Rules
Part of Reporting resources: evidence and next steps
One-page family reporting plan with the 48-hour clock
A one-page family reporting plan: six lines to agree in daylight, where a report can go, and the 48-hour Take It Down Act removal clock.
The decisions that go worst are the ones made at eleven at night by a frightened adult who has just seen something. A reporting plan written in daylight turns the night version into following a plan rather than inventing one.
The lines on the plan are your household's own, not anybody else's. Apart from one outside rule, nothing here says what a school, a platform or a police service requires, because that is set locally and it changes. The outside rule is the federal Take It Down Act duty on platforms to remove intimate images shared without consent.
What to take away
- Decide the sequence before you need itpreserve, then reduce contact, then report, then tell.
- Agree in advance what reporting costs your child, and make sure the answer is nothing.
- The line that overrides every other line is that immediate danger means emergency services first.
- Write the time of any removal request on the page, because the 48 hours run from the request.
- Put a review date on the page, because your household in a year will not be this one.
What goes on the page
The page has six lines, each one a decision made in advance. It fits on one side of paper and lives where every adult in the house can find it. The table gives each line, what it says and why it earns its place.
| Line | What it says | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|
| Order | Preserve, reduce contact, report, then tell | Doing the second step first destroys the record |
| Promise | Telling us costs nothing | It decides whether there is ever a second report |
| Silence | Nobody replies, forwards or contacts the other family | A reply becomes the screenshot that circulates |
| Record | One dated page, kept in one named place | Dates cannot be reconstructed three weeks in |
| Removal clock | The date and time of any removal request | The 48 hours run from the request |
| Review | A date, looked at twice a year | The stage and the platforms both change |
Immediate danger overrides every line. Where a child is in immediate danger, contact emergency services and do the rest afterwards.
The order line
The order matters more than the speed, and the common mistake is doing the second step first. Preserve before anything else, because blocking frequently removes your ability to see the record at all.
The fixed order of the first hour
- Preservescreenshot username, timestamp, context
- Reduce contactblock, mute or restrict
- Report inside the platform, keep reference
- Decide together who else needs to know
- Immediate dangeremergency services first
- Preserve firstscreenshots with the username, the timestamp and enough surrounding conversation to make sense.
- Then reduce contactblock, mute or restrict, and tighten who can message, tag or comment in the first place.
- Then report, inside the platform, and keep whatever reference it generates.
- Then decide together who else needs to know, and tell them.
How to raise it with your child in those first two days is a separate skill, and opening the conversation covers it.
The promise line: reporting is free
Telling you about a problem does not cost the phone, the account or the thing they were doing when it happened. This line decides whether there is a second report, and it is the one most often broken by accident in the first ten minutes.
What disclosure must never cost
If reporting is free
- Second report
- Likely
- Reads as
- Safety
- Phone
- Stays
- Account
- Stays
- Activity
- Untouched
If a device is removed
- Second report
- Unlikely
- Reads as
- Punishment
- Phone
- Taken
- Account
- Removed
- Activity
- Stopped
A device removed on the night something is disclosed reads as a punishment for disclosing, whatever was said about it. Write the promise down, say it out loud more than once, and expect to be tested on it. Family agreements covers keeping it in a form that survives a bad week.
The silence line: nothing sent, forwarded or replied to
A reply, however deserved, becomes the screenshot that circulates. That holds for your child and it holds for you.
Nothing gets sent or forwarded
- No reply, however deserved
- Applies to your child and to you
- No contact with the other family
- Never copy or forward images of a minor
- Describe what exists, then report it
There are two harder versions of the same line. Nobody in the household contacts the other young person or their family before the order above ends. That turns a conflict between two children into one between two households your child then lives inside at school.
Images of a minor are never collected, copied or forwarded by anyone, for any reason including evidence. Describe what exists and report it.
The record line: one page, one place
Agree where the record lives before there is one: a dated page listing what happened, where, who was told and any reference received. It is unglamorous, and it is the thing that makes every later conversation possible.
What the one page records
- Date of the entry
- What happened
- Where it happened
- Who was told
- Any reference received
Three weeks in, a school or a police service will ask for dates and you will not be able to reconstruct them. Reporting resources covers what a good record contains, and following up on a report covers what comes after.
A record should hold the date and time, the platform, the account handles, the screenshots, the reference the report produced, who was told, and what came back.
The removal clock: 48 hours under the Take It Down Act
One reporting rule now binds the platforms themselves. The Federal Trade Commission enforces Section 3 of the Take It Down Act, effective May 19, 2026. Covered platforms must establish a process for victims to request the removal of intimate photos or videos shared without their consent.
The FTC describes covered platforms as including social media, messaging, image or video sharing, and gaming platforms.
- What it covers.The law applies to real images, digitally altered images, and deepfakes created with artificial intelligence.
- The deadline.Platforms must remove the intimate photos or videos, and known identical copies, within 48 hours of a valid request.
- If the platform fails.You can report a platform to the FTC if it does not take the image or identical copies down within 48 hours of your request. You can also report it if you cannot find its removal request process, or the process is broken.
For a family plan this changes the record line more than anything else: write down the date and time you submitted a removal request, because the 48 hours run from the request. For anyone under 18, the NCMEC CyberTipline and Take It Down service listed below are still there, and a platform removal request can run alongside them.
Where a report goes
Naming a destination is not the same as stating what any authority requires. The lines on your page still run the house; these are simply the places a report can be filed.
- The school.Ask the office who handles reports and how one has to be made, rather than guessing; the answer is often a Title IX coordinator or a bullying-policy contact.
- The platform.Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube all put a Report option on the post, comment, profile, message or account itself, and most return a confirmation or a reference for the report. Keep that reference with the screenshots.
- The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.The CyberTipline at report.cybertip.org or 1-800-843-5678 takes reports of a minor being exploited online. Take It Down, at takeitdown.ncmec.org, is the free NCMEC service that helps someone under 18 get intimate images hashed so they are harder to reshare.
- Crisis and bullying lines.988 reaches the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by call or text. StopBullying.gov is the federal site that explains bullying and cyberbullying and how to get help. For anything that looks criminal, use the local police non-emergency number, and 911 only when someone is in immediate danger.
- FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).The FBI's internet-crime reporting guidance says a victim should submit a complaint to IC3.gov, contact the nearest FBI field office and local law enforcement, and immediately notify financial institutions involved in relevant transactions.
The page says nothing about what any authority requires, and it should not. Duties on schools, what a platform will act on, and what is an offense are all set outside your household, differ by country and district, and move. A household line that encodes a guess about any of them will be wrong at the worst moment.
The categories that override the page
Some situations are not routed through the household lines at all. Threats, an adult in contact with your child, sexual images of a minor, and demands for money or images all go to the police.
When to go straight to police
Is an adult in contact with your child?
Police, stop investigating
Are there sexual images of a minor?
For these, report to the police and stop investigating. You do not need to be certain first, and being wrong costs far less than waiting. Sustained targeting by other young people is the narrower case, and it usually stays with the school.
Reviewing the page
Put a date on the page and look at it twice a year. Two things change underneath it: your child's stage, and the platforms they actually use.
The stage matters more. A line written for a twelve-year-old applied at sixteen reads as an insult and gets ignored, which then teaches that the rest of the page is optional too. Loosen the parts that are clearly outgrown and say plainly that you are doing it.
What should not change is the promise line. If a review ever makes disclosure more expensive, the review went wrong, whatever prompted it.
Common questions
My child says reporting will make it worse. Are they right?
Sometimes, and the fear is usually specific rather than general. Ask what exactly they think will happen, because half of those fears have an answer. Preserve the evidence either way, so that not reporting today does not mean being unable to report later.
Should we agree a line about contacting the other child's parents?
Yes, and the useful default is not yet. Exceptions exist for younger children, families you genuinely know, and something serious enough that it has to stop tonight. As a first move it usually costs more than it gains.
What if the adults in the house disagree about the sequence?
Settle it now rather than during. Write the order on the page and agree that whoever is present follows it, so the disagreement happens on a Sunday rather than in front of a distressed child.
Do these lines change in 2027?
The household ones do not, because they are yours. What is different going into 2027 is outside the house: since May 19, 2026, covered platforms must remove intimate images shared without consent, and known identical copies, within 48 hours of a valid request, and the FTC takes reports about platforms that do not.
This page describes lines a household can set for itself, not any legal requirement. Apart from the Take It Down Act summary above, it states no law, no duty and no outcome. Check what applies where you live with the body that publishes it, and where a child is in immediate danger, contact emergency services.
