A New Chapter for Youth Online Safety: NoFiltr’s Next Phase

Safer Internet Day is a reminder that protecting young people online is not the responsibility of any single organization, platform, or caregiver. It’s a shared commitment, one that must evolve as quickly as the digital world young people are navigating every day.

That belief is what led Thorn to launch NoFiltr in 2020, at a moment when the online landscape was shifting fast and a deeply concerning trend was becoming impossible to ignore: the rise of self-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM). As more young people spent time online, they were increasingly being targeted, manipulated, or coerced into creating and sharing explicit content, often without fully understanding the long-term consequences.

What began as a focused effort to address self-generated CSAM quickly grew into something more expansive. By centering the lived experiences of young people, NoFiltr helped bring their perspectives directly to the table with technology platforms, informing real conversations about safety, responsibility, and design. Those early partnerships demonstrated something critical: solutions are stronger when youth voices are part of building them.

Today, NoFiltr has evolved into a bridge: connecting young people with platforms, caregivers, and educators to co-design a safer digital landscape for themselves and their peers. On this Safer Internet Day, that evolution continues, as NoFiltr enters its next chapter as a youth digital safety brand, fiscally sponsored by Thorn. 

Building on a shared foundation of creating safer online spaces for young people, NoFiltr is expanding its work to bring together cross-sector partners, deepen youth co-design through scalable programs, and equip platforms with practical tools to embed youth-informed safety by design. 

To reflect on how NoFiltr has grown, why this moment matters, and what comes next for young people online, we sat down with Adele Taylor, CEO of NoFiltr, and Julie Cordua, CEO of Thorn. In conversation, they discuss the evolution of NoFiltr from a Thorn program toward a youth-focused brand fiscally sponsored by Thorn, what this transition means for partners and communities, and how centering youth voices remains essential to building a safer internet, today and into the future.

Q: How has NoFiltr’s evolution reflected what young people actually need today? 

Julie: What NoFiltr’s evolution has shown us is that young people want to be, and need to be, heard, respected, and meaningfully involved in shaping digital spaces they use every day. Early on NoFiltr was focused on responding to very specific harms, including the rise of self-generated CSAM. But by listening closely to young people in their work with NoFiltr and partner platforms, it became clear the challenges they face online are interconnected. By zooming out from addressing risks and focusing on elevating youth voices in creation, NoFiltr creates a system where youth can proactively translate their lived experience into solutions that are designed with them from the start. From Thorn’s perspective, that evolution is crucial to keeping pace with a rapidly evolving digital world, and this next chapter positions it to go even further. 

Q: What’s changing for NoFiltr — and what’s staying the same in terms of mission and partnership with Thorn?

Adele: What’s changing is the structure, not the purpose. Under Thorn’s fiscal sponsorship, NoFiltr will have its own leadership, strategy, and programming, while benefiting from Thorn’s operational support and long-standing expertise in transforming how children are protected from sexual abuse and exploitation in the digital age. It allows us to grow with focus and flexibility. 

What’s staying the same is how we’re approaching our mission and values. We’re still deeply committed to centering young people and working alongside platforms to design safer digital experiences. This next chapter positions NoFiltr to build a more robust, tiered membership model for platforms—supporting the co-creation of bespoke digital resources, elevating youth-informed strategies, collaborating on activations with youth-facing brands’ social impact teams, and advising on the development of youth councils. The goal is to normalize youth perspective as a core part of safety-by-design. 

Q: As technology evolves, why is it so important that young people help co-design safer digital spaces, not just advise on them? 

Adele: Technology is evolving faster than most safety frameworks, and young people are often the first to experience the risks of new features and emerging technologies. When youth are only asked to advise after decisions are made, their insights can be limited to reacting to harm. Co-design brings them in when choices about features, norms, and safeguards are still being shaped.  Designing alongside platforms surface issues that adults and institutions often miss and lead to solutions that are relevant and effective. 

Julie: When we talk about co-design, we’re talking about changing the system-  not just gathering feedback. Safety by design starts with understanding how young people actually experience technology, because they’re often the first to see how features can be misused. Their insights reveal blind spots that data alone can’t. At Thorn, we’ve seen how youth-informed design leads to stronger prevention strategies and more relevant safety tools. As technology evolves, co-design ensures safety keeps pace with innovation, and that young people are not only protected by these systems, but empowered to shape them. 

Q: How does NoFiltr’s move to independence strengthen Thorn’s mission to protect children in the digital age, and what does this evolution say about Thorn’s approach to building a digital safety net? 

Julie: NoFiltr’s path to independence is a reflection of what we aim to do at Thorn- not just respond to harm, but help build and strengthen a broad child safety ecosystem. This transition allows NoFiltr to deepen its focus on youth co-design while Thorn continues to advance research to better combat abuse and build technology to protect children at scale. Together, we’re building complementary layers of the same digital safety net. 

Q: Looking ahead to 2026, what priorities will shape NoFiltr’s next chapter, and how can others join in building that future with young people?

Adele: Our priorities for 2026 center on equipping young people with stronger information literacy and supporting digital wellbeing in the face of emerging technologies like AI, while ensuring those insights reach the experts building and shaping online spaces. Our Youth Innovation Council is still the foundation of this work. 

We’re in the process of building a council for young adults ages 18-22, designed to help youth-facing brands engage older youth voices on issues that extend beyond those affecting minors.

Beyond our Youth Innovation Council, we’re expanding how we build bridges across the ecosystem. That includes webinars and hands-on workshops that bring youth, platforms, educators, and caregivers together to learn from one another and develop practical tools. We’re also creating more opportunities for platforms to engage consistently with youth perspectives, not just during moments of crisis or transition. 

We invite others to join this work by participating in these shared spaces, contributing expertise while listening to young people and empowering them to turn insight into action. 

Safer Internet Day Call to Action

None of this work happens in isolation. Building a safer internet requires collaboration across sectors and generations: youth, platforms, caregivers, and educators working together to address emerging threats and design better systems from the start.

On this Safer Internet Day, we invite you to be part of that shared responsibility with NoFiltr and Thorn:

• NoFiltr.org
• Learn how you can collaborate with NoFiltr as a tech platform.
• Fund the next generation of digital safety leaders.
• Explore resources that support youth safety and wellbeing online.
• Get involved in Thorn’s work to build a digital safety net.

Because the internet young people deserve is one we build together.