Between August and October 2021, a qualitative and quantitative public poll was conducted in 8 EU Member States on behalf of Defence for Children – ECPAT Netherlands and ECPAT International. ECPAT’s research found that awareness of public opinion was one of the greatest factors in legislative change. Furthermore, social media campaigns were shown to have the greatest impact on public opinion. The task was to create a social media toolkit with the findings of this report that would maximize the impact of the report.

• Crafting a social media toolkit with the main findings from the EU Poll Report.
• Relying on the ECPAT network of 122 members in 104 countries to distribute the toolkit and create general awareness.
• Using the successes of this campaign to encourage legislation advocacy worldwide and pressure social media companies to take more responsibility.

The growing broad consensus from the campaign has allowed ECPAT to advocate for the best interests of children in key processes and initiatives such as: the Digital Services Act, the E-Privacy Directive, the proposal for legislation on the detection, removal and reporting of child sexual abuse material as part of the EU Strategy for a more effective fight against child sexual abuse, and the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child. Similar public opinion polls are now being replicated in other regions.