Category Archives: Facebook

Facebook’s very poor example

Posted on July 25, 2020 by

I have lost count of the number of times child safety advocates from around the world have got in touch with me because, in relation to something they think is important and urgent locally, they cannot get any response from … Continue reading →

Posted in E-commerce, Facebook, Regulation, Self-regulation

Business goes where Governments fear to tread

Posted on June 28, 2020 by

It’s a funny old world. Governments bang on about the unacceptable nature of some of the stuff that regularly appears on social media. They call on the platforms to do something about it and, immediately, a whole army of predictable … Continue reading →

Posted in Facebook, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation, Uncategorized

President Trump gets it wrong

Posted on May 29, 2020 by

So it wasn’t an empty threat.  President Trump did it. He signed an Executive Order which, in essence, seeks to change the law on platform immunity, as conferred by s.230, Communications Decency Act 1996. It is doubtful the Executive Order … Continue reading →

Posted in Facebook, Google, Internet governance, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation

Good but nowhere near good enough

Posted on May 27, 2020 by

Last Thursday Facebook made an announcement about its plans for Messenger. In truth the substance of the announcement concerned great stuff I thought they were already doing, at least on their main Facebook platform, so discovering they were now going … Continue reading →

Posted in Child abuse images, E-commerce, Facebook, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation

Failures of contingency planning worsened by delay

Posted on May 18, 2020 by

UK Children’s organizations have written a letter of protest to the Government. The media have covered in some detail certain headline failures of contingency planning in relation to Covid-19 and lockdown. Less well remarked has been the failure of contingency … Continue reading →

Posted in Age verification, Consent, Default settings, E-commerce, Facebook, Google, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation

Another advertising scandal

Posted on May 2, 2020 by

Apologies for the fact I missed this at the time it hit the regular news cycle but when I read  about it yesterday I felt I still had to write something. Regular readers will know my blogs are occasionally partly … Continue reading →

Posted in E-commerce, Facebook, Google, Pornography, Regulation, Self-regulation

Big numbers again and countries named

Posted on April 16, 2020 by

Under US Federal law every electronic service provider (esp) within the US jurisdiction is required to report all child sex abuse material (csam) found on their virtual properties.  They must report to NCMEC, the US hotline, in a form described here. … Continue reading →

Posted in Child abuse images, Facebook, Google, Regulation, Self-regulation

After the war is over

Posted on April 13, 2020 by

It is impossible for anyone to say with any level of certainty what the post-pandemic world will look like. Some pundits believe everything will be completely different. Rather more seem to be saying nothing much will change or things could … Continue reading →

Posted in Default settings, Facebook, Google, ICANN, Internet governance, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation

More progress in the fight against online child sex abuse

Posted on March 13, 2020 by

Last week representatives from the Governments of the “Five Eyes” nations, (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA) gathered in Washington DC. They endorsed a set of eleven voluntary principles to combat a range of online threats to … Continue reading →

Posted in Age verification, Child abuse images, Facebook, Google, Internet governance, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation

Voluntarism just isn’t working. Again.

Posted on November 10, 2019 by

Another excellent major story  has appeared in The New York Times. It details the failings of high tech businesses to address the scourge of child sex abuse still images and videos on the internet. The failures of voluntarism are again … Continue reading →

Posted in Child abuse images, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Regulation, Self-regulation