{"id":2657,"date":"2019-06-24T12:06:26","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T12:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=2657"},"modified":"2019-06-24T13:05:30","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T13:05:30","slug":"tech-companies-child-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=2657","title":{"rendered":"Tech companies are failing to protect children. Academics and online child activist groups speak out"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We are technological teenagers when it comes to\nsocial media. Facebook was made publicly available just 14 years ago, and\nTwitter, Snapchat and Instagram far less. Since then, as a society we have been\non a fun-filled spree of communicating, connecting and of satiating our\nappetites. We have been gluttonous in our demands, wanting more, faster, and\nthen moving onto the next thing. We have seen things we do not want to see and\ncannot unsee. And we have become used to them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this is not the darkest aspect that emerges\nfrom these incredible technological advances. Just as social media and the\ninternet has brought new opportunities into all our lives, it has also brought\nperils. The crimes that are most entrepreneurial in nature are theft, fraud and\nsexual offending. They will adapt and thrive wherever they can find new\nopportunities, such as in cyberspace<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now it is time to take steps to protect children \u2013\nand indeed all social media users. We need to balance individual freedoms with\nthe protection of individuals. But who should put those limits in place? Should\nit be the government? Do we need new laws? Should we then expect an\nover-burdened and under-funded police force (with a fifth fewer police officers than eight years ago<\/a>) to both spend\nmore time investigating the burgeoning problem with internet-mediated child\nabuse as well as enforcing the new laws?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The co-author of this article, Joanne Stubbs,\nwho runs an Online Child Abuse Activist Group (OCAG) in Nottingham, has outlined\nbelow the concerns the group have with several types of social media. These\nconcerns need to be taken seriously by the tech giants, who should work harder\nalongside other agencies to protect society using evidence-based\npolicies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are Online\nChild Activist Groups?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Online Child Activist Groups are citizens working\nwithin the law to provide information to the police when a crime is in\nprogress. A recent estimate put the number of such groups\nat 180 across the UK, but more are being created regularly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OCAGs do not work directly with the police.\nInstead, they present evidence gathered on a suspect to the police. This\nevidence is gathered by a \u2018decoy\u2019 who is an adult posing as a minor. They use\nphotos donated by the public and make it very clear from the start of any\ncommunications of the \u2018age\u2019 of the decoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The police run operations that are similar in some\nrespects, but OCAGs have more freedom as private citizens to investigate an\nindividual. They are not bound by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers\nAct (RIPA) 2000<\/a> which would need them to obtain a warrant for\nevery bit of information they gather, nor are they bound by the Cover Human Intelligence Source (CHIS) Code of Practice<\/a>.<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Catching people\ncommitting sexual offences online<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

According to Jo, in a 12-month period (April 2017\nto March 2018) in Nottinghamshire, 37 cases from Online Child Activist Group\n(OCAGs) were handed over to the police; 23 led to a charge, 11 cases are\nongoing and only three cases resulted in No Further Action or Refused Charge.\nJo\u2019s OCAG always start online, and 100% of the cases have started on apps\ndesigned specifically for children or on Facebook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a 2018 report, the NSPCC stated<\/a>, with regard to\nsocial media and online safety, \u201c[of] the 2,097 offences where police recorded\nthe method used to communicate with a child, Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram\nwere used in 70% of cases\u2026 Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram were the \u2026 three most-recorded\nsites.\u201dFrom the same source, it was reported that police in\nEngland and Wales recorded 1,944 incidents of sexual communication with\nchildren in the six months to September 2018. In these, Instagram was used in\n32% of the 1,317 cases where a method was recorded, Facebook in 23% and\nSnapchat in 14%. This shows a fall from Facebook, and a rise in Instagram in a\nrelatively short space of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jo has insights on the use of social media by\nsexual predators that provide much-needed food for thought. On Facebook, there\nare thousands upon thousands of pages, closed groups, public pages and\nsecret groups set up specifically for the exploitation of children and\nbeastiality. \u2018Suggested friends\u2019 encourages complete strangers to speak to\nother users. Additionally, there is hardcore pornography across thousands of pages\nand profiles are not removed even when public alert Facebook to\nthem. Someone Jo works alongside named Tanya Marie (who founded the group\nFacebook Hunters two years ago) has estimated that in the time she has been\nrunning Facebook Hunters, she has found over 400 of such pages \u2013 and those are\njust the public groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jo recommends that Facebook revise\ntheir current Community Standards<\/a>. The company does take\ndown the individual posts eventually, but by the time a post is removed,\nseveral more have been uploaded. Perhaps there also needs to be a cap on\nthe number of pages one person can create and administer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instagram is becoming one of the most used sites\nfrom groomers (according to NSPCC figures). Anyone can request to follow\nanother user, and unless they have put the correct privacy settings on their\naccount, anyone can view all the images they post. It is very common to see\nchildren with dozens of men on their profiles, and when Jo comes across a\nsuspect, there are often hundreds of real children on their\naccount. As the children allow this person to \u2018follow\u2019 them, it leaves the\nperson able to view anything they post. Instagram now also allow live feeds. Jo\nrecommends that an alert should be set up for certain phrases, although\nrecognises this is difficult to do and often not fruitful. She suggests that at\na minimum the report button should be available on live streams, which\nalerts a real person working as a moderator on Instagram.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While using Snapchat, Jo has found that children\nwho are unaware of the danger are most likely to send their stories out to the\nworld where strangers can see them. Software has also been developed to take\nthe photos or videos shared on the app so they are saved separately. This\nleaves a lot of people vulnerable; that nude photo they thought would disappear\nforever can be captured by viewers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jo finds that is difficult to decoy child abusers\non Snapchat. When a screen shot is taken of part of a conversation, photo or\nvideo, a notification is sent back to the other person. The option exists to\nuse the software as described above, but whilst holding several conversations\nacross various platforms this proves difficult and prone to human error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The police have the facility to use computers which\nwill record every interaction and this will be used as evidence, but\nunfortunately neither Jo\u2019s group nor any other OCAG have the funds to do\nthis. Snapchat also has a very precise geographic locator, but \u2018ghost\nmode\u2019 has been created so that no individual user can be tracked \u2013 both a\nblessing and a curse from a child protection perspective. Add into the mix the\nalgorithm protecting the data, downloading evidence from Snapchat is pretty\nimpossible, even for the police. This is why, in our view, it is becoming one\nof the most used apps for people grooming children for possible future abuse.\nIt leaves no evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solving the problem\ntogether <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Technology itself must help to solve this crisis \u2013\nand it is a crisis. Social media companies do have human moderators, around\n150,000, but the number of posts and uploads daily to social media platforms is\nfar beyond their current capacity. Tech companies need to be more open, and\nless defensive, about the problems that social media creates. They need to\naccept help from those who offer. We need to create specialist units that\ncombine expertise from the police, tech companies themselves, academics and\nchild safety experts, those involved in the \u2018frontline\u2019 fight (OCAGs),\nteenagers who use such platforms, and indeed from the individuals who have\noffended using these platforms, to find effective ways to protect us all online\nbetter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also need to consider the impact of cuts in the\npolice force, which have impacted training budgets. How are police officers\nmeant to stay on top of cutting-edge crime without the training and system\nimprovements that are needed to cope with it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is time for different stakeholders to join\nforces and to put into place sophisticated and user-informed mechanisms to\nprotect all social media users. This problem is everyone\u2019s problem, and it is\nup to us all to work together to solve it, but we need the tech companies to\nget the ball rolling. <\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are technological teenagers when it comes to social media. Facebook was made publicly available just 14 years ago, and Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram far less. Since then, as a society we have been on a fun-filled spree of communicating, connecting and of satiating our appetites. We have been gluttonous in our demands, wanting more, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":2659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1394,1409,1396],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1621,1622],"class_list":["post-2657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-reads","category-science-and-tech","category-uk"],"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/cropped-gaelle-marcel-156147-unsplash.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2657"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=2657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}