A man plays a computer game at an internet cafe
IN PHOTO: A man plays a computer game at an internet cafe in Beijing May 9, 2014. As growing numbers of young people in China immerse themselves in the cyber world, spending hours playing games online, worried parents are increasingly turning to boot camps to crush addiction. Military-style boot camps, designed to wean young people off their addiction to the internet, number as many as 250 in China alone. Picture taken May 9, 2014. Reuters

A “horrifying” joint report by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and Microsoft has revealed that children as young as seven years are consenting strangers to view them online in sexually explicit poses, with the help of a webcam.

Researchers believe that young children tend to indulge in such activities in search of popularity over social media, or they fall victims of online bullying and blackmailing. The online videos were found to be posted by the children themselves or recorded by an external third party.

IWF and Microsoft revealed that they have together found nearly 4,000 such videos and images collected over a span of three months. Out of the 4,000 multimedia items, nearly 667 posed children below the age of 15 years, including 286 who were identified to be under 10 years of age. Another shocking aspect of the survey showed that 93 percent of the multimedia featured girls—a cause of worry for the child health specialists.

According to the report, one of the video feature a girl about seven years in age, who was exposing herself in an underwear.

The girl says in the video, "Mum might see it and get worried and, you know, like, delete my account," reported The Telegraph.

The report stated, "In some instances, it was clear that the children depicted were aware and intended that the content they were creating should appear on public internet sites."

On the other hand, an IWF spokesperson revealed that some of the explicit content, videos were found to be secretly recorded over Internet calling service and then posted online by an anonymous party. Reportedly, such videos are being used for “sextortion,” wherein a child is blackmailed for the kind of explicit content shared online.

"This is a horrifying situation for the young victims who will be scared and bewildered by what is happening," said Claire Lilley, head of child online safety at NSPCC, reported The Independent.

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