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International / No single location · Technology

AI-generated child sexual abuse material surges online

Rank
Running
31h
Updated
2h ago
Momentum
+137%
Outlets
8
Regions
2
Countries
7
Languages
6

+0

The Guardian United Kingdom · English 5 Oct, 05:00 UTC

The only English report

Read it also in Nederlands (3) · Español (1) · Türkçe (1) · Српски (1) · العربية (1) · +4 languages

Read at The Guardian

How it spread

Outlets covering the story by hours since its first article: one at the start, 8 after 31 hours.

2 4 6 8
0h 6h 12h 18h 24h 30h

Outlets, by hours since the first article

  1. First outlet: Het Laatste Nieuws, 4 Oct, 22:39 UTC.
  2. Second country: United Kingdom, with The Guardian.
  3. Second region: Middle East, with Cumhuriyet.
  4. Fastest hour: +2 outlets from 6 Oct, 03:05 UTC.
  5. Now: 8 outlets.

Where it travelled

32 of 32 hours

Earlier Later

The 7 countries whose press covered it, the later a country joined, the more it stands out. One international outlet publishes from no single country and cannot be shown. Open the live map

The regions

75%13%12%

  • Europe 6 outlets · 5 countries · 75%
  • Middle East 1 outlet · 1 country · 13%
  • International 1 outlet · 12%

First movers

  1. Het Laatste Nieuws 4 Oct, 22:39 UTC
  2. The Guardian +6h 21m
  3. Cumhuriyet +10h 40m
  4. INTLAl-Araby Al-Jadeed +12h 11m
  5. Blic +18h 2m

Latest arrivals

  1. La Vanguardia 6 Oct, 04:00 UTC
  2. NU.nl 6 Oct, 03:05 UTC
  3. RTL Nieuws 5 Oct, 17:46 UTC
  4. Blic 5 Oct, 16:42 UTC
  5. INTLAl-Araby Al-Jadeed 5 Oct, 10:51 UTC

The figures

Coverage
8 outlets in 7 countries, across 2 regions. The article links last a week past the story’s last article; the outlet list is permanent. Of the 8 outlets, 8 private. A count of countries is not a count of independent press systems.
Countries by region
Europe 5: Belgium, Netherlands, Serbia, Spain, United Kingdom. Middle East 1: Turkey. International 1: the outlets that publish from no single country, counted as one. The region a country’s press publishes from, as the feed list files it; the outlets that publish from no single country count as one country under International.
Languages
Arabic, English, Spanish, Dutch, Serbian, Turkish.
Timeline
Earliest article Het Laatste Nieuws, 4 Oct 2026, 22:39 UTC. First seen 4 Oct 2026, 22:50 UTC. Last seen 6 Oct 2026, 04:00 UTC. The earliest article is the earliest claimed publication time among the outlets Loudest reads, a claim rather than an observation and not a record of who broke the story (the data files call it the lead article); first seen is when Loudest first fetched an article of it, from which the running time counts.
Classification
Region International. Topic Technology. Hard news Judged hard news. On the map. Whether the story is hard news under the rule in the methodology, judged from its headlines by a model; a story judged outside the rule is left off the map and kept here. The region and country are where the story is about, not where it was covered.
Score
1.79, as of now. One vote per general-press country and a smaller term for outlets, each counted from the moment it joined the story and fading on its own clock, so a late article does not renew the rest. A day in the archive keeps the score it was ranked by that day.
Day by day

Outlets and countries are the story’s whole life as of that midnight; the 24-hour columns are that day’s own coverage; the last column is the methodology version the day was measured under, and a day that spans a change of version shows the first and last, linked to the changelog that lists every version between. A day marked partial is one Loudest read only in part: fewer than 130 of its 144 ten-minute runs, or more than 30 minutes missed at its start or end.

Day Rank Score Outlets Countries 24h outlets 24h countries Method
5 Oct 2026 276 3.46 6 6 5 5 4.1

This record as JSON, CC BY 4.0.

How this was measured

This page describes measured coverage: which of the outlets Loudest reads carried the story, from how many countries and in how many languages, and when. It says nothing about whether the story is true, important or well reported.

Started 4 Oct, 22:50 UTC · Updated 6 Oct, 04:00 UTC

Covered by 8 outlets

Pin outlets you trust with ☆ and they come first in every story.

Europe 6 outlets

  • La Vanguardia Spain 6 Oct, 04:00 UTC
    La IA multiplica las imágenes de abuso sexual de niñas de 7 a 13 años en internet
  • NU.nl Netherlands 6 Oct, 03:05 UTC
    AI-beelden van kindermisbruik nemen toe: 'Niet meer van echt te onderscheiden'
    +1 more articleHide 1 more article
    • AI-kindermisbruik groot probleem: 'Beelden gaan soms hele school door' 6 Oct, 03:05 UTC
  • RTL Nieuws Netherlands 5 Oct, 17:46 UTC
    AI-kinderporno neemt 'explosief' toe: hoe schadelijk is nepbeeld?
  • Blic Serbia 5 Oct, 16:42 UTC
    "RAPIDNO SE ŠIRI INTERNETOM" Analitičari upozoravaju na porast jezivog sadržaja generisanog uz pomoć AI: "Više nego tokom cele 2025."
  • The Guardian United Kingdom 5 Oct, 05:00 UTC
    Internet Watch Foundation reports huge rise in AI child sexual abuse material
  • Het Laatste Nieuws Belgium 4 Oct, 22:39 UTC
    “Uiterst verontrustend”: nu al meer AI-gegenereerde beelden van seksueel kindermisbruik dan in heel 2025

Middle East 1 outlet

  • Cumhuriyet Turkey 5 Oct, 09:20 UTC
    Yapay zekâyla çocuk istismarı içeriklerinde yüzde 40’lık artış

International 1 outlet

  • INTLAl-Araby Al-Jadeed International 5 Oct, 10:51 UTC
    تزايد مواد الاعتداء الجنسي على الأطفال المولدة بالذكاء الاصطناعي
Read at The Guardian

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