Thorn receives TED Audacious Project reinvestment

Thorn is proud and honored to share that donors through The Audacious Project have committed $18 million of unrestricted funding to Thorn over the next five years. This impactful reinvestment will help Thorn build a multi-layered response to technology-facilitated child sexual abuse and transform how kids are protected from sexual abuse and exploitation in the digital age.

In 2019, Thorn set out to confront an urgent, yet invisible, crisis: the rapid spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) across the internet. Images and videos documenting some of the worst harms done to children were circulating unchecked. These files overwhelmed law enforcement and proliferated across platforms we use every day.

At that time, Audacious donors stepped forward with a bold commitment to help us change the trajectory of that global crisis. Together, we built and scaled technology to dramatically reduce the time it takes to identify child victims and curb the viral spread of CSAM online. Today, over 700 agencies across the globe use Thorn’s technology to help identify child victims of abuse faster. Our solution for tech platforms, Safer, now processes more than 50 billion files per month and identifies over 15,000 instances of suspected CSAM per day.

Now, Audacious donors have solidified their belief in Thorn with a new commitment to accelerate our mission.

This is an extraordinary moment, and an affirmation of both the urgency of this issue and the momentum of Thorn’s approach. We are profoundly grateful for The Audacious Project’s continued trust in Thorn’s vision for the future.

Why this reinvestment matters

Technology-facilitated child sexual abuse has expanded in definition, complexity, and scale since Thorn’s first Audacious project in 2019. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed nearly every child and perpetrator online, enabling abusers to exploit children in the very places they connect, learn, and play. Thorn’s research indicates that nearly half of all kids (40%) have been approached by someone they believed was attempting to “befriend and manipulate” them.

Additionally, the widespread availability of nudifying tools, powered by generative AI, has created the unprecedented opportunity to produce photorealistic abuse material at scale. Today, 1 in 8 teens know someone targeted by “deepfake nudes.” This adds to the already immense haystack of content investigators must sift through, making victims harder to find. 

What was once viewed as an isolated threat can now target any child, in any home, at any time.

This $18 million commitment will help Thorn continue to meet this moment. 

Four key areas of impact

1. Scaled technology solutions

We will scale and accelerate the global adoption of our child safety technologies across tech platforms and law enforcement to help strengthen detection and investigations worldwide.

2. Technical innovation

With the support of global strategic partnerships, our world-class data science team will lead applied and exploratory technical innovation to build the next generation of safeguards. We will equip frontline responders with smarter AI-powered tools to shorten detection and triage time to help identify child victims faster.

3. Research & insights

Using our expertise and global network, we will generate ongoing youth-centered research and equip companies, policymakers, and the public with the knowledge and insights to design safer platforms and advance smart regulation, driving meaningful systemic change.

4. A strong financial model

Thorn has already built a strong earned-revenue engine through our industry solutions, such as Safer, which fuels mission impact. This reinvestment strengthens that model, accelerating our path to long-term financial sustainability so we can keep pace with emerging threats.

The work is not done

Today, 54% of young people surveyed worldwide report experiencing online sexual harm by the time they reach eighteen. The scale of abuse we are seeing today demands that we act with urgency to innovate and deploy our solutions faster, invest to stay ahead of emerging technical harms, and use our decade-long expertise to activate a global response.

To fully realize this plan, Thorn needs to raise at least $30 million in philanthropic funding over the next five years. The Audacious Project has committed $18 million toward this goal and set us on a strong path toward  success, for which we are immensely grateful.

But we are not finished. This moment is a catalyst, not a conclusion.

Our children cannot wait

With this reinvestment, we are doubling down on solutions that work. We are activating a global response to strengthen child safety in digital spaces and ensure children can thrive as technology continues to evolve.

We are deeply honored by the trust placed in us by The Audacious Project and the transformational philanthropists behind it.

If we are going to build an internet that is safe by design, if we are going to stop abuse before it spreads, if we are going to find children faster and prevent harm at scale, then it will take all of us.

Now is the moment.