A parent’s anger at Zuckerberg: Is making money more important than child victims?(34)
2025.01.14 17:05 Mariko Tsuji
(Illustration by qnel)
In the US, as in Japan, corporations operating online platforms aren’t liable for content posted therein. But does that need to change?
Criminals are misusing major online platforms, and, as a result, children’s lives are being lost.
In 2021, Mary Rodee, a resident of New York State, USA, lost her 15-year-old son Riley.
A member of a criminal gang posing on Facebook as a girl his age asked Riley to send sexual images of himself. When he complied, the criminal then threatened to disseminate the photo to everyone Riley knew if he did not pay money. It’s a form of blackmail called sextortion. Within hours of the threat, Riley felt hopeless and took his own life.
The criminal group was based in Nigeria. However, the US’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security have not arrested them, on the grounds that they cannot work in that country.
Riley’s parents contacted Meta, the company which runs Facebook, to report that their child had passed away due to an incident on Meta’s platform. However, customer service only replied, “Thank you for your comment.”
Mary blames herself for not being able to save her son. She doesn’t want there to be any more child victims, nor does she want to see other parents go through what her family did.
Soon, her days were filled with trips to Meta’s headquarters and Washington, D.C.
A video of the interview is also available.
Meta called the police to remove bereaved family members
A few days after Riley’s death, an FBI investigation identified the perpetrators as a group based in Nigeria. The group had created several fake accounts and targeted children.
The account calling itself “Megan” had sent an image of a naked woman to Riley prior to blackmailing him.
Mary began to wonder why Meta didn’t stop such criminal behavior.
“The platform is letting these people make fake accounts,” she said. “They could mitigate that. The platform is letting child sexual abuse content go from account to account. They could stop that. They have the artificial intelligence to tell that that picture is 90% skin tone [indicating it’s a nude image] and shut it down. And they don’t.”
Meta was clearly unwilling to address this issue, as shown by the response Mary’s family received after they contacted Meta’s customer service about the incident: “Thank you for your comment.”
“[The] comment was, ‘My kid is dead,’ and that’s what you say back?” Mary said.
Mary also informed Meta of her son’s suicide through a local legislator. She and other bereaved family members protested in front of Meta’s headquarters.
However, as soon as the families entered its premises, Meta called the police to have them removed. They also refused to accept letters from the bereaved families.
Only platform are exempt
Mary and her family also considered filing a lawsuit against Meta.
However, they were forced to give up the idea because of Section 230 of the US’s Communications Decency Act.
The law stipulates that a platform is not liable for information transmitted there by third parties. Japan too has a Provider Liability Limitation Act, which does not impose liability on platform operators for content posted to their platforms, nor does it mandate the removal of illegal images and other information.
But do platform operators really bear no responsibility?
Sextortion is a crime made possible by the misuse of online platforms.
“Child sexual abuse content is illegal. Drug content is illegal. It is harmful content, but the content creators still are not being monitored by the platform,” Mary insisted. “Even though their community standards say that they will shut down nudity, that they will shut down dangerous behavior, that they will shut down dangerous challenges, they’re not…They let it continue and continue.”
In my reporting for this series, I have seen a large amount of illegal child sexual abuse images and other illegal images being traded via online platforms. Even though platforms’ terms of use prohibit it, such images are, in fact, widespread.
Mary compared online platforms to other information services, saying, “The television and radio industries are highly regulated. This is comparable to that and has no regulation.”
“Why can’t we at least get those similar liability laws?” she questioned.
The empty apology
Although it had originally ignored Mary and other bereaved families, Meta changed its stance at a hearing of the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee, where Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized.
The hearing was held on Jan. 31, 2024, by senators to help prevent the sexual exploitation of children on social media. Executives from five social media giants were called to testify, Zuckerberg among them.
At the beginning of the hearing, testimonies from victims and their families, including Mary, were shown.
When it was his turn to testify, the senators continuously pushed Zuckerberg for a response.
“I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands.”
“You have a product that’s killing people.”
“Let me ask you this. There are families of victims here today. Have you apologized to the victims? Would you like to do so now they’re here?”
Zuckerberg seemed at a loss for words, but he looked behind him to where the families were holding pictures of their children.
“I’m sorry. Everything that you all gone through, it’s terrible,” he said.
However, for Mary, Zuckerberg’s apology rings hollow.
“In the joke of Mark Zuckerberg standing up in the hearings and apologizing, how that makes it on TV, how that is a big deal, when he’s never apologized to me, when he knows about Riley and never…” she said.
“What I really want to say to him is ‘How much money do you need?’” she continued. “Can’t you have your trillions of dollars and try to stop the criminals? Can’t both of those go together simultaneously?”
“I want to talk to his face and see if he can really look at me and Riley and have no heart. I think he can, though,” Mary finished.
Photos of Riley and the rest of the family were displayed throughout Mary’s home. Photo taken on March 30, 2024 by reporters from the NHK Special “Innovative Investigations.”
Crime close to children
Although Mary continues to advocate for online safety, she also said she feels “fed up.”
“Why do I have to truly get blisters on my feet and walk around Washington, DC, holding my dead kid’s picture, crying for them to act?” she questioned.
Still, Mary said she doesn’t want other families to experience her family’s suffering.
“This is happening when you’re cooking dinner. This is happening when you’ve tucked them into bed at night. This is happening when they’re on the school bus,” she emphasized. “People don’t know the chance of other kids hurting like Riley. I just can’t live with it.”
“I can’t stop putting out there how dangerous these corporations are. Because he’s dead, and it’s the least I can do,” Mary said.
We also met with another parent, a former Meta employee who spoke up about how the platform is cutting corners on user safety.
To be continued.
(Originally published on August 22, 2024.)
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