https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/18/instagram-facebook-child-sexual-harassment
Employees fretted over company’s ‘negligible’ response to child grooming, according to internal documents made public in lawsuit
i like how while all of this is happening, the governments do absolutely nothing to stop it. But as soon as encryption or anything that prevents them from spying comes into the play, they try their hardest to outlaw it to "protect the children"
No, Gen z covers people as young as 11 or 12, which is a good guess for "kids on Instagram"
Because Meta/Tiktok/others don't effectively block them from their services, despite the illegality and knowing who is young and who isn't, due to the insane amount of data they collect.
A Facebook exec a while ago literally said that kids are the best demographic to get hooked on your platform.
Statistically speaking, that means a child gets sexually harassed on Facebook every 0.864 seconds.
When I was on facebook, many years ago, I was friends with my tween nieces. I wanted to stay a presence on their pages so that they would have someone to turn to if they had problems.
I CANNOT FUCKING TELL YOU HOW MANY PROBLEMS WERE HAD.... JFK that place is a nightmare for young girls.
I imagine it's a cesspit even for them, despite them not having to deal with the same problems that young girls do.
I fucking hate all meta platforms now. I've been on Facebook since the day it went public (allowing anyone to join instead of just college students) and it's just a nazi recruitment platform now. There is not accountability for bad behaviour, in fact they reward trolls and punish people for dairing to defend themselves.
If I'm harrassed it doesn't go against community standards but if I defend myself I get banned for 30 days for bullying.
It's fucked up and it's deliberate. I've actually gotten a ban for two emojis 🐓🍭 got me a ban but bigotry and hate speech are a ok. Ironically even Jewish people aren't safe on meta platforms. Antisemitic behaviour is rampant, even way before the Gaza war so its not people who give a shit about Palestine.
I don't know, man, if you got banned from Facebook for calling somebody a cocksucker, it sounds like they are trying to hold right wingers accountable.
No, they really aren't. You can't go onto any page run by or made for a minority group without constant nazi level hate and yet Facebook does nothing. If however you defend yourself you get banned for bullying. They enjoy causing harm to vulnerable communities because they like to make money and don't care who gets hurt as long as ad revenue keeps rolling in.
They specifically have hate speech as a reportable offence and do absolutely zero about all forms of hate speech. I've reported people calling others f××××× and they've done nothing. I don't even think they believe n××××× is offensive.
You didn't get the joke.
You are complaining that meta refuses to ban bigots, but aknowledge you arent allowed on the site for calling people cocksuckers.
You're a retard for using it in the first place.
35 years ago, I understood the problems "social media" was going to create. I never played a part of it.
You on the other hand, should have known better. But you weakened out like all your other fad following wannabes friends. Mind numb consumers of content and corporate bullshit. You have but only yourself to blame.
No pity. And if you don't see how social has been manipulated to push agenda for whoever has the most money, your an idiot. The moment that "socials" were looking popular, they were all taken over (BTS controlled) by propaganda pushers.
Fair point, but we should celebrate any privacy wins we can get. That privacy is a consideration at all is a good start.
That’s exactly the problem. Facebook executives knew it could be a disadvantage to be invasive, but then their marketing research showed that was not a valid worry for their user base.
I love the line about "we have 30 tools for [preventing this thing that keeps happening from happening] ". It's marketing-speak all the way down. Like, wow! Thirty tools!
I wonder how they got that 100,000 number. Does Meta see the messages sent over their platforms?
Once upon a time I sent my then boyfriend a nude on Facebook in a private message. An hour later my account got locked, I had to provide an ID card and prove my identity... Mind you, my profile looks normal and active, 80% of my friends where people in my city that I'd met personally, very few of those accounts had like fake names or nick names. My ex swears he did not report it.
After showing my ID, they unlocked my account. I was at work and a picture of my boobs pops up on that screen with Facebook asking me if that's the image I sent 😬 totally automated, except for the ID identification.
My only conclusion is that a system screened my personal conversation between me and my own then boyfriend.
a nude on Facebook in a private message
A private message on fb is still visible and scanned by fb. It is only private in the sense that asking your parents to give a nude pic to your boyfriend is private. The public cannot see it but the delivery service definitely can.
Wait so they see them and proceed to do nothing about it? What's the point of being able to see the messages then?
Tech companies have learned that it behooves them to collect as much data as they can, even if they don't have a present use for it. And with AI being so data-hungry, it appears to be paying off.
It's a GOOD thing those platforms are mainly used by Republicans nowadays! SURELY they'll put an end to it right? Republicans aren't sexually harassing children right?
It's tempting to just pile on with "Meta bad" here as most of us believe that for a multitude of good reasons, but how would likely alternatives handle this better? Most of us on Lemmy are strongly in favor of encrypted messaging for example. As the article mentions, that makes monitoring by third parties impossible.
What if we got all the kids to come to the Fediverse instead of InstaTok? Would-be abusers would most certainly follow. Will Fediverse admins moderate for child safety better than corporate social platforms? Will teenagers want to stay on tightly-moderated servers?
I don't think the solutions are as simple as "Meta should stop being shitty and care about the harm it enables".
I really hate this trend of downplaying valid points by saying "X bad", as if we need to lay out the argument against X, meta in this case, once again, or else we're just being idiots arguing blindly. Meta is bad and pointing out that this is just another reason why is fine.
Will Fediverse admins moderate for child safety better than corporate social platforms?
Sure, you just turn features off.
Will teenagers want to stay on tightly-moderated servers?
Maybe not, but at least we could sleep at night. Meta, on the other hand, sleeps at night on a big pile of money.
These corporations are like honey badgers. They don’t give a shit as long as the profits keep increasing. I think I just dated myself.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Meta estimates about 100,000 children using Facebook and Instagram receive online sexual harassment each day, including “pictures of adult genitalia”, according to internal company documents made public late Wednesday.
The unsealed legal filing includes several allegations against the company based on information the New Mexico attorney general’s office received from presentations by Meta employees and communications between staff.
The filing is the latest in a lawsuit initiated by the New Mexico attorney general’s office on 5 December, which alleges Meta’s social networks have become marketplaces for child predators.
Meta issued a statement in response to Wednesday’s filing: “We want teens to have safe, age-appropriate experiences online, and we have over 30 tools to support them and their parents.
In a July 2020 internal Meta chat, one employee asked: “What specifically are we doing for child grooming (something I just heard about that is happening a lot on TikTok)?” According to the complaint, he received a response: “Somewhere between zero and negligible.”
Yet, an internal 2017 email describes executive opposition to scanning Facebook Messenger for “harmful content” because it would place the service “at a competitive disadvantage vs other apps who might offer more privacy”, the lawsuit states.
The original article contains 606 words, the summary contains 197 words. Saved 67%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Maybe they need to get a backpack with a drink holder on the outside, so people can see their cred?
