Safer Web Day is a reminder that defending younger individuals on-line will not be the duty of any single group, platform, or caregiver. It’s a shared dedication, one which should evolve as rapidly because the digital world younger persons are navigating day by day.
That perception is what led Thorn to launch NoFiltr in 2020, at a second when the net panorama was shifting quick and a deeply regarding development was turning into unattainable to disregard: the rise of self-generated little one sexual abuse materials (CSAM). As extra younger individuals hung out on-line, they have been more and more being focused, manipulated, or coerced into creating and sharing specific content material, typically with out absolutely understanding the long-term penalties.
What started as a centered effort to handle self-generated CSAM rapidly grew into one thing extra expansive. By centering the lived experiences of younger individuals, NoFiltr helped convey their views on to the desk with expertise platforms, informing actual conversations about security, duty, and design. These early partnerships demonstrated one thing crucial: options are stronger when youth voices are a part of constructing them.
Right this moment, NoFiltr has developed right into a bridge: connecting younger individuals with platforms, caregivers, and educators to co-design a safer digital panorama for themselves and their friends. On this Safer Web Day, that evolution continues, as NoFiltr enters its subsequent chapter as a youth digital security model, fiscally sponsored by Thorn.
Constructing on a shared basis of making safer on-line areas for younger individuals, NoFiltr is increasing its work to convey collectively cross-sector companions, deepen youth co-design by way of scalable applications, and equip platforms with sensible instruments to embed youth-informed security by design.
To mirror on how NoFiltr has grown, why this second issues, and what comes subsequent for younger individuals on-line, we sat down with Adele Taylor, CEO of NoFiltr, and Julie Cordua, CEO of Thorn. In dialog, they talk about the evolution of NoFiltr from a Thorn program towards a youth-focused model fiscally sponsored by Thorn, what this transition means for companions and communities, and the way centering youth voices stays important to constructing a safer web, in the present day and into the longer term.
Q: How has NoFiltr’s evolution mirrored what younger individuals really want in the present day?
Julie: What NoFiltr’s evolution has proven us is that younger individuals wish to be, and must be, heard, revered, and meaningfully concerned in shaping digital areas they use day by day. Early on NoFiltr was centered on responding to very particular harms, together with the rise of self-generated CSAM. However by listening carefully to younger individuals of their work with NoFiltr and accomplice platforms, it grew to become clear the challenges they face on-line are interconnected. By zooming out from addressing dangers and specializing in elevating youth voices in creation, NoFiltr creates a system the place youth can proactively translate their lived expertise into options which can be designed with them from the beginning. From Thorn’s perspective, that evolution is essential to holding tempo with a quickly evolving digital world, and this subsequent chapter positions it to go even additional.
Q: What’s altering for NoFiltr — and what’s staying the identical when it comes to mission and partnership with Thorn?
Adele: What’s altering is the construction, not the aim. Underneath Thorn’s fiscal sponsorship, NoFiltr may have its personal management, technique, and programming, whereas benefiting from Thorn’s operational help and long-standing experience in remodeling how kids are shielded from sexual abuse and exploitation within the digital age. It permits us to develop with focus and suppleness.
What’s staying the identical is how we’re approaching our mission and values. We’re nonetheless deeply dedicated to centering younger individuals and dealing alongside platforms to design safer digital experiences. This subsequent chapter positions NoFiltr to construct a extra strong, tiered membership mannequin for platforms—supporting the co-creation of bespoke digital assets, elevating youth-informed methods, collaborating on activations with youth-facing manufacturers’ social affect groups, and advising on the event of youth councils. The purpose is to normalize youth perspective as a core a part of safety-by-design.
Q: As expertise evolves, why is it so necessary that younger individuals assist co-design safer digital areas, not simply advise on them?
Adele: Expertise is evolving quicker than most security frameworks, and younger persons are typically the primary to expertise the dangers of latest options and rising applied sciences. When youth are solely requested to advise after selections are made, their insights may be restricted to reacting to hurt. Co-design brings them in when selections about options, norms, and safeguards are nonetheless being formed. Designing alongside platforms floor points that adults and establishments typically miss and result in options which can be related and efficient.
Julie: Once we discuss co-design, we’re speaking about altering the system- not simply gathering suggestions. Security by design begins with understanding how younger individuals truly expertise expertise, as a result of they’re typically the primary to see how options may be misused. Their insights reveal blind spots that knowledge alone can’t. At Thorn, we’ve seen how youth-informed design results in stronger prevention methods and extra related security instruments. As expertise evolves, co-design ensures security retains tempo with innovation, and that younger persons are not solely protected by these programs, however empowered to form them.
Q: How does NoFiltr’s transfer to independence strengthen Thorn’s mission to guard kids within the digital age, and what does this evolution say about Thorn’s strategy to constructing a digital security internet?
Julie: NoFiltr’s path to independence is a mirrored image of what we intention to do at Thorn- not simply reply to hurt, however assist construct and strengthen a broad little one security ecosystem. This transition permits NoFiltr to deepen its deal with youth co-design whereas Thorn continues to advance analysis to raised fight abuse and construct expertise to guard kids at scale. Collectively, we’re constructing complementary layers of the identical digital security internet.
Q: Waiting for 2026, what priorities will form NoFiltr’s subsequent chapter, and the way can others take part constructing that future with younger individuals?
Adele: Our priorities for 2026 heart on equipping younger individuals with stronger data literacy and supporting digital wellbeing within the face of rising applied sciences like AI, whereas making certain these insights attain the specialists constructing and shaping on-line areas. Our Youth Innovation Council remains to be the inspiration of this work.
We’re within the means of constructing a council for younger adults ages 18-22, designed to assist youth-facing manufacturers have interaction older youth voices on points that stretch past these affecting minors.
Past our Youth Innovation Council, we’re increasing how we construct bridges throughout the ecosystem. That features webinars and hands-on workshops that convey youth, platforms, educators, and caregivers collectively to study from each other and develop sensible instruments. We’re additionally creating extra alternatives for platforms to have interaction persistently with youth views, not simply throughout moments of disaster or transition.
We invite others to affix this work by taking part in these shared areas, contributing experience whereas listening to younger individuals and empowering them to show perception into motion.
Safer Web Day Name to Motion
None of this work occurs in isolation. Constructing a safer web requires collaboration throughout sectors and generations: youth, platforms, caregivers, and educators working collectively to handle rising threats and design higher programs from the beginning.
On this Safer Web Day, we invite you to be a part of that shared duty with NoFiltr and Thorn:
As a result of the web younger individuals deserve is one we construct collectively.
