As a direct result of a number of tragedies, which would include Amanda Todd and Rehtaeh Parsons, and through what we were seeing coming into the tip line, we created this offshoot called NeedHelpNow. We did that purposely because we know that when teens come in to us with their concerns, they are certainly at their wits' end, but I can promise you that their first request isn't to involve police and tell their parents. Their first request is “Oh, my God, help me get the content down and let me move on with my life.”
It doesn't justify what the acting-out youth are doing, but that is the number one request that we have when they come in.
This was a service that we established as a first entry point to try to tackle this issue, knowing that child exploitation units across the country have a huge caseload dealing with people committing hands-on offences against very young children. This is a very important issue, but if you're asking them to reprioritize teens sharing sexual images over those cases, you're asking them to do a very challenging thing, so NeedHelpNow was designed to take that first stab at it.
Then if it involved uttering threats or extortion, it hit a different level, a different threshold, in terms of the criminal activity that may be going on in that context. That's certainly where it warrants police getting involved. The impetus behind that site was really to support and assist youth who feel as though they have no way out and they want the content to come down.