Leaked: Understanding and Addressing Self-Generated Sexual Content involving Young People in Thailand
The Leaked project runs from October 2023 to September 2026. It is generously supported by World Childhood Foundation, and a partnership with our friends at the HUG Project. The work is being carried out in two phases: research and intervention.
Phase 2: Intervention
Building on the evidence, we are developing a school-based intervention focused on rights, boundaries, and online safety basics, as well as deeper exploration of online identity, consent in the digital space, and the pressures of online relationships.
The curriculum is being piloted, refined and rolled out in the last year of the project in the many schools that participated in the survey.
Phases 1: Research
Quantitative surveys of 1,916 young people aged between 9-17 years were fielded across 18 schools in Northern Thailand. The survey explored, in a non-judgmental way, their knowledge, motivations, attitudes, and practices around self-generated sexual content.
Key informant interviews were also conducted with twenty experts including youth leaders, young survivor-advocates; and law enforcement, social work and education professionals to capture risks and responses.
The findings launched on September 10th 2025 in a public webinar and continue to inform advocacy, roundtables, policy discussions and other events.
Leaked was designed to move beyond fear-based narratives and adult assumptions of sharing self-generated sexual content by centering the voices, realities, and perspectives of young people themselves.
Young people grow up in an environment where digital and offline life are deeply intertwined. Social media is central to identity formation, connection, and experimentation but it also brings risks. Features like disappearing messages, anonymous chats, and instant sharing lower the perceived threat threshold for risky digital behaviors. At the same time, online visibility is rewarded by platforms through likes and follows, shaping young people’s decisions in powerful ways.
What we found
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Normalisation: Many see exchanging intimate images as part of modern relationships, while others reject it outright. Youth themselves hold diverse and often conflicting views.
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Motivations: Sharing is often linked to validation, popularity, financial or material gain, and trust in relationships.
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Risks: Youth recognise dangers loss of privacy, blackmail, reputational damage, or emotional distress but many still feel ill-equipped to respond.
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Lack of guidance: A majority report teaching themselves about online safety. Parents and schools play a role, but often too little, too late.
Yet when things go wrong, many young people internalize blame, believing they alone are at fault.
Leaked calls for a shift away from fear-based messaging and one-size-fits-all prevention approaches towards more honest, harm-reduction approaches that meet young people where they are. It calls on educators, policymakers, and caregivers to listen without judgment and to support young people in building digital agency, healthy relationships, and culturally relevant tools for navigating intimacy and consent in a connected world.
The Leaked intervention will test this model in practice by turning evidence directly into action.