Section 230, which turned 25 years old this month, has played a central role in shaping the internet. Over the past year, Congress has introduced several proposals to change the law some of them drastic but the bills have often focused on a handful of very large tech companies like Facebook and Google. In reality, Section 230 has created a lot of the web as we know it.
On Monday, March 1st, we’re holding an event on Section 230 and the future of tech regulation. After a keynote from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), I’ll be sitting down with Wikimedia Foundation general counsel Amanda Keton, Vimeo general counsel Michael Cheah, and writer and strategist Sydette Harry to discuss how changing Section 230 could change the web. For a broader sense of its impact, however, I also spoke to a range of companies, nonprofits, legal experts, and others with a stake in preserving or reforming the law.
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Facebook said it detected 13 million images from July to September alone.
Coronavirus lockdowns and livestreamed abuse fueled the increase, an expert told Insider.
There was a sharp increase in child sex abuse imagery being posted and shared online during the coronavirus pandemic, much of it hosted on Facebook and Instagram, according to data shared exclusively with Insider.
Figures from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) showed a 31% increase in the number of images of child sexual abuse reported to them in 2020.
The figure was up by around 5 million, from 16 million reports in 2020 to 21 million in 2021, said Yiota Souras, the lead counsel at the NCMEC.