Tech Coalition

The Tech Coalition will fund new research on generative AI and online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA) through its Tech Coalition Safe Online Research Fund. The first project to be funded will be research from the University of Kent on the impact of generative AI child sexual abuse material (CSAM) proliferation, focusing on how generative AI CSAM may reshape attitudes, norms, and behaviors among people who engage with CSAM and on how the perpetration and prevention ecosystems may respond. Additional projects will be chosen by the end of the year for funding in 2025. Application details will be announced in the coming months, so stay tuned! The new funding was announced today at an industry briefing on generative AI with key stakeholders hosted by the Tech Coalition. This was the second briefing of its kind and took place in London with select UK child safety experts, advocates, and members of law enforcement and government. Among them were representatives from the Home Office, Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), Lucy Faithfull Foundation, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), and Safe Online, as well as 14 Tech Coalition member companies, including Adobe, Amazon, Bumble Inc., Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Roblox, Snap Inc., and TikTok. These briefings are designed to develop a shared understanding of the potential risks predatory actors pose to children through the misuse of generative AI and the ways companies are currently addressing those threats, as well as to identify and initiate new opportunities for stakeholder collaboration on this issue. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/epR9RYhW

Electronic Arts (EA) is the newest member of the Tech Coalition! Read more here: https://lnkd.in/edq63JmN

Our President and CEO Sean Litton will participate in the Safety by Design panel at the All Tech Is Human NYC gathering, The Future of Trust & Safety on May 14. Registration is open here: https://lnkd.in/en2D7vsU. We hope to see you there!

New research out today from one of our #SafeOnline grantees that examines the "cottage industry" of online child sexual exploitation and abuse in the Philippines. It's clear that more collaboration is needed on the ground and among the financial services and tech industries. Thank you to Dublin City University, De La Salle University, and Justice and Care for this work.

Check out our first Lantern Transparency Report and our 2023 Annual Report. The signals being shared in Lantern are producing tangible outcomes and helping to protect children from cross-platform abuses. As a result of signals shared in Lantern through December 2023, participating companies identified, confirmed, and took action on 30,989 accounts for violations of policies prohibiting child sexual exploitation and abuse.  In addition, 1,293 individual uploads of child sexual exploitation or abuse material were removed, and 389 URLs/bulk uploads of child sexual exploitation and abuse material were removed. These outcomes are in addition to the enforcement actions taken by individual companies against violations on their own platforms in accordance with their established terms of service. The report also provides data about signals uploaded and removed from Lantern. While there is more work to be done, we are encouraged by the progress to date and look forward to sharing the results of subsequent annual Lantern Transparency Reports. The 2023 Annual Report showcases how the Tech Coalition is helping to advance industry’s collective efforts to protect children from OCSEA. It also includes our transparency report with metrics and insights from member companies. Some highlights include: - We welcomed seven new member companies, bringing the total number of member companies to 37.  - 35 of our 37 members tangibly enhanced their capacity to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse, based on objective milestones we've established for them in five key areas - For the second straight year, member companies increased their adoption of image and video-based hashing technologies. - 57 percent of our members now use machine learning classifiers to help detect previously unknown images of CSAM. We are proud of this work and look forward to making even more of an impact in 2024. Lantern Transparency Report: https://lnkd.in/ewFmi6gZ 2023 Annual Report: https://lnkd.in/ebYvj37j

Check out our first Lantern Transparency Report and our 2023 Annual Report. The signals being shared in Lantern are producing tangible outcomes and helping to protect children from cross-platform abuses. As a result of signals shared in Lantern through December 2023, participating companies identified, confirmed, and took action on 30,989 accounts for violations of policies prohibiting child sexual exploitation and abuse.  In addition, 1,293 individual uploads of child sexual exploitation or abuse material were removed, and 389 URLs/bulk uploads of child sexual exploitation and abuse material were removed. These outcomes are in addition to the enforcement actions taken by individual companies against violations on their own platforms in accordance with their established terms of service. The report also provides data about signals uploaded and removed from Lantern. While there is more work to be done, we are encouraged by the progress to date and look forward to sharing the results of subsequent annual Lantern Transparency Reports. The 2023 Annual Report showcases how the Tech Coalition is helping to advance industry’s collective efforts to protect children from OCSEA. It also includes our transparency report with metrics and insights from member companies. Some highlights include: - We welcomed seven new member companies, bringing the total number of member companies to 37.  - 35 of our 37 members tangibly enhanced their capacity to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse, based on objective milestones we've established for them in five key areas - For the second straight year, member companies increased their adoption of image and video-based hashing technologies. - 57 percent of our members now use machine learning classifiers to help detect previously unknown images of CSAM. We are proud of this work and look forward to making even more of an impact in 2024. Lantern Transparency Report: https://lnkd.in/ewFmi6gZ 2023 Annual Report: https://lnkd.in/ebYvj37j

ICYMI: Meta announced that they have begun sharing more sextortion-specific signals to Lantern, our cross-platform signal sharing program for companies to strengthen how they enforce their child safety policies. Financial sextortion has been deemed a “growing crisis” by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, after seeing an alarming increase in CyberTipline reports in 2023 related to this crime. Collaboration is necessary to protect children online, particularly from cross-platform threats like financial sextortion.

ICYMI: Meta announced that they have begun sharing more sextortion-specific signals to Lantern, our cross-platform signal sharing program for companies to strengthen how they enforce their child safety policies. Financial sextortion has been deemed a “growing crisis” by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, after seeing an alarming increase in CyberTipline reports in 2023 related to this crime. Collaboration is necessary to protect children online, particularly from cross-platform threats like financial sextortion.

We’re looking forward to Responsible Tech DC: A Better Tech Future for Youth hosted by All Tech Is Human on February 28. Our VP of Membership Development Katia Potapov will be there to present on the impact of the Tech Coalition and share how other companies can join in the fight against online child exploitation and abuse. We hope to see you there!

ICYMI: The Tech Coalition is sponsoring a child safety track at this year’s TrustCon where we will bring together leading child safety experts, NGOs, industry, law enforcement and other trust and safety professionals to discuss how to protect children online. Submit your proposals by this Friday, February 2. See below for submission details. We hope you will join us! Trust & Safety Professional Association #childsafety #trustandsafety