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Facebook at least claims to be a leader in scanning for and detecting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on their platform. As a result of their diligence and

Facebook at least claims to be a leader in scanning for and detecting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on their platform. As a result of their diligence and size Facebook reports a lot ~90+% of all CSAM reports[1]. That fact suggests that Facebook really is better than most when it comes to detecting CSAM because there is nothing inherent to Facebook that would make it a more appealing platform for CSAM than pornography websites (e.g. MindGeek), 4chan, or snapchat. When the media get a hold of a fact like 90% of CSAM reports come from Facebook they jump to the conclusion that Facebook is a "hotbed" of child pornography - as in this example[2]. Facebook's efforts and openness about the problem are fuel for click bait criticism of Facebook. Naturally, this has a result. Facebook, in part, I think, because of negative feedback, wants to move towards end to end encryption in their messenger platforms. This will make it impossible for their automated systems to detect CSAM in messages and so their CSAM report numbers will fall. Everyone wins. Well, except for the children who are now exploited behind the protections of end to end encrypted messages. This article seems similar, in part, to what I've described above. Facebook is unusually transparent to media companies by providing their CrowdTangle tool to media and academics. This level of transparency is not offered by competitors and so Facebook, with some data available, looks worse than competitors who have no available data to compare to. I write "in part" because here the content isn't inherently bad the way CSAM is. Instead, it's just political messaging that some media groups do not like. Neither the article here nor in the New York Times even try to address whether Facebook is doing something to cause this, or whether Facebook's audience simply likes Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino. Is Facebook giving preferential treatment to these people, or do Facebook users just like the "wrong" pundits? 1 - https://www.missingkids.org/content/dam/missingkids/gethelp/2020-reports-by-esp.pdf https://www.missingkids.org/content/dam/missingkids/gethelp/... 2- https://www.thedailybeast.com/facebook-a-hotbed-of-child-sexual-abuse-material-with-203-million-reports-far-more-than-pornhub https://www.thedailybeast.com/facebook-a-hotbed-of-child-sex...

mlindner 5y ago
Your post seems to imply that end to end encryption is bad and that we need a surveillance state run either by corporations or government in order to protect children. We need to not head down this path. Protecting children has always historically been led by their own parents and we should empower that. Improvements should always be about parental education (teaching parents to recognize the signs of abuse/grooming before abuse) and cultural education (teaching about the harms of sexual abuse so that potential offenders don't act). Contrary to popular belief, most pedophiles are not actually psychopaths and actually have consciences and if they see the damage that their actions could cause, they're less likely to act and more likely to find non-damaging outlets for their urges (simulated or drawn material, as two examples).
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  Facebook reports ~20 million instances of child sexual abuse materials a year. My understanding is that this material is largely transmitted by message (i.e. people aren't posting it on their wall, but sharing it in chat). Regardless of your ideological convictions, the fact remains that one trade off of end to end encryption is a reduction in ability to detect, track, and report CSAM. My intuition is that our current trajectory will lead us to a "worst of all worlds" case where governments continue to spy on and suppress people by subverting end to end encryption at some level, but pedophiles will trade their material with impunity. Ideally, I would like to find the opposite compromise, where we could detect and catch criminals while maintaining privacy. This has been attempted by law, due process, warrants, and such - but that attempt is subverted by the government not following the law.
  - Craighead 5y ago
    Why do we allow fake corporate sponsored content like yours on HN?
  - mlindner 5y ago
    They don't actually describe what kind of content this is nor whether there's false positive in those reports to my knowledge. I wonder how many parents posting "babies first bath" type photos get accidentally labeled. Then there's the question whether they're labeling adult anime photos as child abuse imagery which could also greatly inflate the numbers. 20 million sounds like a ridiculously unrealistic high number. There just isn't that much of that type of content out there. A reasonable number would be in the 10s of thousands I would think.
    - HNdev1995 5y ago
      20 million a year globally? That seems likely to me. These aren't unique instances.
jessaustin 5y ago
It seems possible that the sort of broken brains who send (and possess in the first place) such material are more likely to use the Facebook platform than they are to use competing social network platforms.
wil421 5y ago
> As a result of their diligence and size Facebook reports a lot ~90+% of all CSAM reports[1]. That fact suggests that Facebook really is better than most when it comes to detecting CSAM because there is nothing inherent to Facebook that would make it a more appealing platform for CSAM than pornography websites (e.g. MindGeek), 4chan, or snapchat. Let the numbers speak: 4chan: 20 million visits.[1] Pornhub: 2.8 billion visits.[2] FB Monthly Traffic: 23 billion visits[2] Just for fun, Netflix: 2.2 billion. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan [2]https://happymag.tv/turns-out-pornhub-gets-more-visitors-per-month-than-netflix-and-im-looking-at-you/ https://happymag.tv/turns-out-pornhub-gets-more-visitors-per...
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  Interesting numbers. Thanks for finding them. I think they support my intuition. MindGeek, which owns Pornhub as well as RedTube, YouPorn, and others, reports only 13k instances to Facebook's 20 million. By traffic MindGeek has, we can call it, a tenth of Facebook's traffic, but they have 6 thousandths of Facebook's reports. Of course maybe there is a different nature of the companies. Most visitors to MindGeek properties, presumably, are there to consume content rather than share it. Maybe Facebook's model enables users to connect to one another and that facilitates the exchange of CSAM.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
fossuser 5y ago
FB's move to e2e encryption explicitly discusses how they still will have reporting of content so users can report CSAM and send the plaintext back to FB. Your framing of their motives here is both cynical and wrong. Novel CSAM gets caught primarily because of users reporting it - not because of outside detection (with known stuff there are some digital fingerprinting ways to block content). They already operate WhatsApp which is e2e encryption and have to apply a lot of these strategies anyway. Weirdly LinkedIn is apparently a hotbed for CSAM too and they also have people tasked with this. This problem is widespread: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/28/us/child-sex-abuse.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/28/us/child-sex-...
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  I don't think my framing is cynical (or wrong). Facebook has a clear incentive to reduce CSAM reports and end to end encryption will help by preventing automated systems, which do most of the detection, from detecting CSAM in messages. I don't think its Facebook's only motive for implementing end to end encryption, but I doubt they haven't considered it. It's good to give users the options to report such materials. As I mentioned though, the majority of CSAM detection is done by automated systems. I might guess that if two pedophiles are trading CSAM via Facebook messenger they will be both be unlikely to report the other.
herbst 5y ago
First time I found Facebook was because it was so well organized for specialized porn. You'd find groups for every kink and fetish similar to NSFW subreddits today. Only a year or so later people here started to use it as social network and I was confused. Not saying it still is that way, but the way how Facebook works (closed groups where you have to ask for access) and censorship still is slow and uneffective I am sure it is still a preferable platform.

mlindner 5y ago

Your post seems to imply that end to end encryption is bad and that we need a surveillance state run either by corporations or government in order to protect children. We need to not head down this path. Protecting children has always historically been led by their own parents and we should empower that. Improvements should always be about parental education (teaching parents to recognize the signs of abuse/grooming before abuse) and cultural education (teaching about the harms of sexual abuse so that potential offenders don't act). Contrary to popular belief, most pedophiles are not actually psychopaths and actually have consciences and if they see the damage that their actions could cause, they're less likely to act and more likely to find non-damaging outlets for their urges (simulated or drawn material, as two examples).

ALittleLight 5y ago
Facebook reports ~20 million instances of child sexual abuse materials a year. My understanding is that this material is largely transmitted by message (i.e. people aren't posting it on their wall, but sharing it in chat). Regardless of your ideological convictions, the fact remains that one trade off of end to end encryption is a reduction in ability to detect, track, and report CSAM. My intuition is that our current trajectory will lead us to a "worst of all worlds" case where governments continue to spy on and suppress people by subverting end to end encryption at some level, but pedophiles will trade their material with impunity. Ideally, I would like to find the opposite compromise, where we could detect and catch criminals while maintaining privacy. This has been attempted by law, due process, warrants, and such - but that attempt is subverted by the government not following the law.
- Craighead 5y ago
  Why do we allow fake corporate sponsored content like yours on HN?
- mlindner 5y ago
  They don't actually describe what kind of content this is nor whether there's false positive in those reports to my knowledge. I wonder how many parents posting "babies first bath" type photos get accidentally labeled. Then there's the question whether they're labeling adult anime photos as child abuse imagery which could also greatly inflate the numbers. 20 million sounds like a ridiculously unrealistic high number. There just isn't that much of that type of content out there. A reasonable number would be in the 10s of thousands I would think.
  - HNdev1995 5y ago
    20 million a year globally? That seems likely to me. These aren't unique instances.

jessaustin 5y ago

It seems possible that the sort of broken brains who send (and possess in the first place) such material are more likely to use the Facebook platform than they are to use competing social network platforms.

wil421 5y ago

> As a result of their diligence and size Facebook reports a lot ~90+% of all CSAM reports[1]. That fact suggests that Facebook really is better than most when it comes to detecting CSAM because there is nothing inherent to Facebook that would make it a more appealing platform for CSAM than pornography websites (e.g. MindGeek), 4chan, or snapchat. Let the numbers speak: 4chan: 20 million visits.[1] Pornhub: 2.8 billion visits.[2] FB Monthly Traffic: 23 billion visits[2] Just for fun, Netflix: 2.2 billion. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan [2]https://happymag.tv/turns-out-pornhub-gets-more-visitors-per-month-than-netflix-and-im-looking-at-you/ https://happymag.tv/turns-out-pornhub-gets-more-visitors-per...

ALittleLight 5y ago
Interesting numbers. Thanks for finding them. I think they support my intuition. MindGeek, which owns Pornhub as well as RedTube, YouPorn, and others, reports only 13k instances to Facebook's 20 million. By traffic MindGeek has, we can call it, a tenth of Facebook's traffic, but they have 6 thousandths of Facebook's reports. Of course maybe there is a different nature of the companies. Most visitors to MindGeek properties, presumably, are there to consume content rather than share it. Maybe Facebook's model enables users to connect to one another and that facilitates the exchange of CSAM.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

fossuser 5y ago

FB's move to e2e encryption explicitly discusses how they still will have reporting of content so users can report CSAM and send the plaintext back to FB. Your framing of their motives here is both cynical and wrong. Novel CSAM gets caught primarily because of users reporting it - not because of outside detection (with known stuff there are some digital fingerprinting ways to block content). They already operate WhatsApp which is e2e encryption and have to apply a lot of these strategies anyway. Weirdly LinkedIn is apparently a hotbed for CSAM too and they also have people tasked with this. This problem is widespread: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/28/us/child-sex-abuse.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/28/us/child-sex-...

ALittleLight 5y ago
I don't think my framing is cynical (or wrong). Facebook has a clear incentive to reduce CSAM reports and end to end encryption will help by preventing automated systems, which do most of the detection, from detecting CSAM in messages. I don't think its Facebook's only motive for implementing end to end encryption, but I doubt they haven't considered it. It's good to give users the options to report such materials. As I mentioned though, the majority of CSAM detection is done by automated systems. I might guess that if two pedophiles are trading CSAM via Facebook messenger they will be both be unlikely to report the other.

herbst 5y ago

First time I found Facebook was because it was so well organized for specialized porn. You'd find groups for every kink and fetish similar to NSFW subreddits today. Only a year or so later people here started to use it as social network and I was confused. Not saying it still is that way, but the way how Facebook works (closed groups where you have to ask for access) and censorship still is slow and uneffective I am sure it is still a preferable platform.