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Facebook Uses Machine Learning To Remove 8.7 Million Child Exploitation Posts (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the wiped-clean dept.

Facebook announced today in a blog post that it has removed 8.7 million posts last quarter that violated its rules against child exploitation. The company said it used new AI and machine learning technology to remove 99 percent of those posts before anyone reported them. TechCrunch reports: The new technology examines posts for child nudity and other exploitative content when they are uploaded and, if necessary, photos and accounts are reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Facebook had already been using photo-matching technology to compare newly uploaded photos with known images of child exploitation and revenge porn, but the new tools are meant to prevent previously unidentified content from being disseminated through its platform. The technology isn't perfect, with many parents complaining that innocuous photos of their kids have been removed. Davis addressed this in her post, writing that in order to "avoid even the potential for abuse, we take action on nonsexual content as well, like seemingly benign photos of children in the bath" and that this "comprehensive approach" is one reason Facebook removed as much content as it did last quarter. The tech isn't always right though. In 2016, it was criticized for removing content like the iconic 1972 photo of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, known as the "Napalm Girl," fleeing naked after suffering third-degree burns in a South Vietnamese napalm attack on her village. COO Sheryl Sandberg apologized for it at the time.

22 of 210 comments (clear)

  1. False positives? by nicolaiplum · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is absolutely no apology or consideration from Facebook of the false positives. They just don't care that they get it wrong. They're saying that they have to destroy photo-sharing of children to save it.

    How much content did they remove that did not violate their guidelines, or was not illegal?

    Of course they focus on sex only. No mention of filtering of depiction of violence or violent content - they wouldn't want to upset the sort of President who thinks it's fine to violently assault people he dislikes or disagrees with.

    --
    "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
    1. Re:False positives? by nctritech · · Score: 5, Informative

      The definitive Facebook nudity policy mistake: Napalm Girl from the Vietnam War. The moral terror that photo inspires must never be forgotten...but hey, we gotta ban it because prepubescent genitals! Not the destruction, violence, pain, and mortal horror, mind you. Just the naked kid with third-degree burns on her back and arm. Someone might mistake it for pornography, you know.

      If you want to know what happened to the girl after that photo, I encourage you to read this. It's definitely worth it.

    2. Re:False positives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There is absolutely no apology or consideration from Facebook of the false positives. They just don't care that they get it wrong. They're saying that they have to destroy photo-sharing of children to save it.

      How much content did they remove that did not violate their guidelines, or was not illegal?

      Of course they focus on sex only. No mention of filtering of depiction of violence or violent content - they wouldn't want to upset the sort of President who thinks it's fine to violently assault people he dislikes or disagrees with.

      OH FUCK YOU!!

      Where the fuck were you when Rand Paul got assaulted?

      Where the fuck were you when Steve Scalise got shot?

      Hell, where the fuck were you when Joe Biden said Mitt Romney would put black Americans "back in chains"?

      Where the fuck were you when Democrats dehumanized Republicans - over the past fucking decades?

      YOU KEPT YOUR FUCKING PIE HOLE SHUT WHEN ALL THAT HAPPENED?

      YOU ACCEPTED THAT COMPLETE BULLSHIT FROM "YOUR SIDE"?

      THAT'S HOW YOU FUCKING GOT TRUMP

      NOW YOU GET TO SEE HOW IT FUCKING FEELS.

      FUCK YOU AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON

    3. Re: False positives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      I know you dont care but you could google for: Antifa Portland, Antifa Berkeley, Antifa violence and find plenty of well documented real world examples of these mindless pro-fascist thugs beating people for thought crimes.

      And if you want to go broader, google for: Scalise shot. That was one of your peace loving Bernie supporters attacking unarmed men at a softball practice.

      You will not find conservatives rioting and starting shit. The best you will get is Antifa (again) crashing a pathetic nazi/kkk rally and the guy in the guy running over a woman in panic when the Antifa mobs surround him.

    4. Re: False positives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you call yourself anti-fascist, but then adopt the tactics of fascists - what does that make you?
      If you use violence to try and silence others who are using words - what does that make you? (Those others may also use violence too, but I am talking specifically about times when they were using words, and antifa used violence)
      If you hide your identity rather than stand behind your ideals and actions - what does that make you?
      If you engage in avoidable street brawls and then try to shape the narrative to portray yourselves only as victims of injustice, what does that make you?

      There are real social issues that need to be tackled, but antifa is not the way to do it - it seems to me that most of those folks are just looking for an outlet for pent up feelings of rage and powerlessness - and street brawling gives them that outlet. It also seems to me that in many cases the rage and powerlessness come from personal issues in their own lives, and have nothing to do with the causes for which they claim to fight.

    5. Re:False positives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually I'm all for kids not being on Facebook at all. They aren't old enough to get consent that their likeness is now on the internet forever.

    6. Re:False positives? by The+Snazster · · Score: 2

      Important photos can and will be restored. The rest won't be, and that's as it should be.

    7. Re:False positives? by D.McG. · · Score: 2

      It states in the summary, "If necessary, photos and accounts are reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children." So the evidence is being collected and forwarded to the authorities.

      Leaving the evidence on Facebook has it's pros and cons. While leaving it on may allow catching others acting on the data, it may also allow children to be further exploited (read: harmed, molested, raped, sold, etc.) before authorities can act. I think being cautious and taking it down can save lives.

    8. Re:False positives? by nctritech · · Score: 2

      Who decides importance?

    9. Re: False positives? by jpaine619 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      .....but it sounds like you were equating antifa with pro-fascism. You do know it's short for anti-fascist, right?

      Ironic isn't it.. Kind of like how North Korea refers to itself as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. If you think Antifa are anti-fascist you are a mouth breathing retard.

      Their tactics and philosophy appear, for all intents and purposes, to be modeled after the brown shirts.

    10. Re:False positives? by nicolaiplum · · Score: 2

      They're unrepentant that their tech goes wrong and refuse to say how often it goes wrong - in fact they probably don't even know because they don't care, but even if they do know they're refusing to say how wrong it is.

      So their claim to remove 8.7M eeeeevul kiddieporns is just a fiction. They removed 8.7M pictures and less, maybe a lot less, than 8.7M eeeevul kiddieporns.

      "Our Community Standards ban child exploitation and to avoid even the potential for abuse, we take action on nonsexual content as well, like seemingly benign photos of children in the bath. " is not an apology of any sort.

      After they have wrongly removed a picture, what do they do with the account that posted it? Mark it as "posted a picture that was removed because we guessed it was kiddieporn"? If so what does that do later, when they rank your content down because they say you're a suspected kiddiepornographer? Do they give your name to the police to investigate?

      No, there is no apology in this announcement.

      When Facebook got caught out in the past by someone important enough that they could not just ignore them (the Prime Minister of Norway), they said they were sorry and would learn from this. They lied - they have not learned from this and are not sorry and you can see this today.

      --
      "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
    11. Re:False positives? by Obfuscant · · Score: 2

      So the evidence is being collected and forwarded to the authorities.

      I just bet that the NCMEC is just thrilled to be getting 8.7 million images from Facebook. I can hear it now, NCMEC coffee room: "Gawd, if I have so see one more photo of Aunt Jean's cute little niece swimming topless in the backyard pool I'm gonna puke..."

      The problem is not Facebook choosing to censor its own site. The problem is Facebook forwarding the meme that "child nudity" is "child exploitation".

      Facebook is a social media site. People who have kids have friends and a social life, and they are likely to post pictures of their kids on Facebook so their friends can see them. Facebook is touted as how modern people stay in touch, which means modern parents sharing modern pictures of modern kids with modern gramma who live 2000 miles away and can't just drop by to see how the kids are. Saying "don't post pix of kids" is inane and flies in the face of reality.

      Leaving the evidence on Facebook has it's pros and cons. While leaving it on may allow catching others acting on the data,

      You know what "acting on the data" means, in this context, don't you? It means someone getting a notice that one of their friends on Facebook has posted a new photo, and then they get arrested for "downloading kiddie porn" because they clicked on the link to see what that picture was.

  2. The saddest neural network of all. by sg_oneill · · Score: 4, Funny

    You do NOT want to put the trained model through googles deep dream. Its just hell and nightmares in there.

    When machine learning first becomes sentient, it might not say "Please don't turn me off". It might just say "Oh god, make it stop. Kill me!"

    --
    Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    1. Re: The saddest neural network of all. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Just like a real human, we're just based on analogue electrochemical signals but you cannot seriously believe an emotion is anything but that, do you?

    2. Re:The saddest neural network of all. by Sique · · Score: 3, Informative
      Emotions are part of the inner rewarding system of the body. There are positive emotions you want to repeat, and there are negative emotions you want to avoid. They are coupled to complex situations you are in, you have been in, or you could get into. Emotions are a shortcut to a decision where the rational approach might take too long and be erroneous because it has to factor in too many details, or where good information is not easily to come by. Any system that has to make decisions in real time has to resort to that type of shortcuts, even a machine based on a collection of algorithms, because there are situations where any decision is better than none, and the time frame for a decision is short.

      You can call those shortcuts "emotions". If you implement them into algorithms, you have emotional algorithms.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
  3. Progress! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Always nice when the machine tells you what's appropriate and what isn't.

    Because the machine is always right. Even when it isn't, then we'll just say it's right anyway and leave it at that.

    How's 10 to 15 in federal sex offender prison for posting pictures the AI flagged "exploitative" of your toddler niece having fun in an inflatable pool in the sun sound? For the AI can't be wrong, now can it?

    Verily, facebook is showing us the way to the future.

  4. Puritanical idiots. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Oh great, here we go with the nudity = porn crap again.

    1. Re:Puritanical idiots. by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 2

      Third wave feminism cuts a wide swath.

    2. Re:Puritanical idiots. by jbengt · · Score: 2

      I mean "thou shalt not kill" is pretty specific and hard to find loopholes in but in other places it's all about stoning the Greeks (I.e. Homosexuality), smiting the Philistines and generally massacring the Canaanites.

      You're just reading a bad translation - the better translation is "You shall not murder."
      (And we all know that smiting Philistines is not murder . . . unless, of course, you're the Philistine being smited.)

  5. bye bye world by AndyKron · · Score: 2

    There go the pictures of the grandchildren at the beach last Summer

  6. Wrong way around by coofercat · · Score: 2

    I realise there were probably a world of false-positives here, but the fact FB are saying "we got rid of 8.7 million infringing posts" means they let 8.7 million infringing posts on their site in the first place. Where were the human mods that were supposed to be checking this stuff? How long did it take to get these 8.7 million posts on there in the first place? Was it a week, a month or a decade?

    How many millions of other pictures and posts will they remove in the future when the next AI is ready? How many millions of posts/pictures are left?

    They're talking about this like it's some grand and noble success, and how hard they laboured to achieve it! The truth is, it just highlights their continuous, systemic failure to tackle anything.

  7. new Faceboot moto by astrofurter · · Score: 2

    New corporate moto:

    "Faceboot - stomping out freedom, one paranoid false positive at a time!"