Episode 88
The U.S. government is considering an executive order that could severely limit each state’s ability to protect its residents, so Haley and Dani take a closer look at why this is a serious threat to safety – especially for kids. A.I. is developing at a rapid rate, and it’s essential that we don’t repeat the same mistakes we made when previous technological leaps were made. At the dawn of the internet, smart phones, and social media, protection for the most vulnerable was a low priority when compared to profit and innovation. We need to speak up now before lawmakers and Big Tech create another accountability shield like Section 230.
*DONATE to NCOSE to join this movement: https://EndSexualExploitation.org/Donate
*Read the letter that over 20 organizations signed urging the President NOT to sign this executive order: https://ifstudies.org/blog/mr-president-its-time-to-put-kids-first-in-ai-policy
*A.I. Safety Index from Future of Life Institute: https://futureoflife.org/ai-safety-index-winter-2025/
EPISODE 84
There is a new law in the U.K. that makes it a criminal offence for pornography to depict strangulation. This new amendment to the Crime and Policing bill requires tech platforms to prevent users from seeing content involving strangulation or choking. Dani Pinter and Haley McNamara take a closer look at this new legal requirement and talk about the dangers of choking as well as the difficulty of getting a similar law passed in the U.S. They then pivot to talk about Wizz, a platform that targets teens with similar matchup features that dating apps like Tinder use. What are the dangers and why did Google and Apple reinstate this app after removing it a few years ago?
*Read more about Wizz in our blog: https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/wizz-tinder-for-kids-is-not-as-safe-as-it-claims/
*Read the Guardian article about the new U.K. law: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/03/pornography-depicting-strangulation-to-become-criminal-offence-in-the-uk
*Contact Congress to END Section 230 Immunity for Big Tech! https://endsexualexploitation.org/DDL230-action
Ending Sexploitation Podcast
EPISODE 80
In this special episode of the podcast, a panel of experts takes a closer look at the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and explore the details around duty of care, enforcement, and emerging tech. This legislation is vital to ongoing efforts to protect children online, and this fantastic group of speakers explain more about the bill and why it should pass.
Dani Pinter, Chief Legal Officer and Director of the NCOSE Law Center
Benjamin Bull, Senior Vice President and General Counsel in the NCOSE Law Center
Mary Graw, Tenured Professor at Catholic University and Former Federal and State Prosecutor
Chris McKenna, Founder of Protect Young Eyes
TAKE ACTION: Contact your representative to pass KOSA
http://endsexualexploitation.org/PassKOSA
The 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report has been released by the State Department of the United States, and Marcel van der Watt (President and CEO at NCOSE) joins Haley McNamara (Executive Director and CSO at NCOSE) and Dani Pinter (CLO and Director of the NCOSE Law Center) to talk about some of the surprises in this 25th edition of the annual report. Each year, it ranked countries into tiers based on their efforts to combat trafficking, and our team dives into why some of these rankings seem to miss the mark. They also watch and react to the recent video from Joseph Gordon-Levitt about the dangers of A.I. and how we need to stand up and make sure our voices are heard at every level of government.
Learn more about NCOSE’s efforts to fight Demand: https://endsexualexploitation.org/demand
Read the 2025 TIP Report: https://www.state.gov/reports/2025-trafficking-in-persons-report/
Watch Joseph Gordon-Levitt's NYT video: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1CSdXtNaVN/
Haley McNamara (Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Director at NCOSE) sits down with NCOSE President and CEO, Marcel van der Watt to chat about his background and motivations in this work to end sexual exploitation. Marcel brings incredible expertise to this leadership role including experience with law enforcement, research, training, writing, and speaking. He and Haley dive into what brought him to this point and what the future holds for NCOSE and the overall movement.
Donate to NCOSE: EndSexualExploitation.org/Donate
At the 2022 CESE Summit, Haley McNamara sits down with German abolitionist and writer Elly Arrow for a powerful conversation about the reality of legalized prostitution in Germany. Elly shares on-the-ground insights into how the legal system has expanded the sex trade, obscured trafficking, and failed those it claims to protect. Together, they unpack the violence and exploitation faced by women in the system, the role of sex buyers, and why Elly believes real justice starts with tackling male demand. As the voice behind The Invisible Men – Germany, Elly brings data, quotes, and unflinching analysis that reveal the truth behind the headlines. This is a must-listen for anyone seeking to understand what "legalization" really means for human dignity and safety.
Read Elly’s blog: https://ellyarrow.wordpress.com/
Learn more about Prostitution: https://endsexualexploitation.org/issues/prostitution/
DONATE to the movement to end sexual exploitation: http://endsexualexploitation.org/donate
Dani Pinter (Senior Vice President at the NCOSE Law Center) and Haley McNamara (Senior Vice President at NCOSE) react to the latest update to Grok which include chatbot avatars that can act as your companion – even as a romantic connection. “Ani” is depicted as a very young anime girl who is programmed to be “crazy in love” with the user and can have progressively more sexually explicit interactions as the user advances through the conversation. This even includes getting the bot to describe itself as a young child or to play along with sexual fantasies with a child-like motif. All of this is available before activating “spicy mode.” This is obviously quite disturbing for a number of reasons, but even more upsetting is the access that kids have to this tool with no meaningful age verification in place to protect minors. Also, the Apple App Store has assigned this app as appropriate for ages 12 and up.
TAKE ACTION
Contact Apple: https://advocacy.charityengine.net/Default.aspx?isid=2608
Sign the Petition for changes to Grok: https://advocacy.charityengine.net/Default.aspx?isid=2609
FURTHER READING
Read our full blog about the Grok AI companion: https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/xais-12-chatbot-designed-to-be-explicit-and-go-full-literotica/
Read Thorn’s article about hashing: https://www.thorn.org/blog/hashing-detect-child-sex-abuse-imagery/
Read The Guardian article about AI-Generated CSAM: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/10/ai-generated-child-sexual-abuse-videos-surging-online-iwf
Follow Dani Pinter on X: https://x.com/DaniBPinter
Follow Haley McNamara on X: https://x.com/HaleyMcNamara
Instead of waiting to publish this episode on July 3rd to keep with our normal episode schedule, we wanted to get this conversation to you as quickly as possible. We will be back to our normal release schedule with episode 67!
Today the Supreme Court issued their opinion that the Texas Age Verification law is constitutional and paves the way for other states to pass similar legislation!
It’s an incredible day in the movement to end sexual exploitation as the Supreme Court ruled that the age verification law in Texas is constitutional – pushing back on the arguments from the opposition that it violates the First Amendment.
Haley and Dani chat about the details of this ruling and the ripple effect this will have across the country. It’s notable that the dissenting opinions were actually in agreement on the core issue at play here: pornography is harmful – especially for kids.
As congress considers whether or not to implement a proposed 10-year moratorium on A.I. state regulation, Haley and Dani talk about the potential devastating effects this could have. Some have even referred to this as “Section 230 on steroids” so this episode is essential for understanding what the moratorium is and what the impacts would be. Big Tech doesn’t need another layer of immunity or security to allow them to hide while they profit off the exploitation of human beings in the name of advancing technology. Listen and share this episode and use the links below to take action and learn more!
Urge Congress to oppose this moratorium: https://endsexualexploitation.org/AImoratorium
Read more about this on our blog: https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/a-trojan-horse-in-congress-10-year-moratorium-would-block-a-i-safety-bills/
This week, we hear from Kathryn Rifenbark, the Director for CyberTipline, Public Reports, in the Exploited Children Division (ECD) at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). In this talk from the 2024 CESE Summit, she shares about the impact of Sextortion on today’s young people and talks about a powerful new service that can be used to help.
Self-generated content is a normative behavior of today’s youth. But it can have a destructive impact when it’s non-consensually shared or when they have been blackmailed or coerced into producing it. Take It Down is a new, anonymous, and free service that can help prevent the spread of online sharing of nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit images or videos of those under the age of 18. This session will provide an overview of Take it Down, operated by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). Launched in December of 2022, participants will learn the amazing impact of this global program, how it works and how you can share this resource with children, victims, and families in your community.
Kathryn has worked at NCMEC for over 14 years, and in her current position, Kathryn is responsible for enhancing NCMEC’s efforts to improve resources for survivors of child sexual abuse material by liaising with law enforcement, victim service providers, and child serving professionals as well as managing the team who processes public CyberTipline reports. She received a Master of Arts in Forensic Psychology and a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology.
NCMEC’s Take It Down service: https://takeitdown.ncmec.org/
Learn more about NCMEC: https://www.missingkids.org/
Read the article “Sextortion: The Largest Blackmail Operation In Human History” https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/sextortion-the-largest-blackmail-operation-in-human-history/
In this episode, we get to hear from Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls for the United Nations. We were honored to have her join us to speak at the 2024 CESE Global Summit, and this session is titled “Beyond Consent: Prostitution, Pornography, and Human Rights” in which she looks at prostitution as sexual exploitation and a violation of the human right to dignity. She also looks specifically at pornography and other forms of technology facilitated forms of prostitution as she busts 7 myths about prostitution.
Reem Alsalem is an independent consultant on gender issues, the rights of refugees and migrants, transitional justice and humanitarian response. She has consulted extensively for United Nations departments, agencies and programmes such as UN-Women, OHCHR, UNICEF and IOM, as well as for non-governmental organizations, think tanks and academia. Previously, she worked as an international civil servant, serving with the UNHCR in thirteen countries. During her service, she has planned, implemented, and monitored programs that served to protect persons that were survivors of gender-based violence, particularly women and girls.
Read our blog article about Reem’s report to the U.N. and get a full copy here: https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/united-nations-must-adopt-report-that-tells-truth-about-prostitution/
Learn more about the issue of Prostitution and how it is a major form of sexual exploitation: https://endsexualexploitation.org/issues/prostitution/
Haley McNamara and Dani Pinter discuss the groundbreaking lawsuits against multiple pornography websites that were recently filed in Kansas. These cases are the first of their kind as the new Age Verification Law was allegedly violated when a minor was able to access sexually explicit content without any age verification efforts from multiple websites. Haley and Dani talk about the real people affected in this case as well as the larger effects of pornography on children.
Read the blog: https://bit.ly/KansasAVlawsuit
Read the New York Times article: https://nyti.ms/4msXL6R
Read about the upcoming Supreme Court ruling on Age Verification: https://bit.ly/3SM38Am
FREE Resource: The Most Dangerous Playground | View Resource: https://bit.ly/MostDangerousPlayground
Get Help from the NCOSE Law Center: https://sexualexploitationlawsuits.com/get-help
Lisa Thompson joins Haley McNamara to discuss the recent launch of a groundbreaking new report, Not a Fantasy: How the Pornography Industry Exploits Image-based Sexual Abuse in Real Life, which exposes how the pornography industry facilitates, normalizes, and profits from image-based sexual abuse (IBSA). Lisa shares her journey into this work to end sexual exploitation and how she was able to bring this report to life. Haley and Lisa chat through some of the details of the report as well, including 9 ways the pornography industry fuels IBSA.
Learn more and download the FREE report: https://NotAFantasy.org
Learn more about Image-Based Sexual Abuse: https://EndSexualExploitation.org/IBSA
The Take It Down Act has passed congress! As it heads to the president’s desk for signing, Haley McNamara sits down with Eleanor Gaetan (VP and Director of Public Policy at NCOSE) to discuss what this law does, why it’s needed, and what’s next on the horizon for protecting kids online. They also discuss the momentum we are seeing at the state level for the Safer Devices for Kids Act, which requires device manufacturers to have safety settings ON by default.
Contact us here: public@ncose.com
Read more about the TAKE IT DOWN Act passing: EndSexualExploitation.org blog
Learn about the Safer Devices for Kids Act: EndSexualExploitation.org/Device-Protection-Bill
Watch the video version of this podcast episode here: https://youtu.be/BiI8YQ05kX4
“Children being the targets of this deepfake technology is our worst nightmare”
Haley and Dani discuss the current state of artificial intelligence and deepfake technology in the realm of sexual exploitation. Overwhelmingly, these tools are used for pornographic material, and 10% of teenagers have reported being aware of deepfake pornography depicting someone they know. They also dig into how this leads to desensitization towards sexualizing children and overwhelming law enforcement.
-- Urge your representatives to pass the TAKE IT DOWN Act: https://advocacy.charityengine.net/Default.aspx?isid=2355
-- Urge Apple and Google to have better policies for A.I. apps:
https://endsexualexploitation.org/AI-Deepfake-Apps
Watch the video version of this episode here: https://youtu.be/uItdvTL3pIU
Haley McNamara and Dani Pinter discuss The Guardian article: "‘I didn’t start out wanting to see kids’: are porn algorithms feeding a generation of paedophiles – or creating one?"
They talk about the chilling reality of how pornography platforms algorithms cause escalation for so many of their visitors.
Read the full article on The Guardian here: https://tinyurl.com/yc48mczp
Learn more about the harms of pornography: https://endsexualexploitation.org/issues/pornography/
Haley McNamara (NCOSE Senior VP of Programs and Initiatives) and Dani Pinter (Senior VP and Director at the NCOSE Law Center) talk about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) and why it's essential for it to end. They also discuss the history of the Dirty Dozen List and what led to this unique version of the list in 2025.
Since its inception in 1996, Section 230 has effectively provided blanket immunity to big tech companies for harms facilitated on their platforms. It's time to call for a full repeal of CDA Section 230!
Learn more and take action here: www.DirtyDozenList.org
Watch the video version of this episode here: https://youtu.be/G7VZVJ1QRUc
In this special episode of the Ending Sexploitation Podcast, Lisa Thompson (Vice President of Research at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation) chats with Kristen Jenson.
Kristen is the founder of Defend Young Minds and #1 best-selling author of Good Pictures Bad Pictures: Porn-Proofing Today’s Young Kids and Good Pictures Bad Pictures Jr.: A Simple Plan to Protect Young Minds. She is the CEO of Glen Cove Press LLC and the executive producer of the Brain Defense: Digital Safety curriculum.
Visit Defend Young Minds:
https://www.defendyoungminds.com/
For more information on the harms of pornography:
https://endsexualexploitation.org/issues/pornography/
In this special episode of the Ending Sexploitation Podcast, Teresa J. Helm (Survivor Services Coordinator at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation) chats with Cristian Eduardo.
Cristian champions anti-trafficking initiatives, particularly the Equality Model, and fervently advocates for immigrant and LGBTQ+ rights. He serves as a Survivor Leader in this movement engaged with various Survivor Advisory Boards and Councils. He is the is a co-founder of United Immigrants of New York and Mujeres en Resistencia, which are coalitions raising awareness around gender-based violence and providing accessible resources to the Spanish-speaking and Latino-immigrant communities.
For more information on the dangers of prostitution: https://endsexualexploitation.org/issues/prostitution/
Watch the video version of this episode:
https://youtu.be/zGb5vSS2E_4
In this special episode of the Ending Sexploitation Podcast, Dani Pinter (Senior Vice President and Director of the NCOSE Law Center) chats with Joshua Broome about this important topic. Joshua is an author, speaker, and advocate for shining a light on the harms of pornography.
Watch the video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/8bB4B-xebnM
Dr. Stephany Powell, Director of Law Enforcement Training and Survivor Services at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, joins the Ending Sexploitation podcast to discuss the concept of Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) through the lens of implicit bias.
Dr. Powell explains that Trauma-Informed Care entails a paradigm shift from wondering, “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?”. She says, “Once we understand ‘What happened to you’, without bias, then that’s when we can really begin our journey alongside our clients to be able to help them become the person that they want to be.”
Dr. Powell explains that the ability to understand people’s trauma and provide them with Trauma-Informed Care is often hindered by our own implicit biases. Implicit biases are the attitudes or stereotypes we unconsciously hold which affect the way we view and treat other people. They are different from explicit biases in that we do not know we have them and they can even be in opposition to our declared beliefs. Dr. Powell emphasizes that everyone has implicit biases. Fortunately, these biases can be gradually unlearned, but in order for this to happen we first have to recognize what our implicit biases are and how they are affecting our attitudes and behaviors.
Why focus on combatting the demand for prostitution (ie. Sex buying)? Is combatting demand an effective way to reduce sex trafficking? Is it affordable and accessible for law enforcement? What kind of tactics and strategies can be used to deter sex buyers? How does full decriminalization of prostitution affect demand reduction efforts?
These are some of the questions explored by the experts on Demand who join the Ending Sexploitation podcast for this episode. These experts include Marian Hatcher of the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, who has worked on countless law enforcement initiatives targeting demand; Jamey Caruthers, the Director of Demand Reduction and Policy at Street Grace; and Dr. Michael Shively, long-time researcher on Demand and Senior Advisor on Research & Data Analysis at NCOSE.
Peter Gentala, Senior Legal Counsel at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, joins the Ending Sexploitation podcast to discuss the issue of holding social media platforms legally accountable for facilitating sexual exploitation. Gentala addresses both the particular challenges in this space as well as the unprecedented progress that has occurred over the past year.
Gentala explains how American Law has been interpreted as granting internet platforms blanket immunity for third-party content, under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. As such, it has historically been exceptionally difficult to hold social media companies accountable for the role they play in recklessly distributing sexually exploitative content. However, thanks to the brave voices of survivors and the collective efforts of law firms, advocates, journalists, and more, groundbreaking progress has been made. Gentala speaks to the milestones that have been reached in the past year, sharing a message of hope and inspiration.
Ambassador Swanee Hunt, Chair and Founder of Hunt Alternatives and Eleanor Roosevelt Lecturer of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government joins the Ending Sexploitation podcast to discuss the importance of combating demand for commercial sexual exploitation.
During the discussion, Ambassador Hunt shared the story of speaking to survivors of commercial sexual exploitation internationally. She recalled the chilling story of a young woman in Europe who told her, “Our girls are disappearing from our villages.” Over time, Ambassador Hunt began researching why so many women and girls were being exploited and bought for sex.
In addition to enabling research and trainings on demand (aka sex buying behavior), Ambassador Hunt went on to help establish the Cities Empowered Against Sexual Exploitation (CEASE Network) which spearhead cutting edge tactics to identify the best policies and practices for reducing demand at a local level.
Kindsey Pentecost, Chief Marketing Officer of ItWorks, an industry leading beauty and nutrition company), and Founder of Turn Your Life Around (TYLA), a Prostitution Diversion Court joins the podcast to share about her experiences collaborating with and training law enforcement and court systems on sex trafficking.
“Especially in the United States, we really treat victims [of sex trafficking] as if it’s their job to identify as a victim and tell us that they’re a victim, and that just doesn’t work with sex trafficking,” Kindsey shared. In this episode, she explains how sex traffickers groom victims, establishing bonds so strong that many victims don’t have the ability to identify themselves for law enforcement.
Reflecting on her years of experience working closely with the criminal justice system, Kindsey describes how vital it is for law enforcement and the courts to be accurately trained on the dynamics of sex trafficking in order to better serve survivors.
She also shares about her work in Florida to shift law enforcement resources and time away from arresting people sold in the sex trade, bringing in agencies to provide diverse services to help survivors recover, and instead to focus law enforcement on arresting sex buyers and traffickers.
Kindsey Pentecost’s advice to listeners is to focus on prevention by investing in the next generation, discussing the realities of grooming and abuse with them in age-appropriate ways to safeguard them from potential exploiters.
Visit https://www.kindseypentecost.com/purpose to find resources to learn more and take action, including a parent guide and list of must-read books.