Europe puts pressure on Meta to clarify its measures against child abuse

The European Commission has asked Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to clarify what protections are needed to prevent child abuse on its platforms. And he set a deadline: Mark Zuckerberg’s company You have until December 22nd to respond. Otherwise, you risk an official investigation and a fine.

Call for attention from European authorities coincides with new report Wall Street Journal how Instagram algorithms promote pedophile networks. The American newspaper already published a preview of its research in June last year, which showed that the social network connects consumers and sellers of child pornography through recommendations.

A new report explains that Meta hid 190,000 groups in Facebook search results and disabled tens of thousands of other accounts. However, the representative admitted that work was not progressing as quickly as he would have liked. And it appears that regulators in the European Union feel the same way.

Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, has already demanded that Meta look into complaints of child abuse on its platforms. “It is now up to Mark Zuckerberg to explain the situation and take immediate action,” the official said. In November, the European Commission insisted and asked the company to provide details of what it had done to meet its obligations related to the protection of minors.

Meta-algorithms continue to promote child abuse

The European Commission, in its new warning, emphasizes that Meta has an obligation to assess and mitigate the risks associated with the distribution of illegal and harmful content under the new Digital Markets Act. “Failure to respond within the required time limit may result in periodic penalties being imposed.”– he explained in his statement.

The European Union’s executive body specifically asked Meta to provide additional information about the dissemination of self-created child sexual abuse material on Instagram. He also sought clarification about Instagram’s recommendation system and the increase in potentially harmful content.

Investigation Wall Street Journal, conducted in collaboration with Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, warned that Instagram even allows hashtags that explicitly reference pedophilia. They were linked to accounts that advertised the sale of child sexual materials. The profiles often stated that they were run by the children themselves.

This was reported by the non-profit organization Canadian Center for Child Protection. a network of Instagram accounts continues to live stream videos of child sexual abuse, although they informed Meta of its existence months ago. This network includes accounts with up to 10 million followers.

The same thing happens on Facebook. HE confirmed the existence of community groups that openly discussed sex with minors. And also how the algorithm recommends similar groups to users with from 200,000 to 800,000 subscribers.

What do Mark Zuckerberg’s people do?

When researchers from Wall Street Journal When these groups were reported through user reports, the company said they were not violating the rules. “We have reviewed and found that the group does not violate our community standards.”Meta responded to a post about a large Facebook group called Incest.

Mark Zuckerberg’s people say they have updated their software tools to address these problems. The goal is to use technology to identify “potentially suspicious adults”, assessing their behavior. These systems were previously used to prevent children from being searched for and contacting Facebook or Instagram accounts, the company explained. The idea now is to prevent pedophiles from following each other and forming groups.

Facebook’s “Groups You Should Join” feature suggests topics such as kidnapping. It has also been shown that discussions about “dating” children as young as 11 and even the use of chloroform by women and children.

Meta also said today that it has expanded its list of terms, phrases and emoji related to child abuse. It uses machine learning to discover connections between different search queries, he explained in a blog post. Mark Zuckerberg, along with other leaders of major technology companies, will testify before the US Senate.. in January 2024 on the entire issue of online child exploitation.