Sexual Assault of Minors in Cyberspace

This paper focuses on the exposure and exploitation of minors by Internet pornography, deeply analyzes the structural causes behind it, and systematically discusses the global regulatory challenges and solutions. In the Internet era, the issue of minors' protection is facing unprecedented urgency and complexity. While digital technology provides information convenience and diversified services for young people, it also exposes them to multiple threats such as bad information, online game addiction, social media risks, etc., of which the problem of cyberspace sexual assault is particularly serious. It is worth noting that short video platforms have become a concentrated medium for the dissemination of harmful content on the internet, and have been widely criticized due to weak age screening mechanisms and the proliferation of vulgar and pornographic content. According to a report by the Supreme People's Procuratorate, 15.8% of child sexual abuse prosecution cases from 2018 to 2022 involved acts of "remote molestation" or online to offline dissemination, which is directly related to the spread of online pornography content. At the same time, the lack of China's sex education system further exacerbates the risk: 78% of adolescents have never received or only occasionally receive puberty education, and 53% are unable to answer basic questions about reproductive health, resulting in a lack of ability for minors to identify pornographic content. To build a multi-party collaborative protection system, this article proposes suggestions based on international practice: it is necessary to integrate regulatory frameworks, strengthen platform algorithm review responsibilities, establish cross-regional illegal content-sharing databases, and incorporate sex education and media literacy courses into the basic education system to build a strong protection barrier from multiple dimensions such as technical regulations, educational interventions, and legal supervision.