More children and families extorted with AI-made photos and videos, says National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Child sexual exploitation is on the rise online and taking new forms such as images and videos generated by artificial intelligence, according to an annual assessment released on Tuesday by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), a US-based clearinghouse for the reporting of child sexual abuse material.

Reports to the NCMEC of child abuse online rose by more than 12% in 2023 compared with the previous year, surpassing 36.2m reports, the organization said in its annual CyberTipline report. The majority of tips received were related to the circulation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) such as photos and videos, but there was also an increase in reports of financial sexual extortion, when an online predator lures a child into sending nude images or videos and then demands money.

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A 28-year-old Delaware woman, Hadja Kone, was arrested after cops linked her to an international sextortion scheme targeting thousands of victims—mostly young men and including some minors, the US Department of Justice announced Friday.

Citing a recently unsealed indictment, the DOJ alleged that Kone and co-conspirators "operated an international, financially motivated sextortion and money laundering scheme in which the conspirators engaged in cyberstalking, interstate threats, money laundering, and wire fraud."

Through the scheme, conspirators allegedly sought to extort about $6 million from "thousands of potential victims," the DOJ said, and ultimately successfully extorted approximately $1.7 million.

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Tech firms can do more, but it’s the government’s job to ensure children have safe places to play – and it’s not doing it

Three-quarters of children want to spend more time in nature. Having spent the Easter weekend trying to force four resistant teenagers off their phones and out for a nice walk over the Yorkshire Dales, admittedly I’ll have to take the National Trust’s word for this. But that’s what its survey of children aged between seven and 14 finds, anyway.

Kids don’t necessarily want to spend every waking minute hunched over a screen, however strongly they give that impression; even though retreating online satisfies the developmentally important desire to escape their annoying parents, even teenagers still want to run wild in the real world occasionally. Their relationship with phones is complex and maddening, but not a million miles off adults’ own love-hate relationship with social media; a greasy sugar-rush we crave but rarely feel better for indulging. Yet lately, longstanding parental unease over children’s screen habits has been hardening into something more like revolt.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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Unsealed court documents have revealed more details about a secret Facebook project initially called "Ghostbusters," designed to sneakily access encrypted Snapchat usage data to give Facebook a leg up on its rival, just when Snapchat was experiencing rapid growth in 2016.

The documents were filed in a class-action lawsuit from consumers and advertisers, accusing Meta of anticompetitive behavior that blocks rivals from competing in the social media ads market.

"Whenever someone asks a question about Snapchat, the answer is usually that because their traffic is encrypted, we have no analytics about them," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (who has since rebranded his company as Meta) wrote in a 2016 email to Javier Olivan.

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Figurez-vous que notre cher Meta (anciennement Facebook, alias Face2Bouc pour tonton Michel), s’est fait prendre la main dans le sac en train d’ espionner son concurrent Snapchat ! Et attention, on ne parle pas d’un petit coup d’œil indiscret, non c’est carrément une opération d’espionnage digne des meilleurs films d’espionnage, au nom de code : « Projet Ghostbusters » !

Alors comment cette histoire a débuté ?

Eh bien tout simplement parce que Zucky et sa bande étaient jaloux de ne pas avoir accès aux précieuses données analytiques de Snapchat. Ils ont donc sorti l’artillerie lourde : Onavo , leur propre VPN censé protéger la vie privée des utilisateurs. Sauf qu’en fait, c’était tout l’inverse !

Grâce à Onavo, Meta a pu installer ses propres certificats SSL/TLS ce qui lui a permis d’ intercepter le trafic de Snapchat et d’autres apps comme YouTube ou Amazon, pour les espionner en douce !

Une équipe de choc de 41 avocats et dirigeants avait même été mobilisée pour mener à bien cette mission top secrète.

Bon évidemment, quand l’affaire a éclaté en 2018, Meta a essayé de noyer le poisson en mode « circulez y a rien à voir ». Mais aujourd’hui les documents judiciaires ne mentent pas et montrent bien que Zuckerberg était au courant de tout ce bazar. Et le pire dans tout ça, c’est que cette opération pourrait bien être totalement illégale selon la loi américaine sur les écoutes électroniques !

En espionnant Snapchat, Meta voulait surtout avoir un avantage sur le marché publicitaire où la concurrence fait rage.

Bref c’est pas joli joli et Zuckerberg risque bien d’avoir des ennuis avec la justice américaine.

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Every child interviewed by media watchdog had watched violent material on the internet

Violent online content is now “unavoidable” for children in the UK, with many first exposed to it when they are still in primary school, research from the media watchdog has found.

Every single British child interviewed for the Ofcom study had watched violent material on the internet, ranging from videos of local school and street fights shared in group chats, to explicit and extreme graphic violence, including gang-related content.

Move involving companies such as Google, Facebook and X comes after evidence of Russian online interference in polls

The EU is calling on eight major tech companies including Google, Facebook and X to detail how they identify and tackle deepfake material amid concerns about the use of the technology to influence elections .

In a world first they will be using new laws on artificial intelligence to force companies to root out fake video, imagery and audio.

Nearly half of incidents where platform was known occurred on Snapchat, with 26% on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp

Crimes involving child abuse imagery (CAI) have risen by a quarter in the past year, according to figures collated by the NSPCC.

Nearly half of those incidents where the platform was recorded occurred on Snapchat, while Meta’s family of apps, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, covered another 26%.

In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood ( Napac ) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800; adult survivors can seek help at Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International

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A judge has dismissed a complaint from a parent and guardian of a girl, now 15, who was sexually assaulted when she was 12 years old after Snapchat recommended that she connect with convicted sex offenders.

According to the court filing, the abuse that the girl, C.O., experienced on Snapchat happened soon after she signed up for the app in 2019. Through its "Quick Add" feature, Snapchat "directed her" to connect with "a registered sex offender using the profile name JASONMORGAN5660." After a little more than a week on the app, C.O. was bombarded with inappropriate images and subjected to sextortion and threats before the adult user pressured her to meet up, then raped her. Cops arrested the adult user the next day, resulting in his incarceration, but his Snapchat account remained active for three years despite reports of harassment, the complaint alleged.

Two years later, at 14, C.O. connected with another convicted sex offender on Snapchat, a former police officer who offered to give C.O. a ride to school and then sexually assaulted her. The second offender is also currently incarcerated, the judge's opinion noted.

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