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How Facebook and Instagram became marketplaces for child sex trafficking

theguardian.com

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Re: How Facebook and Instagram became marketplaces for child sex trafficking

#31

Post by waselighis »

bootsmann wrote: post #17

> This legal inconsistency – the fact that child sexual abuse imagery must be reported, but reporting child sex trafficking is not legally required – is a major problem, says Staca Shehan, vice-president of the analytical services division at NCMEC. This seems to be a pretty significant legal oversight.

This seems like an obvious first step to combat the problem. Much of the activity is public too, it's not all in private messages. The article does make a good point that it's much easier to detect CSAM than trafficking, but still, I'm sure Meta and other platforms could be doing so much more to detect this activity and reporting it.

Re: How Facebook and Instagram became marketplaces for child sex trafficking

#32

Post by hermannj314 »

postdb wrote: post #26
hermannj314 wrote: post #9

Crimes are committed all the time using phones and yet, we do not allow phone companies to monitor, record and report the content of pur phone conversations. And they can't just add a line in a terms of service, they have no legal right to do it. (Ignore the issue of Metadata, I mean the audio portions of our calls) So why have we accepted it is ok for all of our private electronic conversations to be monitored then?…

>Crimes are committed all the time using phones and yet, we do not allow phone companies to monitor, record and report the content of pur phone conversations. And they can't just add a line in a terms of service, they have no legal right to do it. (Ignore the issue of Metadata, I mean the audio portions of our calls) Are you sure about that? It is my understanding all telco traffic are monitored. Some countries may h…

Correct, I cant speak for all the world. In the United States, only a party to a phone conversation may record that call. Some states have stronger requirements than that, requiring all parties to consent.

The phone company can't listen to your phone calls and there is definitely no public expectation or journalists demanding that AT&T and others do something about preventing crimes that used a phone by recording all calls and passing them through a Crime Detector (TM).

Re: How Facebook and Instagram became marketplaces for child sex trafficking

#33

Post by mc32 »

throwaway59601 wrote: post #29
psychlops wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unusual if they didn't have unmonitored access to the internet. Helicopter parenting takes a lot of energy and technical parents can only do so much. A 12yo without a phone is a social pariah. What is odd to me in the story was the absence of a moral compass of the child and lack of knowledge of the internet as a potentially hostile place.

That's what happens when parents restrict kids instead of teaching them about the dangers.

Because we know that adults who get addicted to deleterious drugs in adulthood didn't know the dangers of it, right? Sometimes availability and the wrong situation can land people in a lot of trouble. Finance is another area where despite knowing the severe drawbacks. People in the wrong circumstance may seek out loan sharks.

Re: How Facebook and Instagram became marketplaces for child sex trafficking

#34

Post by waselighis »

psychlops wrote: post #28
ShowalkKama wrote: post #10

why did a 12yo child have unmonitored access to the internet?

It's unusual if they didn't have unmonitored access to the internet. Helicopter parenting takes a lot of energy and technical parents can only do so much. A 12yo without a phone is a social pariah. What is odd to me in the story was the absence of a moral compass of the child and lack of knowledge of the internet as a potentially hostile place.

>What is odd to me in the story was the absence of a moral compass of the child and lack of knowledge of the internet as a potentially hostile place.

The term I see being used again and again is "grooming". I also saw another story that mentioned one person who was convicted, and reportedly contacted THOUSANDS of children online (using many fake profiles, of course). While most children probably aren't being pulled in, it seems like they're "fishing" for the vulnerable few that they can manipulate into being trafficked.

A public education campaign, especially in schools, could do much to reduce the problem, but still there will always be those children who are vulnerable. We should still try to educate children and parents on the dangers, but like climate change, there is no one solution to the problem.

Re: How Facebook and Instagram became marketplaces for child sex trafficking

#35

Post by pc86 »

hermannj314 wrote: post #32
postdb wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Crimes are committed all the time using phones and yet, we do not allow phone companies to monitor, record and report the content of pur phone conversations. And they can't just add a line in a terms of service, they have no legal right to do it. (Ignore the issue of Metadata, I mean the audio portions of our calls) Are you sure about that? It is my understanding all telco traffic are monitored. Some countries may h…

Correct, I cant speak for all the world. In the United States, only a party to a phone conversation may record that call. Some states have stronger requirements than that, requiring all parties to consent. The phone company can't listen to your phone calls and there is definitely no public expectation or journalists demanding that AT&T and others do something about preventing crimes that used a phone by recording all…

Ignore the illegal spying by US intelligence agencies on American citizens on American soil (past and/or whatever is still ongoing). Is this an example where the US may "let" a friendly nation spy on US citizens and then just gets that information from them?

So rather than the NSA hoovering up US phone call content, which they almost certainly have the capability of doing, they just let the UK do it for them?

Re: How Facebook and Instagram became marketplaces for child sex trafficking

#36

Post by Nextgrid »

Facebook has a history of letting crime groups operate even if they are obvious and don't even try to avoid detection: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/04/a-year-later-cybercrime-...

Is it really surprising though? Criminals, including pimps and child rapists, still watch ads, "engage" with the platform and increase the user numbers, and even encourage their peers to also join/engage with the platform. For something like Facebook surely it's a no-brainer to not miss out on all this "engagement".

Re: How Facebook and Instagram became marketplaces for child sex trafficking

#37

Post by tony_cannistra »

Nextgrid wrote: post #36

Facebook has a history of letting crime groups operate even if they are obvious and don't even try to avoid detection: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/04/a-year-later-cybercrime-... Is it really surprising though? Criminals, including pimps and child rapists, still watch ads, "engage" with the platform and increase the user numbers, and even encourage their peers to also join/engage with the platform. For something…

This is nonsense.

It is obvious to me that any bad PR is orders of magnitude worse for the business than the potential benefit of having even hundreds of thousands of criminals "engaging" on the platform.

Re: How Facebook and Instagram became marketplaces for child sex trafficking

#38

Post by throwaway59601 »

mc32 wrote: post #33
throwaway59601 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what happens when parents restrict kids instead of teaching them about the dangers.

Because we know that adults who get addicted to deleterious drugs in adulthood didn't know the dangers of it, right? Sometimes availability and the wrong situation can land people in a lot of trouble. Finance is another area where despite knowing the severe drawbacks. People in the wrong circumstance may seek out loan sharks.

Not sure why you're bringing up drugs here. We're talking about webpages, not substances directly altering your neurochemistry.

But yeah, indeed - usually it's a fault of parenting. Instead of properly teaching about the dangers and responsibility (in case of weed/alcohol, or finance) they made it a tabu.

Re: How Facebook and Instagram became marketplaces for child sex trafficking

#39

Post by lighthammer »

pc86 wrote: post #35
hermannj314 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, I cant speak for all the world. In the United States, only a party to a phone conversation may record that call. Some states have stronger requirements than that, requiring all parties to consent. The phone company can't listen to your phone calls and there is definitely no public expectation or journalists demanding that AT&T and others do something about preventing crimes that used a phone by recording all…

Ignore the illegal spying by US intelligence agencies on American citizens on American soil (past and/or whatever is still ongoing). Is this an example where the US may "let" a friendly nation spy on US citizens and then just gets that information from them? So rather than the NSA hoovering up US phone call content, which they almost certainly have the capability of doing, they just let the UK do it for them?

That happened. Can’t recall the source however the UK was spying on US citizens and passing to the US through a “Five-Eyes” agreement.

Re: How Facebook and Instagram became marketplaces for child sex trafficking

#40

Post by psychlops »

waselighis wrote: post #34
psychlops wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unusual if they didn't have unmonitored access to the internet. Helicopter parenting takes a lot of energy and technical parents can only do so much. A 12yo without a phone is a social pariah. What is odd to me in the story was the absence of a moral compass of the child and lack of knowledge of the internet as a potentially hostile place.

>What is odd to me in the story was the absence of a moral compass of the child and lack of knowledge of the internet as a potentially hostile place. The term I see being used again and again is "grooming". I also saw another story that mentioned one person who was convicted, and reportedly contacted THOUSANDS of children online (using many fake profiles, of course). While most children probably aren't being pulled i…

Well said. I wonder if there is a way to target a particular profile of child who might be vulnerable and direct education to those areas. Maybe a bad idea but for example DM'ing using the methods of those convicted.
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