Reporting directly to the police on facebook.com

CardinalJ

Break The Silence wrote: »

Agreed here as well.

We spoke about this as well and reckon people misusing the feature should be charged with wasting police time or something.

If you want to get serious with FB you have to have better answers than 'or something'. What if someone leaves their profile open and someone messes with it.

I don't see how a general email from FB about process for reporting suspicious accounts would do any less than having specific buttons installed.

I'd imaging almost everyone here has some sort of pic of them in the nip as a kid. What if someone uploads a pic like that of their kid (I accept they'd want to be stupid to do this), does that make some random parent a pedophile for sharing indecent images?

UDP

Break The Silence wrote: »

All the Garda had to do is take the piece of paper off me go to a computer and type the address in and he'd have seen profiles with child abuse on them.

The 3 profiles on a social forum which are hosted by a company (Mircosoft) here in Ireland.

Which country the 3 profiles were from I do not know.

There is a high chance they are not being hosted in Ireland. Microsoft have more data centers than just in Ireland so there is no way of knowing that the content was create or stored in Ireland. Gardai in a local police station do not have the necessary resources to deal with it there but they should have been able to tell you who to contact but the reality is they probably didn't know. Reporting those profiles using the reporting function would be a much more productive way to deal with this.

ceegee

Break The Silence wrote: »

ceegee wrote: »

Surely a button to report directly to police would be massively misused by gobsh*te teenagers. Cant see any police agency welcoming the deluge of spam

Agreed here as well.

We spoke about this as well and reckon people misusing the feature should be charged with wasting police time or something.

Majority of those misusing it are likely to be minors, trying to get them punished would be a bigger waste of police time

UDP

CardinalJ wrote: »

I'd imaging almost everyone here has some sort of pic of them in the nip as a kid. What if someone uploads a pic like that of their kid (I accept they'd want to be stupid to do this), does that make some random parent a pedophile for sharing indecent images?

The general policy for this on facebook is they they remove images of toddlers which contain nudity. They leave nudity of babies but generally once the child looks to be around walking age then it is removed. Again at present this is only when the content is reported as nobody is actively policing this.

Break The Silence

UDP wrote: »

Unfortunately the reality here is that police organisations around the world do not have the resources to do this. The courts definitely do not have the time nor resources to go about charging teenagers with wasting police time. It just is not a realistic way to go about it. The only way is for facebook to analyse reported content and filtering out the fakes and false reports and passing on the rest to law enforcement agencies which like I have already said they do.

Agreed it would be messy with kids messing like they are inclined to.

Facebook sends all of its information to the NCMEC like I said already as they are obligued to by American law.

Facebook does not have human eyes viewing every single piece of reported content so cannot guarantee that things do not get missed.

According to a report I read recently they even admit this.

In other words they are just deleting content without anyone ever viewing it.

La Haine

Break The Silence wrote: »

Hello I am involved in a very small group of people who are interested in finding ways to stop child abuse images and videos from getting onto facebook.

We believe if there was an option to report child exploititive material directly to the police on facebook itself it would serve to frighten paedophiles and others away from that forum.

We think if someone comes across some bad content (say child abuse) they see the options.

• • Spam or scam
  • Nudity or pornography
  • Graphic violence
  • Hate speech or symbol
  • Illegal drug use

None of these are anywhere close to what child abuse is.

If there was an option to report to your local police hotline the police would see it fast could inform facebook of what it is and it would be removed quickly.

The reporter would be happy, the police would be happy and facebook would be happy.

Obviously your IP address would determine which hotline you'd be reporting to.

Why don't you (and your small group of concerned people) approach Facebook with your idea? Maybe make a few quid for coming up with it too. Or see if you can get a journalist to take your cause and run with it?
Joe Duffy could maybe highlight it on his show?

Cheers.

Break The Silence

UDP wrote: »

There is a high chance they are not being hosted in Ireland. Microsoft have more data centers than just in Ireland so there is no way of knowing that the content was create or stored in Ireland. Gardai in a local police station do not have the necessary resources to deal with it there but they should have been able to tell you who to contact but the reality is they probably didn't know. Reporting those profiles using the reporting function would be a much more productive way to deal with this.

The worldwide HQ for Microsoft is in Dublin City Ireland.

No if you use the reporting features on a social network then all you are doing is helping to hide the content.

Your girlfriend spoke to you of the ones she saw but there are probably millions she missed that were deleted anyway

Break The Silence

La Haine wrote: »

Why don't you (and your small group of concerned people) approach Facebook with your idea? Maybe make a few quid for coming up with it too. Or see if you can get a journalist to take your cause and run with it?
Joe Duffy could maybe highlight it on his show?

Cheers.

Getting interest is extremely difficult.

I've spoken to newspapers and some of the people I worked with have appeared on Fox news, Spanish TV/radio plus the BBC and possibly ITV may be doing a story on what we were at for a few months.

One of our members met Hillary Clinton and others meet Whitehouse staffers regularly trying to expose this problem.

La Haine

Break The Silence wrote: »

Getting interest is extremely difficult.

I've spoken to newspapers and some of the people I worked with have appeared on Fox news, Spanish TV/radio plus the BBC and possibly ITV may be doing a story on what we were at for a few months.

One of our members met Hillary Clinton and others meet Whitehouse staffers regularly trying to expose this problem.

Yeah, but in fairness, none of them would have the clout that our Joe has.
Just sayin'.

UDP

Break The Silence wrote: »

Facebook does not have human eyes viewing every single piece of reported content so cannot guarantee that things do not get missed.

According to a report I read recently they even admit this.

They review everything because of the bad press that is receive when they delete content that did not break their policies by mistake. They even brought in a double review system whereby things marked for deletion are reviewed a second time to reduce the incidents of deleting the wrong content.

Break The Silence wrote: »

In other words they are just deleting content without anyone ever viewing it.

Thats not true. I would like to see your source for this.

UDP

Break The Silence wrote: »

The worldwide HQ for Microsoft is in Dublin City Ireland.

The world headquarters for MS is in redmond Washington - not Ireland. Their European headquarters are in Ireland. They operate a data center in Ireland but also have data centers in other countries too.

Break The Silence wrote: »

No if you use the reporting features on a social network then all you are doing is helping to hide the content.

Your girlfriend spoke to you of the ones she saw but there are probably millions she missed that were deleted anyway

That is not true. Reporting of content that violates terms of use are dealt with. In the case of acts of child abuse the content is escalated and the associated information is reported to the appropriate authorities.

All reported content ends up in the User Operations queue for human review. Where are you getting the information that it is deleted from?

To be honest the information you seem to have regarding how facebook handles this issue seems very flaky. You seem determined to go after facebook for the wrong thing which will achieve nothing. Concentrate your energies in highlighting the lack of active monitoring of content automated or otherwise - not on not dealing with reported content because they do already deal with reported content.

Break The Silence

UDP wrote: »

They review everything because of the bad press that is receive when they delete content that did not break their policies by mistake. They even brought in a double review system whereby things marked for deletion are reviewed a second time to reduce the incidents of deleting the wrong content.

There are 900,000,000 users on facebook there is simply no way possible they could go through all the reported content with human eyes.

I will happily ask one of the good people I work with for links for you

UDP wrote: »

Thats not true. I would like to see your source for this.

If they are not seeing all the content that is being reported to them then they are missing things which are being deleted.

They admit to deleting 20,000 profiles every single day.

How can they go through all of them to ensure none have illegal content on them.

Again I will ask someone for links for you

BrianD

UDP wrote: »

Nope there is a huge amount of pornography uploaded to facebook daily - plus violent and other disgusting content.

I don't think they do. I have never heard of it - have you a source for this?

It is actually the perfect place for members of child porn rings to hang out and thats why there is so much of that on the website. Many use private profiles with an innocent looking profile pic. They then become friends with others in the hope of sharing content and since it is so easy to share content on the site it makes it very convient for them.

I simply don't believe your assertion whatsoever. I would imagine that some gets up but it is as somebody else says a non issue.

Do you think these people would use a site as open as Facebook? I think not.

BrianD

Break The Silence wrote: »

There are 900,000,000 users on facebook there is simply no way possible they could go through all the reported content with human eyes.

Correct. It's an automated process. And of course users will report. Look at this logically. Facebook is non-porn environment - anything that is even risque sticks out like a sore thumb.

I will happily ask one of the good people I work with for links for you

If they are not seeing all the content that is being reported to them then they are missing things which are being deleted.

What do you mean by deleted? Automatically deleted or user deleted?

They admit to deleting 20,000 profiles every single day.

How can they go through all of them to ensure none have illegal content on them.

Again I will ask someone for links for you

Perhaps they were deleted because illegal content was uploaded?

Most of these fake profiles are spammers or "bought fans".

Break The Silence

UDP wrote: »

The world headquarters for MS is in redmond Washington - not Ireland. Their European headquarters are in Ireland. They operate a data center in Ireland but also have data centers in other countries too.

UDP wrote: »

That is not true. Reporting of content that violates terms of use are dealt with. In the case of acts of child abuse the content is escalated and the associated information is reported to the appropriate authorities.

All reported content ends up in the User Operations queue for human review. Where are you getting the information that it is deleted from?

To be honest the information you seem to have regarding how facebook handles this issue seems very flaky. You seem determined to go after facebook for the wrong thing which will achieve nothing. Concentrate your energies in highlighting the lack of active monitoring of content automated or otherwise - not on not dealing with reported content because they do already deal with reported content.

The content is reported IF facebook is aware of it and only then.

Facebook deletes child abuse profiles constantly through its automatic software programs and filters without anyone ever seeing the content.

Break The Silence

BrianD wrote: »

I simply don't believe your assertion whatsoever. I would imagine that some gets up but it is as somebody else says a non issue.

Do you think these people would use a site as open as Facebook? I think not.

Yes they do and on public walls too.

Break The Silence

BrianD wrote: »

Correct. It's an automated process. And of course users will report. Look at this logically. Facebook is non-porn environment - anything that is even risque sticks out like a sore thumb.



What do you mean by deleted? Automatically deleted or user deleted?



Perhaps they were deleted because illegal content was uploaded?

Most of these fake profiles are spammers or "bought fans".

Yes it is an automatic process.

You generally make a report and as soon as a certain number of reports goes against something it is deleted.

Facebook is anything but porn free.

They get deleted by automatic systems in place.

In the case of child abuse when they become aware of child abuse on the site it is removed instantly but only when they are told it is there.

If you come across child absue and report it it will still be there months later if you happen to be the only person who reported it.

UDP

BrianD wrote: »

I simply don't believe your assertion whatsoever. I would imagine that some gets up but it is as somebody else says a non issue.

Do you think these people would use a site as open as Facebook? I think not.

I'm only telling the facts which you are choosing to not believe which is your choice but its not as clean and rosey as you think on facebook. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it is not there. You should see some of the content that is posted on the site from guys throwing dogs off off buildings to very violent acts to cold porn to men/women taking naked photos of themselves.

UDP

Break The Silence wrote: »

The content is reported IF facebook is aware of it and only then..

yes which is what I am saying. Facebook only passes details to law enforcement agencies if it is aware of its existence because it was reported. That is my gripe with facebook I.e. they are not actively scanning for content.

Break The Silence wrote: »

Facebook deletes child abuse profiles constantly through its automatic software programs and filters without anyone ever seeing the content.

No they don't. They don't have the software to do that unfortunately. I don't think your sources are very reliable tbh.

JustAddWater

Break The Silence wrote: »

Obviously your IP address would determine which hotline you'd be reporting to.

Not so obvious! If I'm online with my work laptop my IP location is from Oxford so that won't work

Anyone with a proxy will also show a different location. There's quite a few out there with Hulu, Netflix etc ...

Just saying, don't rely on IP locations to tell you where the reporter is from!

UDP

Break The Silence wrote: »

Yes it is an automatic process.

You generally make a report and as soon as a certain number of reports goes against something it is deleted.

Facebook is anything but porn free.

They get deleted by automatic systems in place.

In the case of child abuse when they become aware of child abuse on the site it is removed instantly but only when they are told it is there.

If you come across child absue and report it it will still be there months later if you happen to be the only person who reported it.

Im leaving this discussion as your information appears to be from very bad sources which you are repeating over and over again not listening to what I am telling you. You are putting your energies into the wrong fight that's all ive being trying to tell you. It reminds me of the mothers who marched on facebook because they thought facebook was deleting all breastfeeding images which was a lie. They only were deleting breastfeeding images that showed the other breast or other unnecessary nudity. They got themselves really worked up over incorrect information. You are right about the amount of child porn on the site but wrong about how it is dealt with.

Best of luck.

Break The Silence

UDP wrote: »

yes which is what I am saying. Facebook only passes details to law enforcement agencies if it is aware of its existence because it was reported. That is my gripe with facebook I.e. they are not actively scanning for content.

They do delete child abuse profiles constantly because they do not know what is on the profiles.

ie nobody sees them so they can be passed onto LE.

UDP wrote: »

No they don't. They don't have the software to do that unfortunately. I don't think your sources are very reliable tbh.

Erm yes they do.

They delete over 20,000 profiles every day.

In there will be a few profiles that have child abuse on them.

JustAddWater wrote: »

Not so obvious! If I'm online with my work laptop my IP location is from Oxford so that won't work

Anyone with a proxy will also show a different location. There's quite a few out there with Hulu, Netflix etc ...

Just saying, don't rely on IP locations to tell you where the reporter is from!

The vast majority of people I know do not use a proxy when they are on-line.

Plus in your own case you are hardly going to be reporting child abuse on facebook when using your work computer.

Break The Silence

UDP wrote: »

You are putting your energies into the wrong fight that's all ive being trying to tell you......You are right about the amount of child porn on the site but wrong about how it is dealt with.

Best of luck.

Facebook is not doing anywhere near enough to stop the flow of child abuse onto their site.

I reported a link to a video 3 months ago where a man slipped and fell 10 to 15 feet face first onto a concrete pier and it is still there on facebook.

Facebook is simply too big to look after itself.

MagicSean

Break The Silence wrote: »

They do delete child abuse profiles constantly because they do not know what is on the profiles.

ie nobody sees them so they can be passed onto LE.

Would they not be legally obliged to delete them or they would be committing an offence of posessing these images?

Break The Silence wrote: »

The vast majority of people I know do not use a proxy when they are on-line.

Plus in your own case you are hardly going to be reporting child abuse on facebook when using your work computer.

Why not? The point is that it is no good reporting to your own authorities, you have to report it to the profile owners authorities as that is where he is committing the offence. And it is likely that he is using some form of proxy.

Break The Silence wrote: »

Facebook is not doing anywhere near enough to stop the flow of child abuse onto their site.

I reported a link to a video 3 months ago where a man slipped and fell 10 to 15 feet face first onto a concrete pier and it is still there on facebook.

Facebook is simply too big to look after itself.

How is a man falling on his face related to reporting child abuse?

UDP

Break The Silence wrote: »

They do delete child abuse profiles constantly because they do not know what is on the profiles.

ie nobody sees them so they can be passed onto LE.

They delete profiles becuase they do not know what is on the profiles? what does that even mean?

Break The Silence wrote: »

Erm yes they do.

They delete over 20,000 profiles every day.

In there will be a few profiles that have child abuse on them.

Source?

Break The Silence wrote: »

Facebook is not doing anywhere near enough to stop the flow of child abuse onto their site.

I agree.

Break The Silence wrote: »

I reported a link to a video 3 months ago where a man slipped and fell 10 to 15 feet face first onto a concrete pier and it is still there on facebook.

It was probably not removed as it probably did not break the terms of use of the website. Such videos are allowed on Facebook as long as they do not show gore or blood. That is their policy so this is a bad example. Also Facebook do not have a 100% accuracy record for dealing with reported posts since humans are not perfect. Thats why they did a double-check for any content that was to be deleted. The way they saw it was that if something is against the policy and was allowed by a member of staff then it will more than likely just be reported again and end up in the queue whereby one would not expect the same mistake by an User Operations agent again. If they delete content however it is unretrievable which is why they are more hesitant to auto-delete.

BTW what has the video you reported got to do with your argument about child abuse/porn content?

Break The Silence wrote: »

Facebook is simply too big to look after itself.

The problem with facebook is more that they will only do what they have to do. If someone who is not 'into' abuse reports content then they will act immediately since they feel their obligation stops there. They would argue the resources needed for active scanning would not be feasible. The way I see it is they need to develop software that performs analysis and grades content on the likelyhood that it is child abuse/porn and if it looks likely it should be entered into the User Operations queue to be reviewed. Facebook do not do this as the queues would get massive thus would cost them a fortune to hire people to review the content.

Break The Silence

MagicSean wrote: »

Would they not be legally obliged to delete them or they would be committing an offence of posessing these images?

Only if they are aware of them and what they are.

MagicSean wrote: »

Why not? The point is that it is no good reporting to your own authorities, you have to report it to the profile owners authorities as that is where he is committing the offence. And it is likely that he is using some form of proxy.

Some use proxies, some don't.

MagicSean wrote: »

How is a man falling on his face related to reporting child abuse?

The point is that they do not respond to reports (unless it is large numbers of reports).

The video in question is quite horrific.....one of the most terrible things I've ever seen.

Break The Silence

UDP wrote: »

They delete profiles becuase they do not know what is on the profiles? what does that even mean?

I probably phrased it wrongly.

They delete profiles without knowing what is on them...would be closer.

UDP wrote: »

Source?

Source

UDP wrote: »

It was probably not removed as it probably did not break the terms of use of the website. Such videos are allowed on Facebook as long as they do not show gore or blood. That is their policy so this is a bad example. Also Facebook do not have a 100% accuracy record for dealing with reported posts since humans are not perfect. Thats why they did a double-check for any content that was to be deleted. The way they saw it was that if something is against the policy and was allowed by a member of staff then it will more than likely just be reported again and end up in the queue whereby one would not expect the same mistake by an User Operations agent again. If they delete content however it is unretrievable which is why they are more hesitant to auto-delete.

To clarify something here if facebook are informed about child abuse on their site they do send it to LE and do delete it BUT if they delete content without human eyes seeing it, it is retrievable.

I know a woman who had her account disabled by facebook and 6 months later she sent in her passport and it was reactivated

UDP wrote: »

BTW what has the video you reported got to do with your argument about child abuse/porn content?

Just making the point that facebook does not see what is being reported.

UDP wrote: »

The way I see it is they need to develop software that performs analysis and grades content on the likelyhood that it is child abuse/porn and if it looks likely it should be entered into the User Operations queue to be reviewed. Facebook do not do this as the queues would get massive thus would cost them a fortune to hire people to review the content.

Adult porn sites do not have a problem with child abuse videos being uploaded onto them so we really do not see why facebook cannot deal with this as well.

http://www.interpol.int/es/Centro-de-prensa/V%C3%ADdeos/%28video_id%29/14178

Indricotherium

What is the prevalence of child abuse pictures being put on Facebook and then stumbled across by joe random?

There are two things to consider here:

First that the pictures are uploaded to the site regularly by people who are in the business of making and distributing the images.

Second that they are encountered by people who will report them.

I'm not 100% au fait with the site but I didn't think that you could encounter photos from a third party without some connection to yourself?

Break The Silence

Break The Silence wrote: »

I wrote on a piece of paper 3 links to profiles which I'd been told had child abuse on them.

The Garda refused to take them off me.

You wrote on a piece of paper 3 random profiles
you didn't know if they had any abuse on them (abuse on a profile), you just went with hearsay
you had no evidence, no nothing, except a scrap of paper with 3 people you felt like targeting

of course the garda wouldn't take it off you

Grolschevik

Anyway, shouldn't this really be in
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=536

The legal discussion aspect is pretty minimal...

Break The Silence

Indricotherium wrote: »

I'm not 100% au fait with the site but I didn't think that you could encounter photos from a third party without some connection to yourself?

You don't need any connection to people if they are posting in public which several of them do.

bluewolf wrote: »

You wrote on a piece of paper 3 random profiles
you didn't know if they had any abuse on them (abuse on a profile), you just went with hearsay
you had no evidence, no nothing, except a scrap of paper with 3 people you felt like targeting

of course the garda wouldn't take it off you

All a Garda would have to do is go to his little ole computer thingie grab the little scrap of paper use his big thick finger and up the top of the screen in front of him type in the address and he'd be able to see what was on the profiles.

Do you think he'd be able to figure that out?

Break The Silence

Break The Silence wrote: »

All a Garda would have to do is go to his little ole computer thingie grab the little scrap of paper use his big thick finger and up the top of the screen in front of him type in the address and he'd be able to see what was on the profiles.

Do you think he'd be able to figure that out?

why should he investigate anyone you've taken a notion in your head about? it's a waste of garda time

MagicSean

Break The Silence wrote: »

Only if they are aware of them and what they are.

When it's reported they are made aware so keeping it on the system would be knowingly posessing it.

Break The Silence wrote: »

Some use proxies, some don't.

Exactly. So there is absolutely no way for an automated system to know what authority to report it to.

Break The Silence wrote: »

The point is that they do not respond to reports (unless it is large numbers of reports).

The video in question is quite horrific.....one of the most terrible things I've ever seen.

You are seriously comparing the reporting of child abuse to something which offended you? Different league.

Break The Silence wrote: »

You don't need any connection to people if they are posting in public which several of them do.



All a Garda would have to do is go to his little ole computer thingie grab the little scrap of paper use his big thick finger and up the top of the screen in front of him type in the address and he'd be able to see what was on the profiles.

Do you think he'd be able to figure that out?

Think it's become clear why he may not have taken a shine to you.

Break The Silence

bluewolf wrote: »

why should he investigate anyone you've taken a notion in your head about? it's a waste of garda time

How do you know what is a waste of Garda time and what is not?

If someone goes to a Garda Station to report something they believe endangers a child should they be ignored?

Break The Silence

Break The Silence wrote: »

How do you know what is a waste of Garda time and what is not?

If someone goes to a Garda Station to report something they believe endangers a child should they be ignored?

If I go to the garda station to report that i heard somewhere that my neighbours are secretly working for the kgb should I be ignored? especially if my proof is their names written on a scrap of paper?

Break The Silence

MagicSean wrote: »

When it's reported they are made aware so keeping it on the system would be knowingly posessing it.

They are made aware that something has been reported yes but they have no way to know what exactly it is unless someone looks at it.

MagicSean wrote: »

Exactly. So there is absolutely no way for an automated system to know what authority to report it to.

The authority it reports to is the NCMEC in the US.

I imagine they should also report everything to the Garda as well but don't know if they do or not

MagicSean wrote: »

You are seriously comparing the reporting of child abuse to something which offended you? Different league.

I'm glad you agree that is why I believe there should be better reporting options for child abuse on facebook.

MagicSean wrote: »

Think it's become clear why he may not have taken a shine to you.

Where did you get this from?

Break The Silence

bluewolf wrote: »

If I go to the garda station to report that i heard somewhere that my neighbours are secretly working for the kgb should I be ignored? especially if my proof is their names written on a scrap of paper?

What on earth are you talking about?

mikom

Break The Silence wrote: »

All a Garda would have to do is go to his little ole computer thingie grab the little scrap of paper use his big thick finger and up the top of the screen in front of him type in the address and he'd be able to see what was on the profiles.

Do you think he'd be able to figure that out?

Little tip:

Nobody likes to type in URLS.
If you want to be become the peodofinder general then I suggest you invest in a memory stick.

Break The Silence

mikom wrote: »

Little tip:

Nobody likes to type in URLS.
If you want to be become the peodofinder general then I suggest you invest in a memory stick.

Anyone who wants to be 'paedofinder general' is likely to end up in possession of child abuse on their computer so I do not reccommend people do that.

Indricotherium

MagicSean wrote: »

Break The Silence wrote: »

Only if they are aware of them and what they are.

When it's reported they are made aware so keeping it on the system would be knowingly posessing it.

Break The Silence wrote: »

Some use proxies, some don't.

Exactly. So there is absolutely no way for an automated system to know what authority to report it to.

Break The Silence wrote: »

The point is that they do not respond to reports (unless it is large numbers of reports).

The video in question is quite horrific.....one of the most terrible things I've ever seen.

You are seriously comparing the reporting of child abuse to something which offended you? Different league.

Break The Silence wrote: »

You don't need any connection to people if they are posting in public which several of them do.



All a Garda would have to do is go to his little ole computer thingie grab the little scrap of paper use his big thick finger and up the top of the screen in front of him type in the address and he'd be able to see what was on the profiles.

Do you think he'd be able to figure that out?

Think it's become clear why he may not have taken a shine to you.

+1