Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Admits Flaw in Image Moderation After BBC Report (bbc.com)
From a report on BBC: A Facebook executive has admitted to MPs its moderating process "was not working" following a BBC investigation. BBC News reported 100 posts featuring sexualised images and comments about children, but 82 were deemed not to "breach community standards." Facebook UK director Simon Milner told MPs the problem was now fixed. He was speaking to the Commons Home Affairs committee alongside bosses from Twitter and Google as part of an investigation into online hate crime. The BBC investigation reported dozens of posts through the website tool, including images from groups where users were discussing swapping what appeared to be child abuse material. When journalists went back to Facebook with the images that had not been taken down, the company reported them to the police and cancelled an interview, saying in a statement: "It is against the law for anyone to distribute images of child exploitation."
"Appeared" to be child abuse material, but under no reasonable law would they be classified as such.
for future finances
...Is the capture and punishment of those creating these materials. The fact that these materials (photos, videos, etc.) exist is secondary to the more serious crime of child exploitation itself. Humanity often seems to be more concerned with treating the symptom instead of the root cause of the problem, so to speak.
Zuckerburg must go to jail. FOREVER.
It's like asking AI to define pornography. You'll 64% know it when you see it, maybe, if the image fits a certain general profile. That's not going to work. Hire eyeballs with your BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
"It is against the law for anyone to distribute images of child exploitation."
Come and get me!
Here they are! being exploited!
I'm SUCH a badddass!
Maybe this is why whenever I flag a video for showing actual homicide, it never gets taken down.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
Without knowing exactly what was in the offending posts, how can we possibly know what to think? Somehow I doubt it's that easy to find hardcore child abuse images on facebook, so these might be almost innocent - it wouldn't surprise me if most of them are just swimsuit images from someone's family holiday, or screencaps from Toddlers and Tiaras or some other TV program.
It reminds me of certain very socially-conservative news sites I've seen decrying something or other as an affront to all that is good in the world, but never describing clearly what they are so upset about because to even describe the material would violate the conscience of their editors - but in that case it's easy to see the material and find that it's not the assault on decency that they claim.
People who can't distinguish paedophilia from child abuse should be put behind bars, as they're a danger to society.
It would surprise me if the great majority of paedophiles and zoophiles aren't abstaining from pursuing their desires(?). My guess is that we only hear about the exceptions.
Or put it this way, have you ever dreamt or thought about killing someone? Does that make you a murderer who should face the penalty for such?
As for preventative actions, judging from all statistics I've seen, children have a much higher risk of being molested by their fathers than anyone else. Should we put down fathers, then?
When is facebook going to admit that it is physically impossible to filter out all the kiddie porn? According to this website https://zephoria.com/top-15-va... there are 300 million pictures posted EVERY DAY. Even if someone can review 1,000 pictures a day facebook would have to hire 300,000 people to ensure none of the pictures posted are 'kiddie porn'
And computer scientists know there is no automated way to screen these photos without generating false positives. Even an algorithm that was 99% accurate, would mean 1% of 300 million pictures, or 3 MILLION pictures would get falsely reported as child pornography and taken down every single day. And let me tell you, our image recognition algorithms are nowhere near 99% accurate.
And lets not forget that the line between photography and pornography of children is very grey. Legal definitions tend to be very generic or subjective, neither of which are handled well by algorithms that want discreet and objective measurements to work well. We can't as humans even agree on what is considered 'Pornography' or not, a U.S. Supreme court justice once famously said "I know it when i see it"
I expect the politicians to not understand they are asking facebook to draw 3 blue lines with a red marker. I'm surprised facebook isn't educating these politicians to understand that some laws are impossible to enforce. Instead of going after those who post kiddie porn pictures, they should be looking at going after the people who originally took/created the kiddie porn pictures.
So speaks ignorance. Pedophiles have a lower recidivism rate than most other crimes i.e. not only CAN they be reformed, if not cured, but we are better at doing it than for most other crimes.
People convicted of sex crimes against children and released have less than 4% chance of being arrested again for sex crimes against children - but over 40% chance of being arrested again for any crime. And yes, they check the computer when they arrest them for littering.
In other words, the cops go after them, but most never re-offend against children.
There are several reasons for this, including a relatively high death rate in prison (child molesters are targetted), long prison sentences (if you get arrested at 40 and released at 60, your sex drive has faded), and also mandatory counseling.
Basically, you are just an ignorant person repeating an old meme that has been repeatably proven wrong.
Numbers from the 1994 government study (https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/rsorp94.txt)
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
We need to level fines at such a large level that they act as a deterrent. FB would quickly find a solution to this problem.
Have gnu, will travel.
Disclaimer: I don't want to see child porn or ISIS propaganda of people getting their heads cut off. EVER.
However: So-called 'content moderation' should be called what it is: censorship. Doesn't matter if it's a non-governmental, privately-owned company, enforcing their own rules on their own website, it's still censorship. Stop with the 'newspeak' already.
Saying that child molesters are pedophiles is like saying that prison rapists are homosexuals. Children are targeted because they are easy to manipulate or otherwise intimidate into silence, and easy for an adult to overpower. Same reason an old lady is an easy target for a purse snatcher.
and executive officers for wasting police time and distributing child porn.