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Facebook's WhatsApp Has an Encrypted Child Porn Problem (techcrunch.com)
Videos and pictures of children being subjected to sexual abuse are being openly shared on Facebook's WhatsApp on a vast scale, with the encrypted messaging service failing to curb the problem despite banning thousands of accounts every day. From a report: Without the necessary number of human moderators, the disturbing content is slipping by WhatsApp's automated systems. A report reviewed by TechCrunch from two Israeli NGOs details how third-party apps for discovering WhatsApp groups include "Adult" sections that offer invite links to join rings of users trading images of child exploitation. TechCrunch has reviewed materials showing many of these groups are currently active.
TechCrunch's investigation shows that Facebook could do more to police WhatsApp and remove this kind of content. Even without technical solutions that would require a weakening of encryption, WhatsApp's moderators should have been able to find these groups and put a stop to them. Groups with names like "child porn only no adv" and "child porn xvideos" found on the group discovery app "Group Links For Whats" by Lisa Studio don't even attempt to hide their nature.
Better manual investigation of these group discovery apps and WhatsApp itself should have immediately led these groups to be deleted and their members banned. While Facebook doubled its moderation staff from 10,000 to 20,000 in 2018 to crack down on election interference, bullying, and other policy violations, that staff does not moderate WhatsApp content. With just 300 employees, WhatsApp runs semi-independently, and the company confirms it handles its own moderation efforts. That's proving inadequate for policing at 1.5 billion user community. It's a similar problem that WhatsApp, used by more than a billion users, is facing in developing markets where its service is being used to spread false information.
TechCrunch's investigation shows that Facebook could do more to police WhatsApp and remove this kind of content. Even without technical solutions that would require a weakening of encryption, WhatsApp's moderators should have been able to find these groups and put a stop to them. Groups with names like "child porn only no adv" and "child porn xvideos" found on the group discovery app "Group Links For Whats" by Lisa Studio don't even attempt to hide their nature.
Better manual investigation of these group discovery apps and WhatsApp itself should have immediately led these groups to be deleted and their members banned. While Facebook doubled its moderation staff from 10,000 to 20,000 in 2018 to crack down on election interference, bullying, and other policy violations, that staff does not moderate WhatsApp content. With just 300 employees, WhatsApp runs semi-independently, and the company confirms it handles its own moderation efforts. That's proving inadequate for policing at 1.5 billion user community. It's a similar problem that WhatsApp, used by more than a billion users, is facing in developing markets where its service is being used to spread false information.
For every creep you bust .a new creep is created to fill the vacuum left by the last. I recognize the intentions are noble but the goal is unattainable. For every effort we put into we put Into these things ,we are still forever sitting in the same situation. Playing Ring around the outlets with no actual decrease in the indesired behaviors.
And in financials we call these effort a money pit. And cut our losses for the sake of pragmatism.
Think of how much we could accomplish with the efforts that are put into this impossible mission, if put into things that actually can be helped?
Uh, hang on a cotton-pickin' second. Isn't WhatsApp supposed to have "end to end encryption?" Didn't they like publish a whole paper describing how their end-to-end encryption made it impossible for third parties to know the content that was being sent? Wasn't it supposed to be impossible for anyone, including WhatsApp themselves, to know the content being transmitted on their system?
Doesn't end-to-end encryption, where "even WhatsApp" can't see the contents of the messages, sorta preclude the use of moderators to moderate content? That is, if WhatsApp can't see the messages, they can't moderate the messages, right?
So, um, am I wrong in thinking that WhatsApp's claim to being able to moderate messages and claims that messages cannot be read by WhatsApp are sort of incompatible? Unless WhatsApp's supposed "end-to-end encryption" is more of a bullshit marketing ploy rather than a description of the actual algorithms in play here...
It's a slippery slope. If the SJW's and the thought police come after kiddie porn, next thing you know they'll want to come after vanilla porn etc.
Blockchain messaging apps? You seem a bit retarded.
For every creep you bust .a new creep is created to fill the vacuum left by the last.
Nonsense on its face and an entirely evidence-free assertion. You paraphrased the common anti-war line from about 10-15 years ago that said if you kill terrorists you just create more terrorists.
And guess what . . . . that's exactly what has happened.
We've spent the last 20 years killing "terrorists", and we've killed a lot of them, and it hasn't reduced the number of terrorists one bit.
... and the only real cure is unattainable.
People want child porn and the cure is to stop that desire. Pedophilia is a sexual preference.
The social structure is similar to America's need for drugs: Stop the desire for drugs and Bob's yer uncle,
Until then, it's wack-a-mole.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Because the object of the article is to vilify encryption so the public demands that it be outlawed. It's a pretty old trick
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The reality in this case, the crime is not what they share, the crime lies with the creators and distributors of the content. Is there a problem on the web site, no, the problem appears to be a failure with policing to track down the creators of the problems on those web sites. Encrypted, should not be a problem, if it looks bad, check into the end user, if they are overseas, well, use cyber treaties (oh wait you can because hack the planet), well then fucking establish treaties and if they wont play ball, cut them off, not their balls of course back their backbone connections.
The problem is not the distribution of that content but it's creation, and that can not be encrypted and this bullshit to weaken encryption, just more bullshit. The problem can readily be dealt with if the US government would simply stop being dickbags and stop trying to hack the planet.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I guess you don't pay attention to the news and all the stabbings, shootings and vehicles running people over in Europe, all in the name of alla snackbar. That didn't used to happen.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.