Singapore is highly digitally connected. A 2023 Infocomm Media Development Authority report revealed that 99% of resident households are connected to the internet and 98% of households with school-going children have access to computers.

Such high levels of connectivity are a source of strength and vulnerability, as many aspects of daily life in Singapore (both public and private) take place online, and the lines between public and private life can often be blurred or breached.

Each instance of online harm affects a victim in profound ways, causing mental, psychological, emotional and sometimes physical or financial harm. However, the consequences extend beyond the victim. If these become prevalent, they can collectively poison the tone of social discourse, damage the common good and harm society.

What Are Online Sexual Harms?

With unprecedented connectivity, blurring and obfuscation of lines between the public and private, as well as the capacity for online anonymity and pseudonymity, online sexual harms proliferate the internet. These harm not only individuals (including children) but also the wider moral ecosystem necessary for marriage, family and other healthy relationships to thrive.

Online sexual harms include but are not limited to:

1. Pornography. Pornography involves sexually explicit content that is primarily intended to cause sexual arousal in the viewer. It is degrading, dehumanising and corrupting, objectifying people as instruments of pleasure instead of persons with inherent dignity. It impairs and damages the ability of people to develop healthy meaningful and appropriate relationships. It is potentially addictive and hijacks novelty-seeking tendencies; this can lead individuals to seek out increasingly violent, extreme and illegal content. With the unprecedented accessibility, affordability and anonymity of the internet, the digital age has exacerbated the spread of pornography. As a result, it can enable, perpetrate or lead to various sexual crimes.
2. Deepfake sexual content. This involves situations where a person’s likeness is imposed onto sexually explicit images using artificial intelligence. In a recent local incident, some Singapore Sports School students became victims of deepfake nude photos, which were created and spread by their peers.
3. Child sexual abuse material (CSAM). According to a 2023 report, the majority of CSAM offences investigated by the police since 2020 pertained to the possession, access and distribution of the same. Beyond such cases, there is also so-called “self-generated” CSAM where children are groomed, deceived or extorted into producing and sharing a sexual image or video of themselves. Alarmingly, a 2023 report by the Internet Watch Foundation – a United Kingdom-based charity – found that the majority of CSAM online (254,071 out of 275,652 webpages, or 92%) contained ‘self-generated’ imagery. Children aged 11 to 13 years appeared most frequently.
4. Sexual grooming. Through the connection and anonymity afforded by social media, adults have a channel which they can use to sexually groom children and young people, including through false pretences and identities.

Children as young as 8 years-old are being exposed to online sexual harms at an alarming rate. A survey by international think-tank DQ Institute found that more than 3 in 10 (16%) children in Singapore, aged 8 to 12, have been involved in online sexual behaviours. These include having searched or visited websites with sexual content, having proactively downloaded, sent or received online sexual content, and having had sexual conversations online with strangers.

In the United Kingdom, a groundbreaking police analysis on reported child sexual abuse and exploitation found that 52% of such cases involved children offending against other children. Part of the reason, according to the police, was the accessibility of harmful and abusive pornography online. 25% of such cases involved online offences of indecent images of children.

There are also companies and platforms that enable and profit off such harmful content (including illegal content). A telling 2020 New York Times exposé titled “The Children of Pornhub” revealed the shocking extent to which Pornhub was profiting off illegal content, including child sexual abuse, non-consensual intimate images, and violent content. In response, financial institutions Mastercard, Visa and Discover blocked customers from using their companies’ credit cards to make purchases on Pornhub. A 2024 investigative series by Reuters also claims to expose the popular online platform, OnlyFans, for similar allegations that it is rife with rape, violence and child sexual abuse.

Who is More Vulnerable?

Although everyone could potentially be a victim of online sexual harms, it is clear that certain groups are more vulnerable than others:

1. Women and girls. The Sunlight Alliance for Action found in a 2022 report that females aged 25 to 34 are most likely to experience gender-based online harms; compared to 72.1% of males, only 60.9% of women felt safe from online harms. Likewise, Cultivate’s survey findings on social discourse found that women tend to be less comfortable than men in the online space. These problems are exacerbated for girls and young women, as the anonymity afforded online has made it easier for predators to approach, communicate with and stalk them while avoiding accountability.
2. Boys. Boys are disproportionately exposed to online sexually explicit content. A 2016 survey by Touch Cyber Wellness found that 9 in 10 teenage boys in Singapore aged 13 to 15 years of age have watched or read sexually explicit materials within the past year, whereas the figure was 8% for girls. Exposure to such content is damaging for children’s development, rendering them less able to develop healthy attitudes, views and relationships with the opposite sex.
3. Lower-income groups. Research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that socioeconomically advantaged students are more likely than disadvantaged students to search for information or read news online, whereas disadvantaged students are more likely to chat or play video games online. In light of this digital divide, it is foreseeable that experiences with the internet may exacerbate socioeconomic disadvantages as children in lower-income households may be at greater risk of harm.

More Protections Urgently Needed

Existing laws are limited in their ability to address online harms, arising from limitations in various features of the law and the nature of the online space today. These include the limited scope of existing laws, anonymity and pseudonymity in the online world, speed and cost of the legal process, as well as psychological and other practical limitations.

For example, a victim of online harms may experience severe levels of stress, and may not be in a psychological state to engage lawyers or pursue civil claims in court; taking such legal action may add to the stress instead.

There is thus currently a “cultural lag”, where technological advancements have outpaced our legal and moral norms. For these reasons, Cultivate is supportive of the Singapore Government’s actions to combat online harms and strengthen online safety, and has submitted its response to the latest Government consultation on this topic.

Stronger protections can act as deterrents and signal the values that we wish to uphold as a society. Beyond protecting individual victims, it helps to promote the common good by preserving the overall tone of public discourse and allowing for responsible civic participation.

At the same time, legislation alone is insufficient. It will need to be complemented by a better set of moral norms about how the internet can be kept safe for all users, and by the efforts of everyone to help cultivate a better culture online.

(This article has been adapted from Cultivate’s response to the Singapore Government’s public consultation on online harms in November 2024. For more details, please read our response here.)