Information Center Filled with Pictures

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is an office with federal jurisdiction in the USA. It works with every public security agency. Last year, this office managed to compile, at least, 70 million pictures and videos with illegal content showing child sex abuse.

The Center reported that the amount of video shared through social media reached a record. Luckily, these illegal videos have always been popular among sex predators, and now these are more easily detected by some of the aforementioned digital companies.

More than 41 million videos were reported, an alarming figure if compared to five years ago, which it did not go over 350 thousand. Many of the pictures and videos were pinned down in multiple occasions as users received them.

The Center shared with the journal department of The New York Times which digital platforms reported the most amount of pictures of child sex abuse. The report details as follows:

Facebook: 60 million pictures and videos. The figure represents more than 85% of the total amount.

Instagram: now from Facebook, was responsible for 1.7 million additional pictures and videos.

Instagram has been the social network of choice by pedophiles; however, Facebook’s Messenger is taking the lead; the number of user can be reason of the increase.

Facebook claims that half the content found does not fully qualified as illegal, but it was reported as such to support the investigations from different public security institutions on this matter.

Snapchat, Twitter, and other social network companies also handed their reports on the pictures taken on their platforms. Moreover, search engines like Google, Microsoft, Dropbox, and the chat platform, Discord, also detected illegal content.

Children are not Adult Entertainment

An adolescent notified the adult web site, Pornhub, which the video of her rape was posted on the platform with very explicit taglines about what the users would watch. Not only the victim had to face the trauma for the rape, but the online exposure made her relive the attack over and over again.

The crime happened back in 2009, when the victim was 14 old. Two men recorded certain moments of the rapping and post them on the web site. Few months later, several people of her school shared the link of Pornhub, where there was various videos posted of the attack she was submitted to.

It was not until she pretended to be a lawyer ready to sue that the aforementioned web page removed the videos. For the victim, each of the 400 thousand views felt as a new attack.

The web site stated that accusations for videos with illegal content date back to 2009, with the previous headboard, and nowadays there are more strict measures and policies to fight unauthorized and illegal content as part of their stand against promotion of material displaying child sex abuse.

Currently, digital platforms use sophisticated technologies based on the experiences of their workers to detect, report, and eliminate any a/v material with illegal content or with child abuse, as well any attempt of sharing said content. Many companies train their own staff, others use third parties like Vobile, specialist in digital identification, who compares all new posts against potentially unauthorized material, and it makes sure that original video does not make it into the platform.

The post Instances of Online Child Sex Abuse on the Rise first appeared on Counter Pedophilia Investigative Unit - Official Site.

Free platform.

Humankind’s worst things and behaviors may be exhibited on the Internet, and it may let it go just because is a free-use platform. We are talking about terrible content that infiltrates through the web that does not make it up for the damage it causes or the intentions behind its publication. Also, the organisms that must be regulating this problem act passively, resulting in letting the amount of child pornography content increase each year.

The investigation holds that there are, approximately, 45 million videos and pictures of girls and boys being sexually abused. At least, 10 thousand pages on policial reports and legal documents that show technology and its developers do not have the tools required to stop this kind of content’s proliferation, without giving it the same treatment that is applied to hate-speech-based messages or terrorist propaganda.

When it comes to this kind of content’s presence and the way the models used by pedophiles to transfer the information safely escalates, institutions like the National Center for Disappeared and Exploited Children advise that the number of reports exceeds the response capacity that the involved organizations and the forces of law have. They cannot make effective moves against this problem.

Since 1998, when there were 3,000 cases of child abuse reported, the amount has been increasing, year after year, until 2018, when there were 18,4 million cases of child abuse-related content reported.

The problem is that the victims fear of being recognized by their photos or videos on the Internet, after having their lives shattered by the abuse perpetrated by relatives or strangers.

Thinking about this issue, there is a victim that was filmed while being abused by its father when the attacked one was 11 years old. It does not matter how hard this person tries to feel good and overcome that disgrace, the footage keeps the abuse breathing 20 years later and it will make it harder to forget it.

How the material get to the web

The reported material has a regular flow after being uploaded to the web. Once identified, it is reported by other users or the companies that provide Internet services. After this, the whole problem is in the law’s hands. Legal actions are taken after the specialist review the material. The most used platforms for child-abuse-related material are:

• FTP
• E-Mail
• P2P
• Chatrooms
• Instant messenger
• Forum
• Gaming
• SMS
• Cell phone
• Tor
• URL

The top three countries with the largest child pornography traffic is conformed by:

1. India
2. Indonesia
3. Thailand

The top five is completed if we add Mexico and Bangladesh —positions 4 and 5 respectively— to that list. After these countries, we find the United States and Brazil with the highest number of reports related to their population.

The investigation also revealed that there are groups online dedicated to share images of younger kids and extreme abuse forms through encryption technologies and the dark web: the place on the Internet where everything is illicit and where information about how to commit the crimes, how to record the abuse, and how to share the images taken from the act, is given to pedophiles around the world.

These traffickers are at the forefront of technology to distribute the child-exploitation materials; they cover their fingerprints by connecting to private hidden virtual networks that allow them to

• Cover their locations.
• Deploy encryption techniques.
• Hide messages.
• Share on the dark web.

Social networks —like Facebook— and search engines —like Google— improved their platforms’ vigilancy, but they are required to report only when the child abuse images are discovered. The procedures may take several months, and sometimes they only answer to say that there is not a record, even when it is about reports that already started the legal process.

The social network Facebook announced its plans to cipher Messenger in March, considering that the last year, it was responsible for almost 12 out of the 18,4 million global reports related to child sexual abuse material.

The post Sexually abused children’s pictures spread through the Internet first appeared on Counter Pedophilia Investigative Unit - Official Site.