childexploitation
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Twitter suspensions for promoting terrorism drop yet again
Twitter has released its latest transparency report, covering July-December 2018. During that time, it suspended 166,513 accounts for promoting terrorism. It said 91 percent of them were identified by internal systems, and the figure is 19 percent lower than in the previous six months. The company suggested there's a steady decrease in terrorist groups trying to use the platform, party due to its "zero-tolerance policy enforcement." It noted that, in most cases, it takes action against these accounts while people are setting them up and before they ever post a tweet.
AT&T pulls ads from YouTube over pedophilia controversy
As YouTube continues to struggle with the issue of child predators latching on to content for kids, the video platform has lost another major advertiser. AT&T has decided to pull its ads from YouTube, according to CNBC. The telecom giant joins Disney, Nestle and Fortnite maker Epic Games in removing advertising from YouTube while the issue persists.
Disney, Nestle pull YouTube ads in uproar over child videos
YouTube is still grappling with predatory comments on child videos, and it's once again facing the consequences. Bloomberg has learned that Disney, Fortnite creator Epic Games, Nestle and Oetker have "paused" spending on YouTube ads after video blogger Mark Watson shared a video showing how comments on videos with children were being used to enable an ad hoc softcore child porn ring. Commenters would flag videos where underage girls were performing supposedly suggestive actions, such as gymnastics, while YouTube's own algorithms would inadvertently suggest similar videos.
UK to question Tinder, Grindr over age checks in dating apps
Tinder and Grindr are about to face close scrutiny over their age policies. The UK's Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Wright, plans to ask the dating app giants about their age verification and safety systems after a Sunday Times report revealed dozens of incidents of sexual assault and exploitation against children who managed to sign up for the app, including over 30 instances of rape. He wanted to know what tools Tinder and Grindr had in place to "keep children safe from harm," and vowed "further action" if the dating services didn't provide adequate answers.
Facebook uses machine learning to fight child exploitation
Today, Facebook's Global Head of Safety, Antigone Davis, published a blog post outlining how the social network fights child exploitation. The company uses standard industry practices, such as requiring users to be 13 years or older, using photo-matching to identify known images and reporting any violations to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
New Mexico asks BitTorrent what it does to stop child exploitation
New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas is worried that technology is enabling child exploitation, and he's putting pressure on the companies creating that technology. His office has sent a letter to BitTorrent asking it to cooperate with an investigation into tech aiding child exploitation. The official wanted to know what BitTorrent is doing to block, monitor and report illegal material in its uTorrent client, and was concerned that the company's Cyber Ghost VPN was helping criminals hide their tracks by securing traffic. He also asked for subscriber counts in the state and the number of people removed so far.
iOS app from US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement designed to hunt down child predators
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has released an app that it hopes will engage the public in helping hunt down child predators. Operation Predator (free) is designed for the public to help ICE Homeland Security Investigations agents identify and locate suspected child predators. The front page of the app provides two large buttons for submitting tips by phone or online, and there's a scrolling list of current alerts with photos and names. In addition, the app provides news about the latest investigations and arrests, and will provide alerts when new suspects are being sought. Operation Predator is also the place to find information about ICE's partners in fighting the exploitation of children: Missingkids.com, the ICAC Task Force, Virtual Global Taskforce, INTERPOL and Amber Alert. [via AppleInsider]
