Page 2 - Child Abuse

Meta, X, TikTok CEOs ripped by US senators over child online safety

"These companies must be reined in, or the worst is yet to come," Senator Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the committee, said

Meta, TikTok & other social media CEOs to testify on child exploitation

Sexual predators. Addictive features. Self-harm and eating disorders. Unrealistic beauty standards. Bullying. These are just some of the issues young people are dealing with on social media - and children's advocates and lawmakers say companies are not doing enough to protect them. On Wednesday, the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X and other social media companies are testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee about child exploitation on their platforms, as lawmakers, families and advocates are growing increasingly concerned about the effects of social media on young people's lives. While Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is a veteran of congressional hearings since his first one over the Cambridge Analytica privacy debacle in 2018, it will only be the second time for TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and the first for Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and Discord CEO Jason Citron are also scheduled to testify. We understand that they are companies and they have to make profit. But whe

Documents underscore Meta's 'historical reluctance' to protect children

Newly unredacted documents from New Mexico's lawsuit against Meta underscore the company's historical reluctance to keep children safe on its platforms, the complaint says. New Mexico's Attorney General Raul Torrez sued Facebook and Instagram owner Meta in December, saying the company failed to protect young users from exposure to child sexual abuse material and allowed adults to solicit explicit imagery from them. In the passages freshly unredacted from the lawsuit Wednesday, internal employee messages and presentations from 2020 and 2021 show Meta was aware of issues such as adult strangers being able to contact children on Instagram, the sexualization of minors on that platform, and the dangers of its people you may know feature that recommends connections between adults and children. But Meta dragged its feet when it came to addressing the issues, the passages show. Instagram, for instance, began restricting adults' ability to message minors in 2021. One internal document ...

Study shows AI image-generators being trained on explicit pics of children

Hidden inside the foundation of popular artificial intelligence image-generators are thousands of images of child sexual abuse, according to a new report that urges companies to take action to address a harmful flaw in the technology they built. Those same images have made it easier for AI systems to produce realistic and explicit imagery of fake children as well as transform social media photos of fully clothed real teens into nudes, much to the alarm of schools and law enforcement around the world. Until recently, anti-abuse researchers thought the only way that some unchecked AI tools produced abusive imagery of children was by essentially combining what they've learned from two separate buckets of online images - adult pornography and benign photos of kids. But the Stanford Internet Observatory found more than 3,200 images of suspected child sexual abuse in the giant AI database LAION, an index of online images and captions that's been used to train leading AI image-makers such

Australian watchdog fines X $385,000 for not tackling child abuse content

Australia's online safety watchdog said on Monday it had fined X the social media platform formerly known as Twitter 610,500 Australian dollars (USD 385,000) for failing to fully explain how it tackled child sexual exploitation content. Australia's eSafety Commission describes itself as the world's first government agency dedicated to keeping people safe online. The commission issued legal transparency notices early this year to X and other platforms questioning what they were doing to tackle a proliferation of child sexual exploitation, sexual extortion and the livestreaming of child sexual abuse. eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said X and Google had not complied with the notices because both companies had failed to adequately respond to a number of questions. The platform renamed X by its new owner Elon Musk was the worst offender, providing no answers to some questions including how many staff remained on the trust and safety team that worked on preventing harmful and .

Telegram bans 2,114 groups, channels related to child abuse on Oct 6

Mobile messaging platform Telegram has banned 2,114 groups and channels related to child abuse content, according to a Telegram channel 'Stop Child Abuse'. The instant messaging platform is one of three entities to which the government on Friday issued notices to remove child sexual abuse material in India. "2,114 groups and channels related to child abuse banned on October 6. Total this month: 10,312," the update on the channel said. The company did not share the break up of banned groups linked or having an impact on Indian jurisdiction. Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajiv Chandrasekhar had warned that if social media intermediaries do not act swiftly, their 'safe harbour' under section 79 of the IT Act would be withdrawn, implying that the platforms can be directly prosecuted under the applicable laws and rules even though the content may have not been uploaded by them. Telegram in response to the notice said it is always committed to upholding legal and ethical ...

'446,000 missing children found since 2015, most reunited with families'

Most of the 4.46 lakh missing children found since 2015 have been reunited with their families, Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani said on Saturday. Speaking at the inaugural session of the national annual stakeholders consultation on children in conflict with law, Irani said the children were found through the ministry's Khoya Paya portal, launched in 2015. "Today, we can proudly say that close to 4,46,000 missing children have been found, of which 3,97,530 children have been successfully matched and reunited with their families," she said. Irani said since the amendment of the Juvenile Justice Act in 2021, under which district magistrates instead of courts have been given the responsibility to issue adoption orders, as many as 2,600 children have been adopted. Irani warned stakeholders against profiteering from institutionalising children, saying, "If profit becomes the core of our efforts, then many children will not find the loving homes they deserve." During th

UP launches 'Operation Conviction' for cow slaughter, child abuse cases

'Operation Conviction' will ensure the immediate arrest of criminals, the collection of strong evidence against them, quality investigation, and effective representation of cases in courts

Closely monitoring Guwahati child abuse case: CM Himanta Biswa Sarma

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday said he is closely monitoring a case in which a doctor couple was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing children who they claimed were adopted by them. Sarma, while addressing a press conference, said he will write to the Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court to ensure that justice is delivered within six months. 'I have asked the police to file the chargesheet within 30-45 days. I am monitoring the case on a day-to-day basis," he said. A doctor and his family's domestic help were arrested in Guwahati on Saturday, while his psychiatrist wife, who is frequently seen in local TV channels' talk shows on mental health, was caught on Sunday while trying to flee from the city. The police have slapped various Sections of the IPC along with Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO) against the doctor couple and their maid, who has also been arrested. After their arrest, they were produced before the Chief Judicial

UK PM Rishi Sunak creates new taskforce to go after 'vile' child abusers

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday vowed to do whatever it takes as he condemned the political correctness which has prevented action against vile criminals behind the sexual abuse of children and young women and launched a new taskforce to go after such gangs. Sunak's announcement comes a day after his Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, said that the perpetrators of such crimes are groups of men, almost all British Pakistani, but that authorities have turned a blind eye to these signs of abuse out of political correctness, out of fear, of being called racists, out of fear, of being called bigoted. Asked about the ethnicity of the criminals during a visit to Rochdale one of the cities with a history of British Pakistani grooming gangs, Sunak told reporters: All forms of child sexual exploitation carried out by whoever are horrific and wrong". "But with the specific issue of grooming gangs, we have had several independent inquiries look at the incidents here in Rochdale, bu

TikTok's moderators still review child abuse despite vow to exit business

The revelations highlight the challenges that social media companies and their content review teams face in protecting their users from extremely disturbing material

Twitter under Musk not doing enough to curb child abuse content: Reports

The New York Times found images containing 10 child abuse victims in 150 instances across multiple accounts on Twitter

UNGA designates Nov 18 as World Day for prevention of child sexual abuse

The resolution invites all member states, relevant organisations of the UN and other international organisations to commemorate this World Day each year in a manner that each considers appropriate

Tamil Nadu Police to assign support person for child abuse victims

Suitable person will be assigned to the children through the Child welfare committees in the concerned districts to support and assist the abused children during investigation and trial

Google AI flags parents' accounts for potential abuse over kid's photos

Tech giant Google's artificial intelligence (AI) has reportedly flagged parents' accounts for potential abuse over nude photos of their sick kids

Pope Francis set for 'historic apology' for school abuses across Canada

Thousands of Indigenous persons are expected to converge on Monday on the small Alberta prairie community of Maskwacis to hear a long-awaited apology from Pope Francis for generations of abuse

R Kelly sentenced to 30 years in sex trafficking, racketeering charges

R Kelly, 55, was convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking last year at a trial that gave voice to accusers who had once wondered if their stories were being ignored because they were Black women

Covid-19: 2021 worst year on record for online child sexual abuse, says IWF

The year 2021 was the worst on record for child sexual abuse online, according to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).

Kathua case: Parents of victim anguished as two convicts walk out on bail

The parents of an eight-year-old nomad girl are anguished that while their appeal for enhancement of sentence against six people remains unheard, two convicts were released on bail in the case

Trial in 99% of POCSO cases was still pending by Dec 2020: Study

The data showed the highest number of rape victims were in the age group of 12 to 18 years