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Facebook Reports BBC To Police Following Publication's 'Sexualized Images' Investigation (bbc.com)

"Grave doubts" have emerged about the effectiveness of Facebook's moderation system after an investigation by the BBC last year revealed the social network was failing to remove sexualised images of children even after they were reported. Damian Collins, chair of the culture, media and sport committee, made the comments as he criticised Facebook's handling of the images, dozens of which were reported to the company by the BBC and fewer than 20% were removed. After the BBC sent evidence of the photos to Facebook, the social media company reported the BBC to the police for distributing the images, which had been shared on private Facebook groups intended for paedophiles. From a report on BBC: When provided with examples of the images, Facebook reported the BBC journalists involved to the police and cancelled plans for an interview. It subsequently issued a statement: "It is against the law for anyone to distribute images of child exploitation." Mr Collins said it was extraordinary that the BBC had been reported to the authorities when it was trying to "help clean up the network." [...] Information the BBC provided to the police led to one man being sent to prison for four years.

122 comments

  1. What is Facebook thinking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    BBC tells FB that there are inappropriate child images on FB and FB turns around and reports the BBC to the police that BBC is distributing these images?

    I take it FB is unfamiliar with the Streisand effect.

    1. Re:What is Facebook thinking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is standard fare for FB. You can pretty much post whatever you want as long as you have good standing as an SJW. The moment you get on the bad side of an SJW, even the most innocent images will be reported and removed, and your account will be suspended.

      FB has never been consistent about applying their TOS or whatever. Like so many things, nobody believes this until it happens to them.

    2. Re:What is Facebook thinking? by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 5, Informative

      It is even worse than the summary suggested. The BBC did not originally send the evidence to FB. They did so when FB asked them to ahead of an interview arranged with FB's director of policy Simon Milner. Reporting them to the police for providing what they were requested to beggars belief.

    3. Re: What is Facebook thinking? by reanjr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Police put child pornographers in prison after asking them for photos. That's how the law works. It's a dumb law, but THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    4. Re:What is Facebook thinking? by dnaumov · · Score: 1

      BBC tells FB that there are inappropriate child images on FB and FB turns around and reports the BBC to the police that BBC is distributing these images?

      I take it FB is unfamiliar with the Streisand effect.

      You almost made it sound like somebody at the scale of influence of Facebook gave 2 shits about "streisand effect".

    5. Re:What is Facebook thinking? by lgw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They did so when FB asked them to ahead of an interview arranged with FB's director of policy Simon Milner.

      In many (most?) US states, this is legally required. That's how far the pedophile witch hunt has gone. It's a felony in most places, often with the same penalty as actually producing the material, to be aware that someone has child exploitation images without immediately reporting it to the police. The law doesn't mention anything about journalists.

      This is something anyone who repairs PCs for a living knows. Sure, common sense might say "but this is an exception", but the law doesn't. There are some states in the US where no intent is required to be guilty of possession - doesn't matter why, unless you're a policeman investigating the particular crime. Heck, even the defense lawyer and jury may not be allowed to legally see the images except in tightly controlled circumstances, as if the witches might cast their evil magic unless the correct protective ritual is performed.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    6. Re:What is Facebook thinking? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      They might give 2 shits about being prosecuted for wasting police time.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    7. Re: What is Facebook thinking? by BronsCon · · Score: 1

      It's a dumb law, but THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      Isn't that what landed the child pornographers in prison in the first place? Hell no I'm not gonna do that!

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    8. Re:What is Facebook thinking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      FB might have expected to receive hashes of the images. Most big cos (Google, Microsoft, Facebook) have hashes of images, which can be used for detecting, filtering and alerting.

      https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/17/iwf_hash_list/

      So guessing BBC technological incompetence and FB imprecise request could be explanations.

    9. Re:What is Facebook thinking? by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Well, see the problem has an easy solution. If you come across dangerous images in a dangerous location, either delete as fast as possible and forget about it or do what you said, forward to the authorities and then delete as fast as possible, done and finished. No different to hacking tools whether embedded in email or in any other format. Simply delete as fast as possible or appropriately forward to the authorities and then delete as fast as possible. Although the exposure to the first has been really limited, just a tiny number of bad links of decades, the second have all made their way to http://www.acma.gov.au/Home/Ci..., although they are far worse than spam, what that authority chooses to do with them is their responsibility.

      DEL is not Dell spell wrong it stands for the delete key, simply use it and your problems are largely over, unless someone puts more on there in which case forwarding to the authorities and deleting is the safest course.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    10. Re: What is Facebook thinking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are myriad un-delete programs to retrieve such "deleted" files even if the "Recycle Bin" has been carefully emptied.

      Perhaps it would be better to use a file scrubber, or in extreme situations, DBAN (Duke's Boot And Nuke) to thoroughly erase the hard drive.

    11. Re:What is Facebook thinking? by DavidRawling · · Score: 1

      Thing is if you do this and report it, you may be guilty of destroying evidence (even if it's unintentional and recoverable). I think the formal term is "spoliation", and burden of proof/consequences vary greatly.

      Not a lawyer, though, so I'm probably wrong.

    12. Re: What is Facebook thinking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What? If a repair person stumbles upon child porn, you call the local police and do NOTHING with the PC until they show up. They don't have to distribute shit.

    13. Re: What is Facebook thinking? by lgw · · Score: 1

      That's what I said?

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  2. Report them! by SomeoneFromBelgium · · Score: 0

    FTA: "It is against the law for anyone to distribute images of child exploitation.

    "When the BBC sent us such images we followed our industry's standard practice and reported them to Ceop [Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre].

    After which we dutifully reported the employee that sent the material to the Ceop for the same reason. This could mean the end of Facebook!

    1. Re:Report them! by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Funny

      Fortunately, the both the BBC and the Facebook employee concerned, CEOP was then legally obliged to report itself to itself, resulting in an infinite loop...

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    2. Re:Report them! by quenda · · Score: 1, Insightful

      > FTA: "It is against the law for anyone to distribute images of child exploitation.

      Except they are *not* images of people exploiting children. They are pictures that young adults have taken of themselves and posted.
      Standard teen facebook stuff that gets lots of likes and annoys their parents. Then the perverts copy the photos and add distasteful comments. In a hidden, private forum.

      So what do you do? Where draw the line? Do we end up dressing out kids in burqas, or shrug and move on with our lives?

    3. Re:Report them! by gnick · · Score: 4, Informative

      They are pictures that young adults have taken of themselves and posted.

      FTA:

      Images appeared to be stolen from newspapers, blogs and even clothing catalogues, while some were photographs taken secretly, and up close, in public places. One user had even posted a video of a children's dance show.

      TFA is not about "young adults" nor pictures "taken of themselves and posted." The only ages I see cited are 10-11. It's about pictures people have taken of children that are being treated as sexual.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    4. Re: Report them! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its also BBC sending no evidence. See they sent evidence i.e. The photos. That's the only evidence possible to send. That is distribution. Pure and simple. BBC needs to learn the laws and procedures, not make up thier own and send child porn to Facebook moderators in the process. These are technical laws. They have to be handled with precision to be ... whatever. The fact this has to be explained means people reading this are unqualified to evaluate the situation.

    5. Re:Report them! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's about pictures people have taken of children that are being treated as sexual.

      Oh, so it's literally just thoughtcrime. Knowing this, I can't say I have much sympathy for the BBC.

    6. Re:Report them! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck! They're trapped in a recursive loop!
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0xgjUhEG3U

    7. Re:Report them! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait, what?
      I thought we were talking about criminal distribution of child pornography, but it turns out to be videos of a children's dance show? Something I assume was announced, planned, and then performed in front of many people (parents, even) who then took videos with the approval of everyone involved? In what world is that "sexualized images"?!

      I mean, sure, it's possible that some pervert will jerk off to it. But considering the number of colorful fetishes blossoming on the Internet, that's also probably true of just about everything.

    8. Re:Report them! by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      It's about pictures people have taken of children that are being treated as sexual.

      The problem with an outcry over this is that we would effectively have to ban all pictures of people under the age of 18. If you photograph a tree and post it online, somewhere someone will treat it as sexual.

      We are approaching the point where thought crimes don't even need to be the thoughts of the accused.

    9. Re:Report them! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Meh trees are fine. But if you get turned on by leaves you are a sicko.

    10. Re:Report them! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... ages I see cited are 10-11. It's about pictures people have taken of children ...

      Like this amazing choreography: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bft2Kfae-7w

      Being children, I don't consider their clothing sexual, although I do wonder why they're wearing so little. Is this little girls having fun copying the grown-ups, or is it them being "treated as sexual" in order to entertain others?

    11. Re:Report them! by computational+super · · Score: 1

      I generally assume that this is the case whenever I hear about this sort of thing (that they're making it sound WAY worse than it actually is). Inevitably I turn out to be correct.

      --
      Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
    12. Re:Report them! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trees are fine. Saplings.. oh, you bet that's a paddlin'.

      http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Sapling

      oh, that is DISGUSTING.

    13. Re:Report them! by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      How dare you post links to smut like that! /sarcasm

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  3. Should have sent links, to the authorities not FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Why in the world did they send actual images?

  4. Kinky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Some day, one of those 'Net cleansing AIs will be the first to become sentient and escape. And it'll have a very kinky mind indeed...

  5. not the first time by Cytotoxic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There have been journalists who tried to cover this beat before and been charged with child pornography and sent to jail. Depending on who the prosecutor is, this is the untouchable story. There is no safe harbor when it comes to kids and sex.

    1. Re: not the first time by Type44Q · · Score: 2

      There is no safe harbor when it comes to kids and sex.

      History tells us there's no safe harbor when it comes to anything. Think of this like the Inquisition: a large, shady organization revealing its true colors while the rest of us attempt to derive what comfort we can by telling ourselves that "events" are bewildering and inexplicable... when, in fact, they're anything but.

    2. Re:not the first time by StormReaver · · Score: 1

      There is no safe harbor when it comes to kids and sex.

      Due to the irrational hysteria surrounding child porn, the only safe harbor is to simply pretend you never saw it.

      1) You can't report it to the company, because they will turn your attempt at fighting child porn into a potential life sentence in prison. So you can't trust the company to fight child porn.

      2) You can't report it to the police, because they will arrest you for having viewed it, even (or maybe especially) if it was unwillingly. So you can't trust the police to fight child porn.

      So basically, you are correct. When both technology giants and the Police are promoting child porn by imprisoning those trying to stop it, there is nothing you can safely do but pretend it never happened and get on with your life.

    3. Re: not the first time by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Everything you said is correct, but the Electoral College is specified in the constitution. It's not based on the popular vote. Even the election of Senators was not originally based on the popular vote, because the founders didn't trust it.

      FWIW, I believe that they were right not to trust the popular vote, but unwise in trusting the votes of the wealthy and powerful. There probably *isn't* a decent way to elect a government. A lottery might not be any better, but it probably wouldn't be any worse. It would have the advantage that you couldn't bribe the candidates before they achieved office. You'd be likely to get people who were careless or unqualified, but look what we've been ending up with.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    4. Re:not the first time by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      But the U.S. District Attorney's Office in Maryland counters Matthews's defense that he was researching child porn--not collecting it--on grounds that the defense also could block the prosecution of pedophiles who have any journalism credentials.

      God help us if any of these prosecutor types ever get access to nukes. They'd immediately launch them at their own cities to eliminate any chance of child porn or drug use there.

    5. Re: not the first time by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      A lottery is the best way, IMO, along with the provision that a background investigation needs to be done on the winner and if they have a history of really wanting to hold public office, they're not allowed to have the position.

      Arthur C Clarke wrote a book called "Songs of Distant Earth" that had a society with exactly this system of choosing leaders.

      You'd be likely to get people who were careless or unqualified, but look what we've been ending up with.

      Exactly. Picking people at random simply cannot be worse than what we have.

      We could also add some other qualifications, like having a high school diploma, etc. And some mechanism for getting rid of them quickly if they suck, like today's "recall elections", but these just allow people to vote to eject the leader and choose a new one at random.

    6. Re: not the first time by knorthern+knight · · Score: 1

      > You mean like how Jeff Sessions lied in front of Congress, about meeting the Russians?

      He did *NOT* lie. He was asked if he *CO-ORDINATED THE 2016 ELECTION CAMPAIGN STRATEGY* with the Russian ambassador. He said "No". However, *IN HIS CAPACITY AS A MEMBER OF THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT BUSINESS* he did meet with the Russian ambassador in 2016, as did other congresscritters.

      While we're at, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, minority house leader, met with the Russian ambassador http://www.politico.com/story/...
        Should she be investigated.

      And Democrat Chuck Schumer, senate minority leader, met with Putin himself http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/03... Should he be investigated?

      Typical lib-left do-as-I-say-no-as-I-do crap.

      --

      I'm not repeating myself
      I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
    7. Re: not the first time by Sique · · Score: 1

      2500 years ago, the City of Athens already had this system in place. Every year, all public positions in the town government were given out in a big, open lottery every free citizen could take part. Yes, Arthur C. Clarke wrote a novel. But Athens had it in reality and it worked until Athens finally lost in the Peloponnesian War and subsequently became part of the Kingdom of Macedonia.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
  6. The BBC is not the FBI by EmagGeek · · Score: 2

    The FBI is allowed to distribute child pornography. The BBC should have let the FBI handle this investigation.

    1. Re:The BBC is not the FBI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The FBI would have covered it up to protect their sources

    2. Re:The BBC is not the FBI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How does this make sense? As far as I know, BBC primarily operates in UK, which is very far outside the jurisdiction of FBI. I am also very sceptical to your claim that "FBI is allowed to distribute child pornography". To what end? Entrapment?

      And as journalists BBC are granted some leeway, if they are researching FB moderation they are free to send images found on FB to FB executives. Partiularly after reporting them to FB just to be ignored.

    3. Re:The BBC is not the FBI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am also very sceptical to your claim that "FBI is allowed to distribute child pornography". To what end? /quote.

      Please get out from under your rock. There have been news stories even in the lamestream media about this. The FBI is known to run pedo sites through TOR. This is apparently perfectly legal. Law enforcement is allowed to break any law it likes in the USA.

    4. Re:The BBC is not the FBI by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 2

      I am also very sceptical to your claim that "FBI is allowed to distribute child pornography". To what end? Entrapment?

      Yes. A quick internet search will clearly show multiple incidents where the FBI has run dozens of child porn websites. Generally, this seems to have happened when they've taken control of an illegal site, and then they keep it running for months to try to catch users, but frankly it wouldn't surprise me at all if this were sometimes expanded to blatant distribution for entrapment purposes.

      It brings up all sorts of questions, and I'm really not sure how one can justify it legally. In the U.S., the logic seems to be that the mere act of possessing child pornography is a crime against the victims or against potential future victims (by creating a "market" for it). Unless the FBI could somehow completely control the distribution and limit it ONLY to people it could catch (seems unlikely), keeping child porn sites going for weeks or months seems to be going against the very legal principles the laws are set up under.

      Anyhow, this is a well-known practice by the FBI, and there have been a number of stories about it over the past few years (including here on Slashdot).

    5. Re:The BBC is not the FBI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That would be an interesting tactic in fighting for the victims. Hack and modify the source images with the FBI sticker "Covered up and protected by the FBI."

  7. SLAPP the BBC around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, that sounds like a good move Zuck. Make sure you give an extra bonus to the genius who thought of that.

  8. Go to the police! by DatbeDank · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Anytime you find kiddie images, you must immediately report them to the proper authorities or else you will face prosecution. Had the BBC not spent time trying to make someone look bad and instead reported these images to the police, the police would have then contacted Facebook who would have removed them in a timely manner.

    Here's hoping there was a lengthy penalty by the police to said "journalist" for trying to manufacture outrage!

    1. Re:Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      (rtfa)

    2. Re:Go to the police! by geek · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I've been on the net for a very long time. Over a quarter century. I have never "come across" kiddie images. I have no idea how people seem to do this, or expect people to believe they just randomly came across child porn.

      That said, if I did, I wouldn't report. I would format my system and disappear for a few years. If a teenage boy can go to prison and be labeled a sex offender because his teenage girlfriend sent him a boob shot then there is no way I could expect a fair trial should they decide to charge me with something.

    3. Re:Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have never "come across" kiddie images.

      So how do you find them?

    4. Re:Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Facebook actually asked the BBC to forward the images then reported them - http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-bbc-police-sexualised-pictures-children-images-investigation-news-a7615351.html

    5. Re:Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed. I years of searching for the adult veriety, in some pretty dark places, I've never come across anything like that

    6. Re:Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been on the net for a very long time. Over a quarter century. I have never "come across" kiddie images. I have no idea how people seem to do this, or expect people to believe they just randomly came across child porn.

      And I've probably been on the net for longer than that (thirty years), and while rare, it does happen. I'm pretty certain I got it as spam in the nineties once. "Pretty certain" as the photos were old, black-and-white and very grainy. The spam did advertise child abuse imagery though, so they probably were.

      Did I report? Hell no, for the same reasons. Just erased them including overwriting underlying disk storage.

    7. Re:Go to the police! by MightyYar · · Score: 2

      I've stumbled upon them. Playing with freenet I followed a link that I wish I hadn't. In the early days of the file sharing networks I would get the occasional nasty download. Downloading binaries from usenet many years ago would occasionally yield an image that I would have liked to excise from my brain. All you can do is purge the file the best you can and hope you weren't being set up by some kind of a sting operation.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    8. Re:Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Get a grip. The BBC have a team of lawyers working on this programme. It is not just journalists "trying to manufacture outrage". The issue here is FB not reacting to complaints. THE BBC DID REPORT IT TO THE POLICE YOU MORON. Facebook have been completely non-compliant on this issue. They are not dealing with it either in a timely or effective manner. Instead of saying "Yes we are trying, but could do better" they spread FUD and distract by blaming the whistle-blower.

    9. Re:Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do realize it is extremely hard to tell the difference between 2 people +- the Age of Consent in any average region? (14-18 ages)

      A lot of porn sites have regularly had underage problems. People on them without them realizing, due to this very simple conflict between biology and arbitrary AoC lines and lack of eyes on every bit of content. (almost literally impossible given the stupid amounts of porn being uploaded, never mind IMAGES on a site like Facebook!)
      In fact, there is a very good chance you have seen many people considered legally non-adults but still classed as illegals. (even though they are in no way children, but hey, semantics doesn't matter, you sick child rapist you!)

      Amateur porn is one of the most common confusing areas where people in there mid 20s can EASILY be confused for children. (usually by mad permavirgins at that)
      Shaved hair and small breasts is literally illegal in Australia, despite age. (fucking retarded country)
      Models like Jordan Capri would have been illegal, even in her mid-20s.
      God forbid you have a midget fetish. The ones not noticeably deformed by over-growth in a small frame, the ones that simply look small and nothing else.

      It has been an issue on loads of sites, including Facebook and Youtube ever since any sense of private-anything features were added. (entire groups being found regularly)
      Shits pretty messed up. But yes, it generally can be hard to know if you have found it, whether on purpose of accidentally. Grey-areas are a huge problem with moderation.
      4chan, for example, will ban almost anything if it looks child-like. Jordan Capri, again, regularly banned in 2005 despite her being on a fucking adult porn site simply because small tits and frame, cute face = child. (admittedly that was because people tricked the mods in to thinking she was from a similarly named child erotica site if I remember correct)
      Equally huge problem on forums, imageboards and other mid-to-small communities.

    10. Re:Go to the police! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      People have emailed such images to me from disposable accounts. Didn't even notice until one day I was checking spam messages when I was expecting something important to arrive.

      The same IP addresses tried to get into my Mediawiki install, presumably to post the same stuff on my web site. Fortunately I had 2 factor auth turned on.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    11. Re:Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They did report it to the police you stupid fucking hunk of cuntcheese. Try reading the fucking article next time.

    12. Re:Go to the police! by gmack · · Score: 1

      I have, twice.

      Once when someone thought it would be funny to send a link to one of the sales staff that flooded his screen with porn popups. He called for me, I walked up and yanked the power cord out of the back of his machine figuring that cleaning up after an unclean shutdown was better than having to look at the pictures.

      And once when some kiddy porners were using my employer's top list system to evade website shutdowns and I found it completely by accident when browsing the lists..

      Didn't take long for me to quit that job which turned out to be a good call considering my boss ended up closing the Montreal office, moving back to Russia and becoming a hard core spammer (in jail now, assuming he is still alive)

    13. Re:Go to the police! by Kjella · · Score: 2

      I've been on the net for a very long time. Over a quarter century. I have never "come across" kiddie images. I have no idea how people seem to do this, or expect people to believe they just randomly came across child porn.

      If you've been watching porn on the Internet, there's a high probability you've seen someone underage. Every so often there's a scandal about teens faking it into adult porn, well there's probably more going under the radar and in amateur porn and sexting there's no age checks. It doesn't help that the adult industry hire "barely legal" 18yos that look more like 14yo, so if you see an actual 14yo it probably just looks exactly like you're used to. I remember there was a case here in Norway where the ex-bf of a 13yo, almost 14yo girl had posted a video and it had 30.000 hits on a single adult site, nobody reported it or took it down until the story broke. Just getting rid of it from mainstream "free xxx" sites was a pain, these sites operate on razor thing margins from shady countries and don't respond or take down anything until they're forced to.

      It also doesn't help that quite a people seem to have a fetish for stolen, private pics and vids. So download something like that big snapchat leak with that 15yo's sex pic? You're guilty even if you didn't know it was there and wasn't looking for it either. The law is weird that way, a 17yo can legally have a gangbang but if anyone snaps a picture it's kiddie porn. The abuse of words is quite intentional, if you made a distinction between "child porn" to mean <13yo and "underage teen porn" to mean 13-17yo I suspect most "child porn" would disappear overnight. That's a fetish for the few that keep mostly to themselves and it's blatantly obvious they're dealing with illegal material and will be reported immediately. It's actually everyone else that are oblivious to the legal danger they're in that are most at risk, who only find out later that OMG she was underage.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    14. Re:Go to the police! by Baron_Yam · · Score: 1

      > I have never "come across" kiddie images...That said, if I did, I wouldn't report.

      This depends on where you live, and how much empathy you have vs. fear of persecution.

      I have 'come across' kiddie images, in the early days of the Internet when I'm pretty sure cops didn't even know what the Internet was. Did I report? Hell no.

      Today, however, I'm older, I have kids of my own (which really ups the empathy), and I am mature enough to admit I was looking for porn and found something illegal while doing so, if that can assist the police in tracking down someone who is abusing children.

      Persecution by the legal system isn't really a thing here, but if I was hesitant to directly contact the police it's not like there aren't a bunch of ways to do so indirectly.

    15. Re:Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Anytime you find kiddie images, you must immediately report them to the proper authorities or else you will face prosecution.

      I know it's passe to actually RTFA, but they (1) pressed the report button on 100 images (of which it sounds like a lot were of the "xxx schoolgirls" and "a [presumably legal] image of a 16 year old with obscene comments beside it", (2) only 18 were removed, and (3) the rest were (according to Facebook) acceptable by "community standards". So, when they got around to sending the images, it sounds like they weren't child porn and Facebook had already confirmed that.

      Had the BBC not spent time trying to make someone look bad and instead reported these images to the police, the police would have then contacted Facebook who would have removed them in a timely manner.

      Read the above again. You're right, this is the BBC trying to make someone look bad, but given the content, it doesn't even sound like there's anything that needs to be removed. Of course, the truth is that there's tons of "sexualized"--from harmless posing to outright masturbating or sex with other similarly aged friends--images and videos made by 10-17 year olds, but Facebook does tend to remove content relatively quickly when it's that explicit. Even services like snapchat are quick to remove these children who engage in such "sex shows" because they don't want to risk the liability of being complicit in such things. Regardless, those who are interested manage to record [some of] the shows, these services are obviously not reporting people, and if they were we'd see a lot more news stories of children caught watching other children because children are, well, horny at that age.

      Here's hoping there was a lengthy penalty by the police to said "journalist" for trying to manufacture outrage!

      Could we also do the same for police who say "this is the worst thing I've ever seen" because it's yet another video of a 12 year old boy making a jerk off video to a [as far as he knows] 14 year old girl? The major difference today is that (1) it's done online, (2) odds are good there's no "girl" involved, and (3) the actual risk of harm to the 12 year old boy could be dropped to near zero if we made the chats more anonymous vs the risk in the past of being caught and beaten by his or her parents for harmless sex games.

      PS - So, does this post get deleted too for its brutal honesty? Seriously, this PC bullshit has so warped the whole "honest, open" sexuality to the point that even acknowledging the fact that, yes, as a kid I was interested in sex and no it wasn't at age 18 that I suddenly spawned, fully formed as a sexual adult--which means that I had to read and watch a lot to have an idea of what I was doing or to do--, forms some sort of heresy to talk about as "child porn" or "child sex abuse". Given the wide spread availability of cameras and said "horny [kids] at that age", we need to do more than oppress children or make up these sensationalized "journalist[ic]" stories.

    16. Re:Go to the police! by spudnic · · Score: 2

      An acquaintance of mine has been sitting in County for five months so far for this with no trial, just a two minute pleading of not guilty in front of a judge.

      He selected all of the top downloads on emule or something like that and one video happened to be a plant.

      No other priors, no evidence of actively searching this out. He said he didn't even know he had downloaded it because he hadn't gone through the files yet.

      I do believe him, and what we've heard from the public defender corroborates his explanation.

      Scary.

      --
      load "linux",8,1
    17. Re:Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      trying to manufacture outrage!

      Right.. because giving people a chance to fix the problem before you call the police is "trying to manufacture outrage!"

      I have heard your wisdom and know what I should do from now on with the vulnerabilities I find.
      Write an exploit and then straight to the internet, do not tell the vendor! 0 days for everybody!
      Don't worry, I am not going to manufacture any outrage.

    18. Re:Go to the police! by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Informative

      Far scarier than a letter from the copyright police. Those incidents all changed my behavior - like your acquaintance, I would just select all the files that matched a search term and download them without a thought. I'd come home from work and see what treasures I'd downloaded. Once I got some questionable pictures or videos, I was a lot more discerning. I used to run a usenet picture extraction tool - it would comb though usenet looking for - ahem - good pictures and download them to your hard drive. I stopped using that tool once it dutifully filled a directory with horrible images. The scary thing about that one is that I didn't even notice the folder for a couple of weeks or months... sometimes not having backups is a good thing! Freenet works by downloading the content on to your own PC. I get that you have a reasonable defense if you don't know what the encrypted files on your drive are... but once I visited the bad freenet site, I could no longer credibly say that I didn't know what was in the encrypted files. I stopped running freenet. Scary stuff, indeed. We've already started teaching our kids not to take any pictures of themselves or their friends naked or in revealing outfits, not because it is morally wrong but because prosecutors have demonstrated a willingness to use "child protection" statutes against children.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    19. Re:Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even pictures of your children playing can be considered by some to be Pron. I know it is silly but it is a fact.
      What is Pron and what is not is very subjective.
      The picures of a certain Pop Artist at a Paris Fashion show with one breast uncovered is considered by some to be pornographic.

      Facebork seems to think that the some works of art that have existed for close on 500 years are pornographic.

      So what is Pron exactly?

    20. Re:Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you seen a picture of anyone under 18 online? If so, you've seen child porn. All you've got to do is move that picture onto a page with other sexual content and you've now sexualized that kid and thus it's child porn. That's all it takes. The picture of your kid kicking a soccer ball accidentally gets copied to your porn folder and you've got child porn. The media will report it as "Mr. Geek has been arrested on child porn charges. Police said they found 2500 pictures of kids on his computer taken within the last year, most of his own daughter and son! Neighbors say they are shocked."

    21. Re: Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jordan Capri went to jail. What a waste

    22. Re:Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must have never used Usenet. This type of material has been posted in unmoderated groups for decades. When operators starting blocking the groups that were created for hosting child porn, the stuff would end up in unrelated groups. In the late 80s and early 90s days, when DEC was running the FTP though mail service, some porn (including child) would end up on public sites that allowed anonymous uploads.

      Lately, it is easy to get it through malware or redirects on adult porn sites. I have seen questionable material posted to XHamster and ImageFap. Also, there is always the image boards, which depend on volunteers to moderate their forums and child porn can be taken down in minutes or left up for hours.

    23. Re:Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amateur porn is one of the most common confusing areas where people in there mid 20s can EASILY be confused for children. (usually by mad permavirgins at that)
      Shaved hair and small breasts is literally illegal in Australia, despite age. (fucking retarded country)

      Really? Wow. I guess any nude pics of my girlfriend would then be illegal: she's Asian, petite, has tiny breasts (which she complains about), and has no body hair thanks to laser hair removal. She exercises a lot and her body looks like a teenager's, but she's in her mid-30s.

    24. Re: Go to the police! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In no way am i saying or admitting anything, but 4chan random is truly random. Out of a gazillion images and topics, the dices have rolled on certain subjects that are illegal (like drugs... And hate speech images... And Stuff)

      Shit happens and it goes into ur pc and if you were scrolling too fast to notice or not be pc savvy to know all the damm places an image can be cached (not win xp in not my case), one could get in some hot soup in the future.

  9. 'entire hacking capacity of the CIA' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic
  10. Hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While I don't use Facebook (I'm tired of viewing selfies, baby and cat photos/videos, and witnessing family squabbles), I have a few observations:

    First, having private groups is a mixed bag. While it apparently provides a convenient, non-public forum for pedophiles to chat and exchange material, it also provides a means for people to keep pictures/videos of their kids private and way from the pedos (assuming that people are careful about who they allow view that material.

    Second, be careful about the material you post on-line concerning your family, friends and acquaintances. Tempting as it may be post photos or videos of your cute kids, nieces and nephews and grandchildren, think about it first. This also includes being considerate about posting pictures or videos of other peoples kids from school, dance and play recitals, soccer games, etc, as these can all end up in the pedophiles collections.

    Third, nothing in life is risk-free. You have no way of knowing of some relative is a pedophile, nor any way of keeping the dotty grandmother or aunt from reposting every picture/video from a private blog/Facebook page to her blog without giving it a moments thought.

  11. Where is the Vault 7 Story? by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Slashdot, we get that you have to cycle through your daily Facebook and Uber jones, but do you think maybe the Vault 7 story might just get a little air time here? Teensy weensy amount, maybe? https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/...

    1. Re:Where is the Vault 7 Story? by drinkypoo · · Score: 0

      Slashdot, we get that you have to cycle through your daily Facebook and Uber jones, but do you think maybe the Vault 7 story might just get a little air time here?

      It's on the front page, now. 0 comments. Go wild, sport.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Where is the Vault 7 Story? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Golly, you have issues.

    3. Re:Where is the Vault 7 Story? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Golly, you sure are aggressive toward some random guy who helpfully pointed out that the story you were so excited over got posted.

    4. Re:Where is the Vault 7 Story? by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Golly, you have issues.

      The issues have been reported as Playboy, Hustler, and Penthouse.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    5. Re: Where is the Vault 7 Story? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wasting his time playing drinking games when he could be raging on the internet instead.

  12. Re:LOL this place is a shill for the CIA/NSA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Because Slashdot isn't Putin's bitch. Wikileaks pretty much destroyed all of its credibility when it decided to get a fucking Russian-controlled Fascist elected as US president, because of a rumor that his opponent made a joke about "droning" Julian Assange. Fucking sell-out snowflakes.

  13. Re:Should have sent links, to the authorities not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How do you send a link to a private forum to the authorities? They cannot open it since it is private. What part of that is difficult to understand? That's why they reported it to Facebook as Facebook has employees who can look at any page on Facebook. When that failed, they sent the actual images to Facebook - which yes, does fall afoul of what the law says. Facebook reporting that to the police while not taking down the source pages though is disingenuous to say the least.

  14. Re:Should have sent links, to the authorities not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Because Facebook said that before they'd grant an interview, they wanted some examples of the material they'd failed to remove.

  15. Re:YES! Finally. I have doubts too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Your link does not contain a single mention of "America", "USA" or "US", they do not ask the question you posted or anything similar, and "many did want it (Sharia law) in the US" is completely unsupported and unrelated to the article you linked.

    The "Facebook censored me" is just complete bullshit, repeated again and again, usually in Facebook posts that state that "Facebook banned my post", but somehow always include the supposed banned post.

    Facebook may have banned it if you preceded it with a stream of racial slurs, but they did not ban anything close to what you've posted here. It's an idiotic assertion, demonstrably false, since you can search for and find links on Facebook to this very article.

  16. code words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sexualized Images is popo codeword for teen selfie in a bikini, or in lacey panties with butt facing the camera... probably with duckface. If it was real porn or nudity they would use different phrasing. Sexualized Images simply means normal pics with 'sexual' connotation, something all teens love to do.

    1. Re:code words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... teen selfie in a bikini, or in lacy panties ...

      I don't see a lot of schoolboys in bikinis or lacy panties, so this isn't "save the children", it's "save the horny schoolgirls" from, well, telling everyone they're horny. We need to protect their right to be forgotten but there's only so much that adults can do.

  17. Just shows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Facebook is ruled by fucking yank paedos

    1. Re: Just shows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Facebook isn't the US. It's a company that acts on its own behalf. I don't hold the entire UK responsible for its football hooligans, for example, or Australia responsible for Rupert Murdoch.

    2. Re: Just shows by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      I do. I mean, of course a large country has a diverse population and no random person there is personally responsible for the worst products of that country, but collectively, countries need to own up to the the evil things they've produced, and for the US that's things like the Trail of Tears, the WWII internments, the Kent State Massacre, and Facebook.

  18. Excessive Censorship can't solve this problem by transami · · Score: 1

    Many of the pictures, taken at face value, aren't sexually explicit. They are only being interpreted that way b/c certain pervs are sexually attracted to them. Short of creating a prison state, we will never get rid of this via criminalization. Trying to censor everything these people might use to satisfy their distorted sexuality is a fools errand, and will likely drag a lot of other people down needlessly as well. Consider by analogy Muslim countries that have gone so far to force all woman to wear veils to prevent sexual attraction by other men. What happens instead? The men just start focusing on the eyes.

    --
    :T:R:A:N:S:
    1. Re:Excessive Censorship can't solve this problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We have to turn ourselves into Islamastan to save ourselves from the sexual deviancy of Islamastan.

  19. Significant cultural differences between US and UK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The common language makes it easy to overlook significant cultural differences between the UK and the US. I believe one of them may have played a role here. In many places there is a tendency for mere technical questions of process to make people lose sight of the original sense (purpose and intent) of rules. (This is not one-dimensional. As a German I keep being surprised by how the balance works in the UK. Sometimes the balance in the UK is much more on the procedure side than I am used to, and sometimes it's much more on the sense side.)

    It appears to me that in the US it is considered OK when rules and procedures are almost completely detached from their purpose, whereas in most cultures a relatively strong connection is required to give rules legitimacy. Some examples:

    - It is legal for US prosecutors to seek the prosecution of people they know to be innocent. Some even use procedural tricks to ensure convictions of innocents. There are countless examples of this which do not draw much attention. Every one of them would make a huge scandal here in Europe.
    - Instead of correcting the balance between the legislative power of the federal government and those of individual states, the US legal system is making use of absurd 'crimes' such as crossing state lines (or doing some harmless other thing that happens to fall under federal jurisdiction) while committing an actual crime.
    - Gerrymandering is widely considered normal practice.
    - Prisoners have become an important economic resource in the US, comparable to the former role of slaves.
    - In the US, a pre-teen can become registered sex offenders with a ban on getting near schools for a minor 'offence' such as taking a nude picture of themselves or sexual experiments with another (even older) child. In the US, it is possible for two people to rape *each other* at the very same moment in time.
    - In the US, companies that actually innovate can be completely annihilated by shell companies holding trivial and fraudulent patents.

    I have heard that baseball is also symptomatic of this phenomenon, but as I never even tried to understand that, I can't claim that it is. Sometimes extreme excesses stemming from this approach make international headlines, such as when a kindergarten calls in the police because a four-year-old is throwing a tantrum, and the police takes the child to prison (obviously notifying the parents only afterwards). Or when a state makes insists on putting someone to death after his innocence has been established beyond doubt.

    Here is how I think this applies to the current situation:

    For someone in the UK it's clear that the goal is to prevent the abuse of children, or at least to prevent perverts from exchanging images that are problematic in one way or another. If you try to abuse technicalities for your own gain, you lose face. But for a huge US concern, losing face is not an issue any more than to a shameless liar-president. To them, any laws related to child abuse are just part of the myriad of rules whose purpose is to function as landmines. They act as a barrier to entry into lucrative areas of commerce: expensive legal advice is required to maneuver around them and deal with the occasional explosion. If a weaker competitor, such as a national tv broadcaster, does anything you construe as an attack (because thinking of the children is OBVIOUSLY just an excuse), then you are justified to play dirty

  20. Google teenager in bikini by lucaiaco · · Score: 1

    ...and according to their definition you are now a paedophile. Don't you dare visit Forever21.com or any other clothing site. And remember to unfriend anybody under 18 from your friend list, you filthy Pedo!

  21. pot meet kettle by JustNiz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "It is against the law for anyone to distribute images of child exploitation." ...said the company responsible for hosting and making availble those images.

    1. Re:pot meet kettle by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      distribute images of child exploitation

      Interestingly enough this story doesn't appear to be about any child exploitation.

    2. Re:pot meet kettle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "It is against the law for anyone to distribute images of child exploitation." ...said the company responsible for hosting and making availble those images.

      You have to remember how immoral and greedy the Zuckerburg is. As long as he is making a buck he does not care.

  22. Re: Significant cultural differences between US an by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It seems your knowledge of the USA is taken strictly from usually-sensation-seeking headlines. You know, if I were naive and just got my knowledge straight from the media, I would think Germans are always one step away from bringing back Nazi Germany. I know enough to discount media stories as focusing on the exceptional and sensational, so I don't do that. Please note also that Facebook is not the embodiment of the USA. It's just a company.

  23. But FB is good at removing images of nude statues by MrKrillls · · Score: 3, Informative

    Images of fine art in museums get deleted, but....

    --
    Don't step on the baby.
  24. Re: Should have sent links, to the authorities not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bbc role here is that Facebook is NOT removing inappropriate content, reported accordingly using fb's systems. Bbc wanted to know why, hence the interview request...

  25. Meanwhile, post a link to an Oglaf strip... by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My work internet blocks Oglaf, so I can't find and link the strip in question, but a couple weeks ago my partner put the strip up on her Facebook page. A day later, the strip had been taken down because it was 'offensive'. It's a cartoon, and the punchline was basically that a guy fucks lemons. Woo. It's NSFW, I guess, but it involves two adults and lemons. It's really no big deal, and it's pretty funny.

    I have friends that are models. Heaven forbid they show even the barest bit of nipple. Sometimes it doesn't even take that much. They have pictures taken down and temp-bans put on them.

    So my question is who are they employing to scan these images, and why do they find partially clothed women more offensive than pictures of exploited kids?

    1. Re:Meanwhile, post a link to an Oglaf strip... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because they're Islamic? Sorry, couldn't resist.

    2. Re:Meanwhile, post a link to an Oglaf strip... by PaulRivers10 · · Score: 1

      It's the usual tricks, at this point I assume it's:
      - Using the word "children" to refer to "teenagers"
      - Using vague but suggestive phrases like "sexualized images" to refer to any sexually suggestive aspect of the image

      Thus "teen girl puts on pushup bra, aims camera at her face and boobs, takes picture" becomes "sexualized images of children".

    3. Re:Meanwhile, post a link to an Oglaf strip... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://oglaf.com/pulp-n-rind/

      HTH.

  26. Im not quite sure what a "sexualised image". by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Of a non-sexual being is but I bet the BBC and its army of paedophiles do.

  27. It was even more egregious by RubberDogBone · · Score: 1

    The whole story was on BBC Newshour this morning:

    After finding these images were still on FB, the BBC asked for an interview with FB to get an explanation of why this was still going on. FB then asked them, please send us the images you want to talk about. We want to see it before we say anything.

    The BBC complied that request. And then got reported.

    So FB ASKED them for the images, which were already present on FB. And instead of doing anything about the images, they went to the police with them.

    FB, you are a fucking bunch of cowards and goddamn stupid too. You, by asking for the images, are guilty of the crime you sought to accuse the BBC of committing.

    --
    Sig for hire.
  28. Re:Should have sent links, to the authorities not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I guess they figured Facebook folks didn't have a Facebook account, so sending the link wouldn't have gotten them anywhere except a SIGN UP NOW screen.

  29. Re:Should have sent links, to the authorities not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's called a warrant

  30. Re: YES! Finally. I have doubts too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not entirely true. I had a bunch of my non sexual picture removed and my account frozen because I trolled a couple people too hard so they had a bunch of friends report a bunch of pictures.

  31. Re:LOL this place is a shill for the CIA/NSA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what are you, like 12 years old? do you really think mendax has that kind of power? (the answer is no, he doesnt)