NCMEC

NCMEC is the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, a private, nonprofit organization established in 1984 by the U.S. Congress to help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization. It serves as a national clearinghouse and resource center, working closely with families, law enforcement, and technology companies. Among its best-known functions is operating the CyberTipline, created in 1998, which is the centralized U.S. system for reporting suspected online child sexual exploitation.

NCMEC is directly relevant to platforms like Reddit because U.S. law (18 U.S.C. § 2258A) requires online service providers to report apparent child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and related exploitation to the CyberTipline once they become aware of it. Reddit states that it removes such content, terminates the accounts involved, and files reports with NCMEC, which then triages reports and refers them to the appropriate law-enforcement agencies. The CyberTipline receives many millions of reports each year, reflecting both the scale of online child exploitation and the central role NCMEC plays in coordinating detection, reporting, and response across the internet ecosystem.