Source : Perth Now news
Global authorities are unclear on what app has replaced Skype as the platform of choice for livestreamed child sexual abuse.
A new Australian Institute of Criminology report released on Wednesday examines the proliferation of livestreamed child abuse and how people pay to watch and direct their victims.
The report, commissioned by a department of the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters, discusses how many people who pay to watch and direct the actions of victims, and the people facilitating the abuse, are not particularly “technology-savvy”, instead learning as they go.
The global ecosystem that lets these criminals meet, discuss and plan, and then carry out their abuse is often spread across the most common apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal and Viber.
But the report reveals since Skype’s 2025 closure – “by far the most commonly mentioned application for livestreaming of child sexual abuse” – authorities do not know if any video call app has replaced it.
“Since its decommissioning, it is unclear what application has become the platform of choice,” the report finds.
“Line, a social media platform popular in Asia (particularly in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia) has also been used to livestream child sexual abuse, as has WhatsApp.”
Microsoft decommissioned Skype in May 2025.
Analysing reports from dozens of other researchers, the paper charts a common technological path these offenders take; initial contact between the consumer and facilitator could be made on dating sites or on Facebook. Relationship building and negotiating often happens on encrypted messaging apps. Emails are sometimes used for “placing orders and tracking payments”.
The report concludes livestreamed child sexual abuse proliferates in locations where strong internet connection, poverty, and fast payment systems intersect.
Victims are frequently discovered in the Philippines, Romania, Russia, Thailand and the US, report author Rick Brown says.
Dr Brown is deputy director of the Australian Institute of Criminology.
There is some evidence, he says, abuse livestreaming is more common in middle-income countries with fast, reliable internet and payment services “combined with a high enough level of income inequality or a low enough cost of living to make the relatively low price paid by consumers worthwhile for facilitators”.
The livestream abuse ecosystem is not driven by offenders acting alone, rather the systems that allow them to connect, talk, transfer money and direct abuse.
“This research shows the problem is sustained by a network of relationships involving offenders, facilitators, communities and the systems that connect them,” Dr Brown said.
“Livestreamed child sexual abuse is an infrastructure-enabled crime.
“It exists because modern technology and financial systems make it easier for offenders to find each other, communicate privately, transfer money and abuse children across borders.”
Preventing the crimes needs co-ordination between tech companies, financial firms, law enforcement and the community, he said.
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