WHEREAS: 

Child sexual exploitation online (and Child Sexual Abuse Material—CSAM) is an escalating threat to children worldwide. The exponential growth of CSAM is directly tied to the growth of social media and the increasing number of children online. [1]  [2]

In 2019, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received nearly 17 million reports of CSAM. Of these, nearly 16 million reports–or 94 percent–stem from Facebook and its platforms, including Messenger and Instagram. [3]

Facebook’s plan to apply end-to-end encryption to all of its messaging platforms set off a storm of criticism. Government agencies, law enforcement, and child protection organizations worldwide claim that it will cloak the actions of child predators, make children more vulnerable, and that millions of CSAM incidents will go unreported.

Facebook touts its leadership in combating CSAM, yet NCMEC estimates that Facebook’s end-to-end encryption plans could effectively make invisible 70 percent of CSAM cases. Facebook’s encryption takes on more urgency as COVID has led to a significant increase in CSAM and grooming activities. [4] A letter from 120+ child protection organizations wrote Facebook saying its encryption plans “presents an unacceptable risk to children, and would arguably make your services unsafe.” [5]

Facebook’s CEO and management, when speaking at recent House and Senate committee hearings, were repeatedly asked about CSAM and harms stemming from encrypted communication. Recent bipartisan Congressional action includes:

• Passage of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, making it easier to sue platforms that knowingly facilitated child sex trafficking and exploitation. [6]
• The END Child Exploitation Act was introduced to improve how tech companies provide law enforcement with CSAM information. [7]
• The EARN IT Act [8] was introduced to carve out an exception to the Section 230 exemption, wherein companies could lose civil liability protections for CSAM, and would lower the bar for victims suing those tech firms.

Law enforcement leaders from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand India, Japan and the European Union made public statements and/or sent letters to Facebook raising concerns that its encryption plan would make it unable to track millions of CSAM cases, and be harder to identify both victims and abusers. [9]

The proponents support online privacy. But, like many others, our concern is that it should not come at the cost of child safety, and potential regulatory, reputational and legal risk to Facebook.

RESOLVED: Shareholders request that the Board of Directors issue a report by February 2022 assessing the risk of increased sexual exploitation of children as the Company develops and offers additional privacy tools such as end-to-end encryption. The report should address potential adverse impacts to children (18 years and younger) and to the company’s reputation or social license, assess the impact of limits to detection technologies and strategies, and be prepared at reasonable expense and excluding proprietary/confidential information.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/28/us/child-sex-abuse.html

[2] https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/SOWC_2017_ENG_WEB.pdf

[3] https://www.missingkids.org/gethelpnow/cybertipline#bythenumbers

[4] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/25/us/child-abuse-online-coronavirus-pandemic-parents-investigations-trnd/index.html

[5] https://www.nspcc.org.uk/globalassets/documents/policy/letter-to-mark-zuckerberg-february-2020.pdf

[6] https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Lawsuit-over-Facebook-allowing-pimps-to-recruit-15231868.php

[7] https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/11.18.19%20-%20Google%20-%20CSAM.pdf

[8] http://broadbandbreakfast.com/2020/03/big-tech-must-combat-child-sexual-abuse-material-online-or-lose-section-230-protection-say-senators/

[9] https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-encryption-harder-catch-criminals-child-abuse-2020-10

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