Dr Emily Setty (University of Surrey) and Jonny Hunt (University of Bedfordshire)
The slogan ‘Just Say No’, championed by Nancy Reagan in the 1980s and featured in UK TV series Grange Hill, aimed to curb drug use through fear-based messaging. Despite data showing its minimal impact, this same fear-based approach persists in sex education for the digital age. Much like its predecessor, the scare tactics perpetuate stigma and confusion and fail to equip young people with the knowledge and skills they need to navigate their digital lives. We argue that a more effective approach requires open, empathetic conversations about consent, trust and ethical digital practices.
Unintended consequences: Fear, shame and silencing
Abstinence-based sex education has consistently resulted in poorer outcomes for young people. Adolescents exposed to such methods are more likely to have sex earlier, engage in unprotected sex and experience regret after sexual encounters. This is because individuals cannot make informed decisions when they receive no practical guidance, only prohibitions. The same dynamic is now evident in discussions about digital issues like ‘sexting’ and the sharing of intimate images.
The UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) set a zero-tolerance tone on adolescent ‘sexting’ in its 2016 guidance (since updated), rooted in outdated laws like the Protection of Children Act 1978. This law – created for the VHS era, long before smartphones became ubiquitous – threatens young people with severe legal consequences, including potential sex offender labels, if they share images. Yet, as with abstinence-only sex education, these tactics failed to alter young people’s behaviour. They continued to share images, both consensually and abusively.
Fear-based approaches also discouraged young people from seeking help when things went wrong. Rather than creating open channels of communication, these strategies instilled shame, preventing victims from reporting abuse. The Internet Watch Foundation’s (IWF) current ‘Think Before You Share’ campaign repeats many of these same mistakes, despite its intent to promote responsible online culture.
Vague messaging and conflation of consensual and non-consensual behaviours
The slogan ‘Think Before You Share’ is ambiguous. It fails to clarify what, exactly, young people should think about. Are they being advised to consider the consequences of sharing intimate images in general, or is the message exclusively about non-consensual sharing? Without this distinction, the campaign risks stigmatising all digital intimacy. Abstinence-based frameworks, still prevalent in schools, may reinforce this message, treating all image-sharing as wrong and harmful.
Yetfor many young people, sharing intimate images is a normal part of their sexual development. It is important, therefore, that messaging focuses on consent and ethical practices. Campaigns that conflate consensual and abusive behaviours risk perpetuating a culture of shame, inhibiting young people from discussing these matters openly.
While ‘Think Before You Share’ urges young people to seek help, it fails to address the deeper issues of shame surrounding reporting. The campaign’s slogans – whereby images of fruit or vegetables signify body parts – such as ‘do you really want your [penis] round the whole school?’, perpetuate stigma and victim-blaming narratives. By focusing on the young person’s need to ‘think first’, the campaign suggests that victims should have anticipated the consequences and are responsible for image-based sexual abuse.
Victim-blaming and moral panic
This approach continues the moral panic around adolescent image-sharing, driven by adult discomfort with young people’s digital sexual expression. Rather than facilitating open discussions about consent, campaigns like ‘Think Before You Share’ reinforce an adult-centric view of digital intimacy as inherently dangerous. This alienates young people and fails to address the complexity of their experiences.
Recent workshops we conducted with 25 young people as part of a new sex education programme shed light on the dynamics. In one activity, participants ranked various image-sharing behaviours according to how problematic they found them. The unanimous consensus was that sharing intimate images without consent was the most harmful, as it breaches trust, humiliates the victim and violates consent. Yet, when asked how their peers or schools would respond, most assumed that the person in the image was a girl and would be ‘slut shamed’ by peers, despite considering the assumed boy to be the ‘culprit’ for non-consensually sharing the images.
This exercise revealed that young people understand the unfairness of these reactions but feel powerless to change them. ‘Think Before You Share’ does little to challenge this status quo.
A path forward: Promoting consent and ethical sharing
Our research with schools and law enforcement reveals a reluctance among adults to discuss consensual image sharing, for fear of condoning it. However, avoiding these conversations leaves young people vulnerable and confused. Instead of prohibiting image-sharing, education should equip young people to navigate digital intimacy responsibly. Just as sex education has evolved to promote ‘safe sex’ rather than abstinence, a similar shift is needed in discussions about digital interactions. Young people need clear guidance about consent, ethical sharing, and the difference between consensual and non-consensual behaviour. The law’s role in protecting young people from adult predators, not criminalising normative adolescent behaviour, must be emphasised.
Emerging forms of image-based abuse, such as sextortion, underscore the need for clearer support. Young people, having been told repeatedly that sharing images is wrong, may hesitate to report incidents out of fear of blame or punishment. Campaigns that lump consensual and non-consensual behaviours together only exacerbate this issue.
The annual survey by the Southwest Grid for Learning shows that fewer young people would turn to a teacher if something upset them online, dropping from 32% in 2018 to just 20% in 2024. These statistics starkly reveal that whatever we’re doing now, it isn’t working. Instead of creating an open and supportive environment, our current approaches are closing doors.
While the ‘Think Before You Share’ campaign is well-intentioned, it falls short in addressing the real challenges young people face in navigating digital intimacy. Moving beyond vague slogans and moral panic is essential. Only through open, honest and nuanced discussions can we support young people in making informed, ethical decisions about their digital lives.
