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Facebook failed to catch hundreds of child abuse cases: study

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Web Desk
Web Desk
News Stories Posted by ARY News Digital Team

A study suggested that the tech giant Facebook failed to catch at least 366 cases of children exploitation on its platform during the last six years between 2013 to 2019, said an investigative group Tech Transparency Project.

The site was used as a medium to sexually exploit children in at least 366 cases between January 2013 and December 2019, The Guardian quoted a report published by the group analysing the news releases of Department of Justice.

The site was used as a medium to sexually exploit children in at least 366 cases between January 2013 and December 2019, a report from the not-for-profit investigative group Tech Transparency Project (TPP) analyzing Department of Justice news releases found.

Only 9 per cent of the 366 cases were investigated because Facebook alerted authorities, while the rest of the investigations were initiated by authorities without prompting from the social media giant, the report revealed.

Facebook child exploitation abuse cases study
Tech Transparency Project.

This suggests Facebook is not doing all it can to enforce its community standards, which bans “content that sexually exploits or endangers children,” said TPP executive director Daniel Stevens.

“The data shows Facebook is not doing as much as it should to address this very serious problem affecting many lives in this country,” Stevens said.

The reports analyzed by the group include a Rhode Island man who allegedly posed as a teenage girl to lure boys into live-streaming sexual activity on Facebook Messenger, a Kentucky man accused of sending thousands of messages to more than one child target over Facebook, and a convicted Missouri sex offender who authorities said used Facebook Messenger to communicate with a 13-year-old girl.

As users on Facebook have increased, so has the number of child exploitation cases. There were as many as 23 cases per quarter in 2019 compared to just 10 per quarter in 2013.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly noted the company’s efforts to address child exploitation on the platform. Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.

“Child exploitation is one of the most serious threats that we focus on,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg told lawmakers in October 2019. “We build sophisticated systems to find this behavior.”

The company also appears to have taken on more enforcement responsibility since the passage of FOSTA-SESTA, which allows law enforcement to hold companies liable for what occurs on their platforms. Though the legislation has been criticized for its adverse affects on sex workers and other professions, it has forced Facebook to address online sexual exploitation of children, the report showed.

One month after FOSTA-SESTA was passed, Facebook was sued by an alleged victim of sexual abuse who said that at age 15 she was targeted and groomed by sex traffickers using Facebook.

In the five years before the controversial bill’s passage, Facebook averaged less than one cyber tip per quarter, according to analysis.

Since the bill was passed in March 2018, it has averaged more than three reports per quarter. Facebook and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have made more reports in the last two years since the passage of FOSTA-SESTA than in the prior five years combined.

Facebook has been criticized in the past for inaction in the face of reports regarding the exploitation of children on the platform.

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