Facebook, Google And Twitter Join Forces To Fight Child Sexual Abuse

Social media application illustration (Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Unwittingly, sexual abuse against minors is still circulating on social media networks and the internet. To that end, a giant coalition of technology between Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter will come together to eradicate this problem.

Dubbed Project Protec, the coalition which was formed since 2006 aims to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse of children (CSEA) in cyberspace. The coalition also partners with organizations such as Unicef ​​and children's charities, in providing child-friendly technology platforms.

“The number of people online is more than 4.5 billion in 2020 has added to the challenge of keeping the internet a safe place. As a result, the technological tools for detecting and reporting CSEA content have become more sophisticated, but so have the forms of harassment we are trying to prevent and eliminate, "a representative from the coalition said as quoted by CNBC International, Friday 12 June.

The tech giants also said they would invest millions of dollars in research and innovation funding to build new technologies. They also work with the international body WePROTECT Global Alliance, an organization founded by British technology entrepreneur Joanna Shields, and the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children.

The report comes after the Technology Coalition supports 11 principles put forward by the "Five Eyes" alliance, which consists of the United States (US), Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

"Bringing together the brightest minds from across the technology industry to solve a serious problem that no company can solve," said Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.

It is known that the global pandemic and lockdown have increased the risk of child sexual abuse spreading online. For example, on May 20, the UK charity Internet Watch Foundation said it had found 8.8 million attempts to access images and videos of children who were sexually abused.

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel welcomed the latest move from the Technology Coalition. She labeled child sexual abuse online, "it's disgusting and we all have to work together to combat this crime."

"My Five Country partners and I have made it clear that technology companies need to work quickly and go further to address the critical problems that can leave children vulnerable to online predators," added Patel.

For information, Facebook already has a mechanism to tag and track pictures and videos that violate their content guidelines, and prevent them from being reposted. The same thing is done by YouTube, which prohibits content related to sexual harassment.