Illegal content on the internet: Record number of justified complaints

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The number of complaints about content with all types of hosts on the internet remains high: 51.358 notices were given to the reporting office of the Internetwirtschaftsverband eco in 2025. 30 years after the launch of the first reporting office for illegal internet content, the number of justified reports in a particularly problematic area is at a record high. The changes due to the Digital Services Act play hardly any role.

The justified reports of depictions of sexual abuse and other content related to the self-determination of children and adolescents have increased by almost 50 percent compared to the previous record year 2023. Of the 30.035 pieces of content deemed illegal in 2025, all hosted in Germany were removed – and a remarkable 98.58 percent of all such content worldwide, reports the Eco reporting office. “Self-regulation works,” and internationally too, emphasizes Alexandra Koch-Skiba, who has been managing the Internet Reporting Office for years. She sees one reason for this in the international cooperation of providers in the “Inhope” network, which has been coordinating cross-border exchange for many years. However, not only have the numbers increased, but the time taken for removal has also significantly lengthened.

Effort for reporting office increases

The distributors would use various obfuscation tactics to make it difficult for third parties to find the reported content, explains Alexandra Koch-Skiba, from necessary referrers and permissible or prohibited IP address ranges to more technically sophisticated methods. As a rule, her team would find ways and means, but this would increase the time spent per case. Mass reports of many contents at once would also have time implications. In other words: case processing takes longer.

The data published by the reporting office shows that for the first time, less than 70 percent of the content deemed illegal was removed within a week. “Deleting instead of blocking” and reporting the criminal offenses is still the right strategy in 2026, says the managing director of the Eco Internetwirtschaftsverband, Alexander Rabe. And states: “No internet block will stop people who want to follow these human abysses.” After four weeks, according to the figures, almost all illegal content has been removed.

Tipsters use anonymous reporting option

There are primarily four main sources for reports to the Eco Internet Reporting Office: Almost half of all notices came from other reporting offices operating within the Inhope network. The second most frequent source, with over 15.000 cases, is own research – meaning further content, mostly discovered while tracking down initial reports, according to the annual report of the reporting office. Over 4.000 reports came from citizens with their names mentioned, and 5.000 times the option of giving anonymous tips was used.