SALT LAKE CITY — Can Facebook help staunch the trafficking of photos and videos of child sexual abuse, a horrific practice that’s exploded in the past decade and surpassed 45 million images discovered on the internet last year?
That’s the question Rep. Ben McAdams, D-Utah, had for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday when he appeared as the sole witness before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services.
“Mr. Zuckerberg, yes or no, do you believe that online social media platforms such as Facebook have a role to play — even an obligation — to ensure that their platforms are safe for our vulnerable populations, especially our children,” McAdams asked.
“Congressman, absolutely, and we do a lot of work on this,” Zuckerberg replied.
Wednesday’s hearing was mostly focused on issues surrounding the potential monetary impacts of Facebook’s plans to create a digital cryptocurrency, called Libra, to facilitate global online payments. But, McAdams said he sees a potential link between the proposal and encrypted messaging services offered by Facebook and other platforms.
“I wanted to raise the point and I think it is related to Libra,” McAdams told the Deseret News in an interview following the hearing. “The more you have easily transferable currency that is also anonymous, there is at least the potential that it funds really scary activities like terrorism, human trafficking and online child exploitation and sexual abuse.”
“Facebook needs to be doing much more to protect our children. A move to encryption for Facebook Messenger will only proliferate the danger if not done correctly, all while giving you plausible deniability on what goes on on your platform.” — Rep. Ben McAdams
According to an investigation published by the New York Times last month and cited by McAdams in his questioning of Zuckerberg, technology companies reported the discovery of a record 45 million online photos and videos of child sexual abuse in 2018. The report “found an insatiable criminal underworld that had exploited the flawed and insufficient efforts to contain it” and noted “many tech companies failed to adequately police sexual abuse imagery on their platforms, or failed to cooperate sufficiently with the authorities when they found it.”
While the investigation holds tech companies to account, McAdams noted that law enforcement reports sourcing from material discovered by Facebook on its Messenger messaging app accounted for 12 million of over 18 million reports of child sexual abuse content last year, with many of the reports tracking back to multiple images.
Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said there has been a “shocking and exponential” increase in online child sex crimes but noted Facebook has been among some “tremendous partners” in tracking down perpetrators.
“Protecting children is a top priority and always will be while I’m in office,” Reyes said in a statement. “Without violating civil liberties of citizens, Utah is a leader in deploying cutting edge tech to track down and prosecute child predators.
“Many technology companies have been tremendous partners in this fight,” Reyes added. “Facebook is one that has gone out of its way for years to provide immediate support and resources to protect children.”
Reyes office reported that 250 residential search warrants related to child sexual abuse crimes were served in Utah from October 2018 to the present and, in most cases, the warrants involved online trafficking of images or videos.
“You can and should prioritize child safety as you move forward with safeguards. Forty-five million photos and videos last year with child sexual material? We must do better.” — Rep. Ben McAdams
Facebook has announced that it has plans in the works to encrypt the messaging in its Messenger app, a characteristic that is already a part of its WhatsApp service. This so-called “end-to-end” encryption makes it much more difficult to detect the exchange of illegal and exploitative material. It’s a point McAdams raised with Zuckerberg, who acknowledged that the company is unable to see content in encrypted communications and must rely on other techniques to identify illegal material.
In a March 2019 blog post, Zuckerberg himself called for a higher bar of regulation to help internet companies police their platforms.
“I believe we need a more active role for government and regulators,” Zuckerberg wrote. “By updating the rules for the internet, we can preserve what’s best about it — the freedom for people to express themselves and for entrepreneurs to build new things — while also protecting society from broader harms.”
McAdams said he wasn’t sure that government taking a bigger role in regulating the internet was necessarily the solution, but believes regulators could “set some baseline expectations about what type of content should be prohibited, but ultimately we should hold internet companies accountable for enforcing decency standards and make sure those standards are acceptable and protect children.”
As his time was expiring Wednesday, McAdams left Zuckerberg with a final entreaty.
“Facebook needs to be doing much more to protect our children,” McAdams said. “A move to encryption for Facebook Messenger will only proliferate the danger if not done correctly, all while giving you plausible deniability on what goes on on your platform.
“You can and should prioritize child safety as you move forward with safeguards. Forty-five million photos and videos last year with child sexual material? We must do better.”