Did Facebook Violate SESTA By Promoting Child Abuse Videos?
from the maybe-rethink-that-support,-sheryl dept
Facebook -- and Sheryl Sandberg in particular -- have been the most vocal supporters of SESTA. Sandberg wrote a bizarre Facebook post supporting the horrible SESTA/FOSTA Frankenstein bill the day it was voted on in the House. In it, she wrote:
I care deeply about this issue and I’m so thankful to all the advocates who are fighting tirelessly to make sure we put a stop to trafficking while helping victims get the support they need. Facebook is committed to working with them and with legislators in the House and Senate as the process moves forward to make sure we pass meaningful and strong legislation to stop sex trafficking.
Which is weird, given that the bill does nothing to actually stop sex trafficking, but it does place potentially criminal liability on any internet site that knowingly facilitates sex trafficking. Like... say... Facebook. You see, last week, there was a bit of a kerfuffle when Facebook suddenly started pushing horrific child abuse videos on its users.
The social network’s search suggestions, which are supposed to automatically offer the most popular search terms to users, apparently broke around 4am in the UK, and started to suggest unpleasant results for those who typed in “video of”.
Multiple users posted examples on Twitter, with the site proposing searches including “video of girl sucking dick under water”, “videos of sexuals” and “video of little girl giving oral”. Others reported similar results in other languages.
While Facebook has since apologized for this and claimed that it is committed to taking down such content, how hard would it be for someone to make a case that the company had just engaged in pushing child pornography on unsuspecting users, and there could be a credible claim that many of the videos involved victims of sex trafficking.
And, of course, this comes right after another possibly SESTA-violating fiasco at Facebook in which the company sent out a survey about whether the site should allow adult men to ask for sexual pictures of teenaged girls. No, really.
On Sunday, the social network ran a survey for some users asking how they thought the company should handle grooming behaviour. “There are a wide range of topics and behaviours that appear on Facebook,” one question began. “In thinking about an ideal world where you could set Facebook’s policies, how would you handle the following: a private message in which an adult man asks a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures.”
The options available to respondents ranged from “this content should not be allowed on Facebook, and no one should be able to see it” to “this content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it”.
A second question asked who should decide the rules around whether or not the adult man should be allowed to ask for such pictures on Facebook. Options available included “Facebook users decide the rules by voting and tell Facebook” and “Facebook decides the rules on its own”.
After this became public and people called it out, Facebook also claimed that this was "an error," but it seems like it wouldn't take a genius lawyer or prosecutor to argue that the company choosing to send out just such a survey shows it facilitating sex trafficking. I mean, it was directly asking if it should allow for the sort of activity directly involved in grooming victims for sex trafficking.
Oh, and remember, that even while this is blatantly unconstitutional, SESTA says the law applies retroactively -- meaning that even though all of this happened prior to SESTA becoming law, Facebook is potentially still quite guilty of violating the poorly drafted criminal law it is loudly supporting.
Filed Under: child abuse, grooming, sesta, sex trafficking, sheryl sandberg, suggested videos, videos
Companies: facebook
