DUBAI: The UAE’s Digital WellBeing Council, the Ministry of Interior’s Child Protection Center and Meta have launched a new campaign to tackle online child abuse, “Report it. Don’t Share it.”
The campaign aims to educate the public about the harm caused by sharing images or videos of child sexual abuse, and how to report such content.
Launched on World Children’s Day on Nov. 20, the campaign is based on research conducted earlier this year by Meta and experts on child exploitation, such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and Prof. Ethel Quayle, a clinical psychologist who specializes in working with sex offenders and their victims.
“We are taking a research-informed approach to develop effective solutions that disrupt the sharing of child exploitation material,” said David Miles, Meta’s head of safety policy, EMEA.
In a statement, Meta said that much of the research on why people engage with child sexual abuse materials has involved evaluations of people’s psychological makeup. However, the company’s research “looks at behavioral signals from a fixed point in time and from a snapshot of users’ life on Meta’s platforms.”
Researchers evaluated 150 accounts that Meta reported to NCMEC for uploading child exploitation content in July and August of 2020 and January 2021, and found that more than 75 percent did not exhibit malicious content. Instead, these accounts appeared to share for other reasons, such as outrage or poor humor.
Meta said that it reports each individual instance of child exploitation content to NCMEC, including content the company has identified and removed before it was seen by anyone. The study also found that the majority of reports Meta sent to NCMEC had the same or visually similar content. About 90 percent of the images or videos of child sexual abuse analyzed in the study were found to be copies, rather than unique or new content.
In addition, just six pieces of visually distinct media were responsible for more than half of all child exploitative content that the company reported.
Based on this analysis, the company developed the campaign together with child safety partners to help reduce instances of such content being shared on its platforms.
“While this data indicates that the number of pieces of content does not equal the number of victims, one victim is one too many,” said Miles.
“Preventing and eradicating online child sexual exploitation and abuse requires a cross-industry approach, and Meta is committed to doing our part to protect children on and off our apps,” he added.
If someone feels a child is at risk, they are encouraged to report it to the Ministry of Interior’s Child Protection Centre Helpline on the phone number 116111. If someone sees an image or video on Facebook or Instagram of a child being abused, they are asked to report the photo or video to Meta and law enforcement.
Additionally, the campaign also warns people against sharing, downloading or commenting on any such content, as there could be criminal penalties associated with such actions.
“No matter the reason, sharing images or videos of child sexual abuse online has a devastating impact on the child depicted in that content. We are working with Meta to get a better understanding of how we can effectively disrupt sharing and prevent re-victimizing children, and also educating people on what they can do to report this crime,” said Abdul Rahman al-Tamimi, director of the Child Protection Center at the Ministry of Interior, United Arab Emirates.
