Facebook failed to remove sexualised images of children and then call the police on the BBC
- Thread starter Greebo
- Start date
Its a bit of an own goal. Yes I know the BBC were fishing for a story and some people would say the BBC should have just sent the links and evidence to the Police from the start but to check the photos, pass them as fine but then report the person sending them for transmitting offensive sexually child abuse pictures is not on. They either are or they aren't.
Deleted member 66701
Deleted member 66701
They don't do the bare minimum though - they actually have some fairly sophisticated routines in place to prevent such issue and it's being reviewed and enhanced all the time.
According to FB they don't use algorithms for reported pictures, they use humans to check. And the BBC was following up a similar thing from 5 years ago and FB has claimed its improved things since then. Clearly, with several billion users, FB dont have enough staff on reviewing pictures or they aren't adequately trained if out of 100 sexual child photos including one still from an actual child abuse video they only flagged 18 yet later sent the other 82 to the police and reported the BBC for sending them via email.
They have some sophisticated image recognition (which also generates alt text/description for uploaded images) that can id all kinds of stuff - which would flag stuff like that for someone to follow up - can't really ask for more than that - the problem probably is that while it can flag something that is obviously child porn it can't tell the difference between a normal child photo and something suggestive collected by a paedophile group and individual images submitted for follow up would again not be suspicious in isolation so would be passed most likely by someone checking as they don't contain something of an overt sexual nature - though it would be fair to ask questions about how much is seen in context i.e. if they are also looking at the groups, etc. the images are part of.
There are a multitude of reasons why FB may not immediately remove all reported images in a private group. The BBC's reporting on this should be ignored. Firstly FB has ties with organisations which are far higher than "the police" lol. And it's a known fact that media reporting simply pushes things which are currently under a watchful eye, further underground.
FB is fully and comprehensively tracked anyway, like all social media. Even things like where you hover your mouse and for how long, are tracked and part of massive data mining/machine learning initiatives. Even things like what part of the screen you're looking at (if supported).
The pedo is going to be a pedo, regardless of FB. It is better for the authorities if they are doing it in "private" groups on a platform like FB. In fact that's the ultimate platform, the authorities have them EXACTLY where they want them!
Well done BBC.
In fact the story says this:
"Facebook reported the BBC journalists involved to the police"
So some guy accesses a "private" pedo facebook group and promptly gets reported to the police, and then the bbc supports this guy because he was their journalist?
Absolutely bent BS non-story.
FB is fully and comprehensively tracked anyway, like all social media. Even things like where you hover your mouse and for how long, are tracked and part of massive data mining/machine learning initiatives. Even things like what part of the screen you're looking at (if supported).
The pedo is going to be a pedo, regardless of FB. It is better for the authorities if they are doing it in "private" groups on a platform like FB. In fact that's the ultimate platform, the authorities have them EXACTLY where they want them!
Well done BBC.
In fact the story says this:
"Facebook reported the BBC journalists involved to the police"
So some guy accesses a "private" pedo facebook group and promptly gets reported to the police, and then the bbc supports this guy because he was their journalist?
Absolutely bent BS non-story.
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Soldato
- Joined
- 31 May 2009
- Posts
- 21,474
They do this already, they have entire overworked departments working upon such, in many languages, looking for heaps of naughty stuff, sexual, terrorist etc.
Problem might be some of the staff are simply not up to the job, and are click click click to achieve targets, thus maintaining their role.
I am not certain their staff oversight procedures are up to spec, and that middle and senior management are capable of the QC they would need in order to facilitate such.
The issue is that Facebook allowed these images to be distributed, but when the BBC sent those same images back to them, FB reported the BBC to police for distributing pictures of child abuse.
I hope Facebook get an absolute kicking over this, in a legal sense.
I hope Facebook get an absolute kicking over this, in a legal sense.
Assuming (haven't checked) FB even looked at them - if I worked for FB and a 3rd party llinked/uploaded something claiming it was pictures of child abuse or of a sexual nature the first thing I'd do is call the police (or liaise with the appropriate person above me to do so) not check what they'd sent.
But what happens if you asked the 3rd party to send you the pics cause you didnt believe that they were on FB and then when they do, you report the sender but you never bothered reporting the people who originally uploaded them to FB?
And they must have opened and looked at the pics as these were ones which had already passed FB tests as being suitable to stay on FB.
According to how it was reported on the 6o'c news, only 1 image was actually legally indecent.
The others were "15 year old in bikini at the beach" type material. The BBC deemed these "sexualised images of children" because of the accompanying comments.
IANAL, but an image doesn't become legally indecent/criminal by being accompanied by lewd comments. There are much more concrete criteria to determine what is and isn't child pornography.
Making it an offence to post lewd comments with images of teens in bikinis, is only one step away from making it a crime to think indecent thoughts. As inappropriate as many find it, you have to ask whether it constitutes *by itself* a crime worthy of removing someone's liberty.
Also playing Devil's advocate further, I think it's fair to say that attraction towards a 15 year old does not constitute pedophilia. The BBC article even mentioned "comments about their breasts", which would imply we are not talking about pre-teens, and hence not pedophiles, necessarily.
Busting out the word "pedos" makes it easy for people to grab their pitchforks, but an honest man would probably not deny at some point looking a young woman/girl, and thinking "nice", without necessarily knowing if they were legally adults. Contrast that with pre-pubescent girls which most blokes do not find exciting.
The others were "15 year old in bikini at the beach" type material. The BBC deemed these "sexualised images of children" because of the accompanying comments.
IANAL, but an image doesn't become legally indecent/criminal by being accompanied by lewd comments. There are much more concrete criteria to determine what is and isn't child pornography.
Making it an offence to post lewd comments with images of teens in bikinis, is only one step away from making it a crime to think indecent thoughts. As inappropriate as many find it, you have to ask whether it constitutes *by itself* a crime worthy of removing someone's liberty.
Also playing Devil's advocate further, I think it's fair to say that attraction towards a 15 year old does not constitute pedophilia. The BBC article even mentioned "comments about their breasts", which would imply we are not talking about pre-teens, and hence not pedophiles, necessarily.
Busting out the word "pedos" makes it easy for people to grab their pitchforks, but an honest man would probably not deny at some point looking a young woman/girl, and thinking "nice", without necessarily knowing if they were legally adults. Contrast that with pre-pubescent girls which most blokes do not find exciting.
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This is what I thought when I read it. If anyone, BBC or not, sends you something saying this is illegal content on your site, shouldn't you report it to the police. I see no evidence that Facebook were trying to shop the BBC for child porn, though the BBC are doing their best to imply it. Also how bad were these images? I got the impression that they were ordinary pictures of children with unsavoury comments. The BBC does say "very sexualised" about one of them but I would be amazed if out of the entirety of Facebook there weren't borderline images uploaded. Without seeing the images and posts for myself (which I do not want to) I can't say whether the BBC are right or not. Therefore I reserve judgement.
The BBC's position, as made abundantly clear on the 6o'c News, is that any image of a child accompanied by an "inappropriate comment" should be considered "sexualised images of children" and be removed under FB's terms of service.
They admitted only 1 image was legally indecent.
BBC is simply raising a rabble to "get dem pedos", because the standard of journalism at the BBC is not always of a very high standard.
Yup, I think the idea that blatant kiddy porn wasn't removed by Facebook is perhaps a bit of a stretch however in their mud slinging that is the impression some people may have had from the story about some of these images not being removed. Facebook probably has some quite rigid guidelines for its censors and an image being distasteful might not be sufficient for it to be removed.
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Attraction to teenagers is either Hebephilia (young adolescents) or Ephebophillia (late adolescence). Paedophilia is attraction to pre-pubescents. It's one reason I really dislike people using the term paedophilia to criticise anyone who has underage sex. It dilutes just how truly horrific paedophilia is. Not that sex with teenagers can't be very harmful to those teenagers but it isn't necessarily so. I was sexually active before sixteen. As is pretty common. A male friend put the distinction as follows: "Ephebophilia - what you shouldn't do. Paedophilia - what you shouldn't want". Which is as good a way to put is as any, I guess.