revenge porn has sharply risen over the past year, with instances of image-based abuse almost doubling.

More than 1000 reports of image-based abuse were received by the eSafety Commissioner in the first three months of the year, up from 400 during the corresponding period last year.

Most of the new reports (670) were from people aged 13-24, compared with fewer than 370 last year.

“Increased reporting can be either due to a higher rate of image-based abuse, or they are because more people are feeling comfortable to make a report,” RMIT researcher Nicola Henry told The Oz. 

“But in our research and in surveys we’ve conducted (at RMIT) we’ve found there has been an increase in the prevalence of image-based abuse and revenge porn.” 

“That increase in prevalence is not surprising given the pandemic and similar trends being seen on a global scale.” 

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant agreed, saying the pandemic leant itself to more intimacy being shared online.

"We saw a huge surge of image-based abuse reports over the pandemic, which makes sense, because norms were changing, but people were separated from their loved ones at school at uni, and they were using digital intimacy tools during these periods of mandatory isolation," she told The Oz.

"But we also saw more what we call sexual extortion, scams."

She added that 75% of reports were female, and the eSafety office has a 90% success rate in taking down unwanted, explicit online material..

The rise in revenge porn has prompted authorities to roll out a new campaign ‘SCROLL’ across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, to let young people know what they can do when things go wrong online.

Along with revenge porn, the campaign will deal with issues like cyberbullying and online consent.

A survey of 3500 young people in 2021 found more than 70% of 14-to 17-year-olds saw sexual images in the past year, and nearly half had received sexual messages from someone.

Nearly half of children aged eight to 17 were treated in a hurtful or nasty way online in the past year.

For advice on how to report online abuse, check out this eSafety guide.