Oct 28, 2021
Whistleblower: Facebook's response to child abuse 'inadequate'
A former Facebook employee has told US authorities the company's efforts to remove child abuse material from the platform were "Inadequate" and "Under-resourced". The latest revelations come from an unnamed whistleblower, with inside knowledge of the teams within Facebook set up to intercept harmful material. Facebook doesn't know the full scale of the problem of child abuse material because it "doesn't track it". Paedophiles "use code words to describe the type of child, the type of sexual activity...they use Facebook's encrypted Messenger service or Whatsapp to share these codes, which change routinely. Facebook told the BBC that it does scan private groups for content that violates its polices and has 40,000 people working on safety and security, with an investment of more than $13bn since 2016.It said it had actioned 25.7 million pieces of content for child sexual exploitation in Q2 of 2021.Sir Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, said: "These revelations raise profound and disturbing questions about Facebook's commitment to combat illegal child abuse on its services."For the first time, evidence from inside Facebook suggests they have abdicated their responsibility to comprehensively tackle child sexual abuse material".
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