Your editorial on adult services websites (4 March) rightly raises urgent questions about platform harm and the government’s responsibility to act.
Unseen’s modern slavery helpline indicated 799 potential victims of sexual exploitation in 2025. Reports of child sexual exploitation more than doubled in 2024 – from 53 to 110. These are not projections. They are cases reported directly to us by victims and frontline workers with nowhere else to call.
The structural point your editorial identifies is the right one. This is not isolated bad actors using neutral tools. Platform design embeds harm and restricts exit routes. That is a design question, and design questions require design answers. The Online Safety Act already provides the framework. What is missing is the will to enforce it.
Removing platforms does not end exploitation. It moves it underground and severs victims from support. The question is not whether these platforms should face tougher regulation. They should. The question is whether the response is designed to reduce harm or merely to reduce visibility. Those are not the same thing.
Andrew Wallis
CEO, Unseen, Bristol
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