Javid to challenge US online giants over child sex content
SAJID JAVID is to confront the heads of US web giants over the “refusal” of some firms to take the online abuse of children seriously.
The Home Secretary will travel to Silicon Valley this week to demand greater action from internet companies to remove underage pornography and protect young people.
His visit will increase pressure on internet firms days after Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, announced a digital services tax that created fury among tech firms and US politicians.
He is expected to push for search engines and social media companies to treat child sexual exploitation like terrorism, including by stopping such content from being uploaded to the internet in the first place.
The move comes after Mr Javid warned in a speech in September that the web giants were “a long way from where they need to be”.
“Restrictions that are supposed to keep our children safe online are either not being enforced or do not meet expectations,” he said. “And we have overwhelming evidence that abuse continues to take place on online platforms. This is nowhere near good enough. And I know that more can be done.”
Mr Javid is expected to demand more initiatives such as Microsoft’s PhotoDNA technology, which uses artificial intelligence to help locate and remove child sexual abuse imagery from the internet. He has pointed out that when Google and Microsoft made changes to their algorithms to make it more difficult to find child sexual abuse material in search results, Google reported an eight-fold reduction in search attempts.
“But the reality is that the threat has evolved quicker than industry’s response and industry has not kept up,” he said in September. “And there are some companies that refuse to take it seriously.”