Facebook, Twitter and Google unite to Stop Spread of Child Abuse Images, By Jeff Parsons

Three of technology’s biggest names have joined forces with a UK charity to try and block paedophiles spreading images online.

Google, Facebook and Twitter have united alongside a UK charity, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) to try and stop the spread of child abuse images online.

The IWF is responsible for tracking indecent images of children online and allocating each one with a specific (“Hash”) code – allowing them to identify it.

It then compiles the codes into a so-called “Hash List” that keeps tabs on the horrific images.

Now the organisation has shared its Hash list with the biggest technology companies on the web.

It means that Facebook, Twitter and Google will be able to recognise these pictures and block them from being uploaded onto their services.

“Our Hash List could be a game-changer and really steps up the fight against child sexual abuse images online,” said Susie Hargreaves, chief executive of the IWF.

While explicit images can still be shared on the so-called “darknet”, preventing them from appearing on the likes of Google and Facebook is a step in the right direction.

(To read more, follow the link below…)

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/technology/facebook-twitter-google-unite-against-6226332?ICID=FB_mirror_main

Child Safety: Stop Posting Naked Photos of Your Kid, by Jarrett Arthur

A follow up to our previous post… the article Jarrett originally posted.

Child Safety: Stop Posting Naked Photos of Your Kid.

 

Editor’s Note, by Kirsteen McLay-Knopp

After reading the article at the link above, I decided to do some online searching of my own.  After typing “naked kids’ photos” into Google and clicking on “images”, hundreds of pictures of naked children immediately appeared.  Most were having fun and doing normal activities like taking baths but, as Jarrett rightly points out in her article, did their Mums and Dads really intend that ANYONE searching online like I did could view them?  How often have such photos been shared in less than savory circles?

Children in swim wear featured highly too, as did scantly-clad children.  I’ve never posted pictures of our kids in their togs (swimming gear) on Facebook or anywhere else, I never quite felt right about doing that… I guess I thought that was “family stuff” you might show the grandparents or someone.  Some of the pictures I saw posted were VERY innocent, but it certainly makes you wonder why they come up under the search title “naked kids”… do some people out there get off on seeing scantily clad kids or kids in swimming gear?

I was also concerned to see that there were a number of nude photographs of children in developing countries.  While I have no problem with their nudity in the context of their respective cultures (and don’t believe that children should be taught to be ashamed of their bodies) I did have to wonder who took these photos and why, as well as why there are so many of them on the internet… as well as, of course, who continues to search them.  Considering that many children are sexually exploited in our world’s poorest areas, this is a concern too.

 

Proof Positive: Why You Should Keep Naked Baby Pics Private! Jaw dropping realization about online searches and the demand for explicit child photos, by Jarrett Arthur

Dear Parent/ Carer,

Please bear with me as I walk you through my own personal experience in discovering the huge and sick online demand for images of child exploitation.

In 2014, I wrote a blog article entitled, “Child Safety: Stop Posting Naked Photos of Your Kids“ (… posted on BeAKidsHero.com as “3 Reasons to Keep Naked Baby Pictures Private“). It got sort of decent engagement, few shares, and fewer comments. In general it was pretty much ignored and the overall feedback I received was underwhelming to the point of being disappointing.

…my heart sank immediately, my vision blurred, my ears started ringing, and I got about as close as one can get to vomiting without having to run to the toilet.

“Why isn’t anybody noticing this important article about keeping kids safe?” I’ve been thinking to myself over the course of the past year.

That is until I realized recently that there were many, many people noticing this article.

And upon this discovery my heart sank immediately, my vision blurred, my ears started ringing, and I got about as close as one can get to vomiting without having to run to the toilet. It was proof positive of why you should keep naked baby pics private!

How do search engines work?

Let me start off by explaining what a search engine query is, in case you don’t know. Each time you visit Google, or Bing, or Yahoo, and type a series of words into the search engine browser, you create a search engine query. Different than keywords, queries are the exact sequence of words (misspellings and all) that you type into that white box. Some recent examples of my personal queries: “Female owned businesses in Austin Texas,” “Innovative shoulder mobility exercises,” “How late is the Valencia post office open until.”

The search engine then tries to decide what information you’re looking for and sends you a list of websites it thinks are the best fits for your search engine query. How does it determine which pages are best? It’s complicated, but one of the ways is by matching the titles of pages (articles, blogs, website home pages, etc.), and content of pages, to the words in the query. So if someone queries, “Jarrett Arthur self-defense,” Google, or whatever they’re using, will send them a link to my website because it’s the best match.

I was shocked to learn…

As a website owner and Google analytics customer, I have access to a report on the top search engine queries created by other people that are determined to be a match with my site, or pages on my site. Below is a screenshot of an actual report I just pulled from my website data. It shows 34 commonly used search engine queries that people have entered into their browsers that their search engines have determined my website is the best match for…

So, in case you’re lost and not understanding what’s happening here, let me spell it out. Of all the ways that search engine users on the Internet find my website through queries, the above 34 commonly used phrases from around the world are among the most prevalent. Because of the words in the title of my blog post on NOT posting naked photos of kids, which contains words associated with these queries above, Google and other search engines send these query creators to my blog post. Each entry does not represent one single query… each entry represents multiple queries, of which these are the most frequent.

To read more, follow the link below…

http://www.gingerkadlec.com/posts/proof-positive-why-you-should-keep-naked-baby-pics-private/?utm_source=Ginger+Kadlec%3A+BeAKidsHero%E2%84%A2+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d44f146e52-Proof_Positive_Keep_Naked_Baby_Pics_Private&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ef7c99686b-d44f146e52-186551997