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| The spread of exploitation of minors in Kenya via Facebook |
According to a recent report by Project Disrupting Harm, the linear exploitation of minors in Kenya is more prevalent on Facebook than any other website, making the tech giant's platform unsafe for children.
Last year, more than 90% of all cases of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children in the East African country occurred on Facebook. This is based on a report by INTERPOL and UNICEF to detect and eliminate violence against children.
The report is based on data from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). and interviews with minors, their parents, and police and legal representatives.
Prior to the report's release, NCMEC data showed that Facebook had reported more than 20 million images of child sexual abuse worldwide over the past year, 37 times more than second-place Google.
Meta said it has taken a number of steps to protect minors using its platform. Including the use of advanced technologies such as PhotoDNA detection and removal of images with children. In addition to working closely with the police to stop the trucks.
"We do not tolerate this heinous child abuse and use the latest technology to combat it," said Mitas Communications Director for East Africa.
We encourage anyone who sees content that they believe violates our Community Standards to report using the in-app reporting tool. We recently made it easier to report content that violates our Child Exploitation Policy. We now have a special option to report content that contains children. These reports are a priority for review.
Offers are often made available via Facebook
According to the report, WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger are the most common means of attacking children. Hence, the reason for this could be that WhatsApp and Facebook are the two most popular social media platforms in Kenya which kids spend most of their time on.
In addition, WhatsApp is the most popular social application in Kenya, followed by Facebook and YouTube. More than three-quarters of Kenya's population is online, which makes it easy to access websites like WhatsApp and Facebook.
Foreign law enforcement agencies have also discovered that Kenya is the source of commercial forms of direct distribution of child sexual abuse.