Who's Making News

Your can download the full database that goes into our TikToks and the analysis we’ve done from this page. It’s available as an excel sheet or a .csv file, so you can slice and dice it yourself and do your own analysis. We also have some presorted analysis options in the visualizations area, under the “Raw Data and Notes” tab.

If you have a case we missed, or found any errors, please use the contact form at the bottom of this page

Full Database As CSV

WHAT’S IN THE DATA AND WHAT IS NOT!

The cases in our database meet the following tests:

1. The story including the information is published after Feb. 15, 2023 - that’s when this study began.
2. The story relates to the actual sexual abuse of a child. Thus, stings, attempts, and cases involving possession or transmission of Child Sexual Exploitation Materials only are not included. However, if the perpetrator is alleged to have communicated with an actual minor or created the materials, that is within the parameters.
3. The conduct must have taken place in the United States.

A NOTE ABOUT WHO’S INCLUDED IN THE “RELIGIOUS AFFILIATED” CATEGORY: It is not just full time employees or ordained staff. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are only approximately 60,000 paid pastors in the United States. But with unpaid pastors religious organizations say the real number is closer to 600,000. That is just under two tenths of one percent of the American population (.0018 of population, to be precise).

We include in our “religious affiliated” total people who are named in the media reports we catalogue as pastors, youth pastors, priests, brothers, nuns, missionaries, bishops, deacons, church officials, Sunday school teachers, teachers in religious schools, etc. We do not include people who are just listed as members of a church.

For those who want per capita comparisons: The transgender population of the United States has been estimated at anywhere from one half of one percent to two percent of the population, with some estimates as high as five percent of GenZ. Even though that is likely a substantial undercount of the transgender population (because many gender non conforming people live in the woodwork) we use the lower estimate, which would put the transgender population at 1,650,000, more than 2 1/2 times the size of the pastor population.

Where does the data come from? I start the weekly research with keyword searches using various search engines, and, recently, have experimented (rather unsuccessfully) with using AI. I also run a check against the excellent Joe My God blog . JoeMyGod tracks cases involving religious figures and politicians really well, and provides solid links to the stories about incidents and arrests. I add to those links those that I find through Reddit’s Not A Drag Queen subredit , as well as a couple of other sources, including Floodlit , which tracks Mormon Church offenders.

It’s my intention to make sure we have at least a year of full data on which to base a report. But there was definitely a learning curve in gathering the data, and my view is that during the first seven weeks or so data collection was inconsistent. While I’m trying to fill that data in using the techniques that have been developed, I expect to throw out those first weeks before putting together the report. That means the series will run at least through week 60, assuming nothing happens to prevent me from completing that task.

It’s important to note, as you review the data, that the media story collection model has some important limitations.

This data, while hopefully representative and relatively proportional, is undoubtedly a vast understatement of the scope of the Child Sexual Abuse problem in the United States, because a great many cases are never reported in news media stories. Based on statistics released by the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I estimate that somewhere on the order of 1 out of every 40-50 cases of abuse actually get reported publicly. One example of how this plays out is the State of West Virginia, where the West Virginia Child Advocacy Network reports that during calendar year 2023 served over 2700 individual victims of child sex abuse - and that organization is present in 46 of the 55 West Virginia categories. By contrast, in our data, as of March 17, 2024 there were only 106 West Virginia cases.

Web crawlers/spiders don’t get to every website every day. Thus reports can get delayed, throwing off the week in which an incident appears in the TikTok reports - some incidents may get added into totals for the week or so following occurence.

We can’t be certain that the spiders get everywhere, so some reports could, theoretically, be missed.

Not all arrests or convictions result in news coverage, and there is no central registry of cases. Those non-media reported cases will, therefore, not be reflected in the data.

It’s assumed that many more crimes go completely unreported. There’s no data on whether those unreported crimes skew in any particular direction. Some commenters have assumed that churches cover up many incidents, but these reports make no assumptions about that.

One thing that in the past has thrown gross numbers off slightly is that a single incident will result in stories at various milestones. For example, a Catholic Cardinal generated stories when arrested, when going to trial and when found to be not competent to stand trial. I try to filter for that by either deleting duplicates (if you download data, look for the “deleted” column!) or updating existing entries, which creates a problem with the date on which an entry shows up, but otherwise should keep the gross numbers of offenders correct.

Why are the numbers in the data set different from the TikTok you just watched? Simple: I update as I receive and categorize reports. The TikToks are one week slices, and the data has likely been updated since the one you saw was recorded. And there’s the effect from the corrections above - if there are multiple stories about a single perpetrator I’ll filter that out of the TikTok totals, but the website may count the individual twice (we’re working on a fix for that - a duplicate name filter - but it’s not implemented yet.)

I avoid cases that are just “materials” cases, involving pictures/videos (those would, unfortunately, be far too many to catalogue) - and I also do not include “sting” cases, where the perpetrator is connecting with an undercover law enforcement officer and never actually is in contact with a child. The cases included here relate solely to actual assaults on children in the United States with the reports being published during the study time period. Note, however, that if the case involves someone making the materials or if they’re either obtaining them from or sending them to minors, obviously the individuals are also alleged to be committing a crime directly involving a child, so they would be included.

So here we are. The results to date have right wingers tossing around all sorts of accusations about “agendas” and “cherry picking.” But the facts are these: I don’t leave any cases out or attempt to tweak the data. It is what it is - which is what has them upset because it runs completely counter to their narrative. But as Sgt. Joe Friday said, “Just the facts, Ma’am.”

So, dig into the data as you will. Let me know if you find anything that surprises you. I’m greatly indebted to Caleb, another TikTok user, who created the backend/database that provides the graphical interface on the “Data” page.

Remember, though, that this is not my real job, nor is it Caleb’s. We’re trying to make this accessible to all - but we both work for a living, and this isn’t what either of us do, nor are we charging any money or trying to in any way make a profit from this.

THIS DATA IS UNITED STATES ONLY And is valid for the period we’re surveying only. If it’s an incident outside the USA or prior to mid February 2023, it’s outside of our survey period and not part of our data.

TikTok “Who’s Making News” Playlist

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