Child pornography
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Pinterest's moderation doesn't catch some abusive and false material
Pinterest's emphasis on hiding harmful content over removing it has left some abusive and false material visible.
Microsoft releases a free tool to fight online child abuse
Microsoft has developed a new technique to detect and report predators who attempt to lure children online. Dubbed "Project Artemis," the technology will be made available for free to qualifying online service companies that offer a chat function.
Law enforcement shuts down largest known child porn site on the dark web
The US just scored a significant coup against crime on the dark web. Federal agents and international partners have taken down Welcome To Video, believed to be the largest child pornography darknet site to date based on its sheer volume of content. Law enforcement has seized a South Korea server for WTV that held over 8TB of disturbing content, including more than 250,000 videos. It appeared to be a source for exploitative media rather than just a distributor, as 45 percent of the videos studied so far included images that were new to investigators.
Former YouTube star sentenced to 10 years in prison over child porn
A one-time YouTube star is facing the consequences of apparent abuse of his audience. A judge has sentenced acapella cover producer Austin Jones to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in February to receiving child porn. The internet personality admitted encouraging six girls, including one who was 14 years old, to produce sexually explicit videos to show they were his "biggest fan." He'd also acknowledged using Facebook on about 30 other instances to ask underage girls to send explicit photos and videos, and told some targets that these were part of a "modeling opportunity," according to the Department of Justice.
YouTube axes hundreds of channels over child exploitation concerns
YouTube has removed more than 400 channels and disabled comments on "tens of millions of videos" over the last few days after reports suggested a child porn ring was persisting on the platform. In a comment on a video published by Philip DeFranco Wednesday, the service's creator relations team said YouTube's staff are working "incredibly hard to root out horrible behavior," and have "reported illegal comments to law enforcement."
EU Written Declaration 29 wants you to think of the children, hand over all your search results
Oh boy, the EU's back on the crusade path again. This time, the Brussels brain trust has decided it will end pedophilia, child pornography, and other miscreant activities by simply and easily recording everyone's search results. Because, as we all know, Google searches are the central cog by which the seedy underworld operates. Here's how Declaration 29 sees it: Asks the Council and the Commission to implement Directive 2006/24/EC and extend it to search engines in order to tackle online child pornography and sex offending rapidly and effectively. Directive 2006/24/EC is also known as the Data Retention Directive, and permits (nay, compels) states to keep track of all electronic communications, including phone calls, emails and browsing sessions. Describing the stupefying invasion of privacy that its expansion represents as an "early warning system," the European Parliament is currently collecting signatures from MEPs and is nearing the majority it requires to adopt the Declaration. Guess when Google does it, it's a horrible infraction of human rights, but when the EU does it, it's some noble life-saving endeavor. Unsurprisingly, not everyone is convinced that sifting through people's search results will produce concrete crime-reducing results, and Swedish Pirate Party MEP Christian Engstrom puts together a very good explanation of what Written Declaration 29 entails and why it's such a bad idea. Give it a read, won't ya?
