Tech Giants Join Forces in “Lantern” Program to Combat Online Child Sexual Abuse
Big tech companies, including Meta (the parent company of Facebook) and Google, announced their collaborative efforts in a new program aimed at combating online child sexual abuse and exploitation. This initiative, named “Lantern,” is designed to address the pressing issue of child victims of abuse online. Tech companies are eager to demonstrate their commitment to safeguarding children and adolescents online.
In the Lantern program, these tech giants will share signals of online activities that violate their policies concerning child exploitation. By sharing these signals, platforms can more swiftly detect, remove, and report harmful content related to child exploitation. Signals may include email addresses, specific hashtags, or keywords associated with grooming young individuals for exploitation or facilitating the buying and selling of materials linked to child abuse and exploitation.
Sean Litton, the executive director of the Tech Coalition, which unites tech companies in this initiative, emphasized the program’s significance. He stated, “Until now, no consistent procedure existed for companies to collaborate against predatory actors evading detection across services. Lantern fills this gap and shines a light on cross-platform attempts at online child sexual exploitation and abuse, helping to make the internet safer for kids.”
Other platforms participating in the Tech Coalition, such as Snap, Discord, and Mega (a privacy-focused platform from New Zealand), are also actively supporting this initiative.
A successful pilot of the Lantern program saw Meta removing over 10,000 Facebook profiles, pages, and Instagram accounts after receiving shared data from Mega. Meta subsequently reported these accounts to the U.S.-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and shared findings with other platforms for their own investigations.
Meta’s Global Head of Safety, Antigone Davis, underscored the importance of collaborative efforts, stating, “Predators don’t limit their attempts to harm children to individual platforms. The technology industry needs to work together to stop predators and protect children on the many apps and websites they use.”
The announcement of the Lantern program coincided with a former Meta senior engineer’s testimony before a Senate hearing in Washington. The engineer, Arturo Bejar, alleged that top Meta executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, disregarded his warnings regarding the safety of teenagers on the company’s platforms. Bejar shared that an internal survey revealed that 13% of respondents between the ages of 13 and 15 on Instagram had received unwanted sexual advances in the last seven days.
The initiative reflects the tech industry’s recognition of its responsibility to safeguard young users and address the challenges posed by online child sexual exploitation.
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