Facebook Dark Patterns - Deception and Trickery - Facebook Antitrust Lawsuit
74 Year Old Man Defeats Mark Zuckerberg At His Own Game! 12/20/2021
Mark Zuckerberg is the epitome of a COWARD!
The wonderkid Harvard dropout who, with many others, created the largest social media website in the world is about to be chastised for his illegal and unethical behavior!
Unfortunately over the years he has built it while committing some of the most despicable and egregious criminal acts against society known to mankind. He has perpetrated and perpetuated these criminal activities with total impunity, however his crimes have finally caught up to him and it’s now time to reap what he has sown.
This website owner has challenged Mark Zuckerberg to file a lawsuit against this website owner numerous times and he has ignored the request because he is indeed a Coward of the worst kind.
This website owner has legally registered a significant number of Facebook domain names such as FacebookWhistleblowers.com (list attached at end of article) utilizing them in a constitutionally protected protest websites that Facebook, aka Mark Zuckerberg, has criminally conspired with Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Sundar Pichai of Google to manipulate dozens of these and other websites belonging to this website owner to prevent the public from being made aware of their respective existence and the truthful information about the monumental abuses contained therein.
This website and soon to be dozens more will have this same content to expose Zuckerberg’s criminal behavior for the entire world to view.
Mark Zuckerberg’s cowardice stems from the fact that he is deathly afraid of having to testify in a public jury trial, where he will be legally bound to testify at great length under oath under penalty of perjury, to his considerable criminal and highly unethical behavior since 2004.
A couple years ago, July 2019, Zuckerberg, using Facebook‘s money, paid the exorbitant record-breaking penalty sum of $5 Billion dollars for deceiving users, to the federal government FTC, for knowingly violating consumer’s privacy, to prevent him from having to testify in a government trial.
Mark Zuckerberg is a borderline Sociopath in that his disdain for the law aided Facebook in causing human suffering to millions of its user members, especially the younger ones, is absolutely pathetic and unconscionable yet he denies any responsibility for the horrendous damage he has brought about by his insane cravings for the almighty dollar at the expense of individuals pain and agony.
As has been stated by numerous others Mark Zuckerberg should be imprisoned for his plethora of crimes and the only way he has avoided same is up until now no one has brought him to the brink of testifying in a prolonged public trial where he is unable to hide behind his multibillion $ investments.
Mark Zuckerberg is so afraid of this website owner’s content that he has decided to totally alter the corporate name and identity because of the ownership of numerous Facebook domains used to identify his criminal behavior such as Child Abuse, Dark Patterns, Discrimination, Human Smuggling, Racism, Sex Trafficking, Pedophilia etc. among others propagated on his Facebook apps such as Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp who’s membership numbers approximately 3 Billion people, meaning over half of the internet population of the world.
This man, and the term man is used lightly, has also chosen to alter his newly formed Metaverse and Virtual Reality name to Meta and Horizon Worlds because this website owner has legally registered several domain names utilizing OculusMetaverse.com, MetaQuestPlatforms.com and HorizonMetaverse.com for example.
Zuckerberg’s deep seeded fear of testifying on the witness stand in a public trial has caused him to spend $ Billions of dollars to completely change his business plan due to the fact that he didn’t have the intelligence or foresight to register the appropriate domains prior to embarking on this new path of Virtual Reality and the Metaverse, nor did he apply for the corresponding Federal Trademarks for each.
His inadequate business acumen alone should be bonafide proof that he, ergo Facebook, ergo Meta Platforms et al is incapable of being a major player in the Metaverse and should be barred from participation in any significant manner thereof.
Sociopaths should be prevented from even remaining in a CEO and Chairman capacity of an entity that could weld even more dominant power in what is most certainly a life altering endeavor over the vast majority of the world population for eons to come!
This website owner emphatically wants to engage the Coward of the Universe in a public civil trial where Mark Zuckerberg will be on the witness stand for several days testifying under oath under penalty of perjury about every conceivable criminal activity he has ever been a party to from the inception of Facebook until now so he can’t escape his culpability which will hopefully transfer to a criminal trial causing his proven guilt to lead to a substantial incarceration in either a state or federal prison which is definitely what he deserves.
This content will be a cut and paste onto dozens of websites to inform the public about mark Zuckerberg’s dastardly deeds and possibly many news organizations around the globe will expound on the subject which may expose and humiliate this Coward.
This website owner has requested Facebook and Zuckerberg to initiate a civil lawsuit against same if he believes that any Copyright Infringement, Defamation and/or Libel has occurred against them and he has not even acknowledged the existence of any wrongdoing therefore by his absence of filing of any legal action is an admission that none took place.
Facebook did its utmost best, along with coconspirators Amazon and Google, to stifle the protest websites which is why they have never been in the news and speaks for itself why the public awareness has never transpired.
No US Federal Trademarks Registered
Protest Websites:
FacebookChildAbuse.com
FacebookDiscrimination.com
FacebookHumanSmuggling.com
FacebookDarkPatterns.com
FacebookKillingPeople.com
FacebookPedophiles.com
FacebookRacism.com
FacebookSexTrafficking.com
FacebookWhistleblowers.com
MessengerSucks.com
WhatsAppSucks.com
Meta type Domain Names:
HorizonMetaverse.com
Horizon3DWorlds.com
HorizonVirtualWorlds.com
HorizonARMetaverse.com
HorizonVRMetaverse.com
Horizon3DMetaverse.com
MetaNFTPlatforms.com
MetaQuest3D.com
MetaQuestAvatars.com
MetaQuestNFT.com
MetaQuestHeadsets.com
MetaQuestHolograms.com
MetaQuestMetaverse.com
MetaQuestNetwork.com
MetaQuestPlatforms.com
MetaVirtualPlatforms.com
MetaPlatformsAI.com
MetaPlatformsApp.com
MetaPlatformsAvatars.com
MetaPlatformsBank.com
MetaPlatformsCo.com
MetaPlatformsETF.com
MetaPlatformsFashion.com
MetaPlatformsGaming.com
MetaPlatformsHeadsets.com
MetaPlatformaHealthcare.com
MetaPlatformsHQ.com
MetaPlatformsHub.com
MetaPlatformsMetaverse.com
MetaPlatformsNews.com
MetaPlatformsReels.com
MetaPlatformsSports.com
MetaPlatformsTV.com
MetaPlatformsVideos.com
MetaPlatformsVR.com
MetaPlatformsWeb3.com
This entire content will be emailed to thousands of Facebook / Meta employees and users along with a multitude of news organizations, Facebook advertisers and government agencies throughout the world in hopes of garnering public outcry about the abuses this company has perpetrated against the global population and with minimal success and support it might bring this Coward to his knees and with some US Government pressure Zuckerberg might relinquish his dictatorship control so this company may proceed without Mark Zuckerberg at the helm and all of society will be the better for it!
Knowing that Facebook may block familiar email addresses there will be a batch of new addresses created that they are unaware of therefore the great majority of notifications will proceed unabated by Zuck as he prefers to be called.
More content will be forthcoming as soon as possible so this is just the beginning of the end for Mark Zuckerberg.
Mark Zuckerberg is the epitome of a COWARD!
The wonderkid Harvard dropout who, with many others, created the largest social media website in the world is about to be chastised for his illegal and unethical behavior!
Unfortunately over the years he has built it while committing some of the most despicable and egregious criminal acts against society known to mankind. He has perpetrated and perpetuated these criminal activities with total impunity, however his crimes have finally caught up to him and it’s now time to reap what he has sown.
This website owner has challenged Mark Zuckerberg to file a lawsuit against this website owner numerous times and he has ignored the request because he is indeed a Coward of the worst kind.
This website owner has legally registered a significant number of Facebook domain names such as FacebookWhistleblowers.com (list attached at end of article) utilizing them in a constitutionally protected protest websites that Facebook, aka Mark Zuckerberg, has criminally conspired with Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Sundar Pichai of Google to manipulate dozens of these and other websites belonging to this website owner to prevent the public from being made aware of their respective existence and the truthful information about the monumental abuses contained therein.
This website and soon to be dozens more will have this same content to expose Zuckerberg’s criminal behavior for the entire world to view.
Mark Zuckerberg’s cowardice stems from the fact that he is deathly afraid of having to testify in a public jury trial, where he will be legally bound to testify at great length under oath under penalty of perjury, to his considerable criminal and highly unethical behavior since 2004.
A couple years ago, July 2019, Zuckerberg, using Facebook‘s money, paid the exorbitant record-breaking penalty sum of $5 Billion dollars for deceiving users, to the federal government FTC, for knowingly violating consumer’s privacy, to prevent him from having to testify in a government trial.
Mark Zuckerberg is a borderline Sociopath in that his disdain for the law aided Facebook in causing human suffering to millions of its user members, especially the younger ones, is absolutely pathetic and unconscionable yet he denies any responsibility for the horrendous damage he has brought about by his insane cravings for the almighty dollar at the expense of individuals pain and agony.
As has been stated by numerous others Mark Zuckerberg should be imprisoned for his plethora of crimes and the only way he has avoided same is up until now no one has brought him to the brink of testifying in a prolonged public trial where he is unable to hide behind his multibillion $ investments.
Mark Zuckerberg is so afraid of this website owner’s content that he has decided to totally alter the corporate name and identity because of the ownership of numerous Facebook domains used to identify his criminal behavior such as Child Abuse, Dark Patterns, Discrimination, Human Smuggling, Racism, Sex Trafficking, Pedophilia etc. among others propagated on his Facebook apps such as Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp who’s membership numbers approximately 3 Billion people, meaning over half of the internet population of the world.
This man, and the term man is used lightly, has also chosen to alter his newly formed Metaverse and Virtual Reality name to Meta and Horizon Worlds because this website owner has legally registered several domain names utilizing OculusMetaverse.com, MetaQuestPlatforms.com and HorizonMetaverse.com for example.
Zuckerberg’s deep seeded fear of testifying on the witness stand in a public trial has caused him to spend $ Billions of dollars to completely change his business plan due to the fact that he didn’t have the intelligence or foresight to register the appropriate domains prior to embarking on this new path of Virtual Reality and the Metaverse, nor did he apply for the corresponding Federal Trademarks for each.
His inadequate business acumen alone should be bonafide proof that he, ergo Facebook, ergo Meta Platforms et al is incapable of being a major player in the Metaverse and should be barred from participation in any significant manner thereof.
Sociopaths should be prevented from even remaining in a CEO and Chairman capacity of an entity that could weld even more dominant power in what is most certainly a life altering endeavor over the vast majority of the world population for eons to come!
This website owner emphatically wants to engage the Coward of the Universe in a public civil trial where Mark Zuckerberg will be on the witness stand for several days testifying under oath under penalty of perjury about every conceivable criminal activity he has ever been a party to from the inception of Facebook until now so he can’t escape his culpability which will hopefully transfer to a criminal trial causing his proven guilt to lead to a substantial incarceration in either a state or federal prison which is definitely what he deserves.
This content will be a cut and paste onto dozens of websites to inform the public about mark Zuckerberg’s dastardly deeds and possibly many news organizations around the globe will expound on the subject which may expose and humiliate this Coward.
This website owner has requested Facebook and Zuckerberg to initiate a civil lawsuit against same if he believes that any Copyright Infringement, Defamation and/or Libel has occurred against them and he has not even acknowledged the existence of any wrongdoing therefore by his absence of filing of any legal action is an admission that none took place.
Facebook did its utmost best, along with coconspirators Amazon and Google, to stifle the protest websites which is why they have never been in the news and speaks for itself why the public awareness has never transpired.
No US Federal Trademarks Registered
Protest Websites:
FacebookChildAbuse.com
FacebookDiscrimination.com
FacebookHumanSmuggling.com
FacebookDarkPatterns.com
FacebookKillingPeople.com
FacebookPedophiles.com
FacebookRacism.com
FacebookSexTrafficking.com
FacebookWhistleblowers.com
MessengerSucks.com
WhatsAppSucks.com
Meta type Domain Names:
HorizonMetaverse.com
Horizon3DWorlds.com
HorizonVirtualWorlds.com
HorizonARMetaverse.com
HorizonVRMetaverse.com
Horizon3DMetaverse.com
MetaNFTPlatforms.com
MetaQuest3D.com
MetaQuestAvatars.com
MetaQuestNFT.com
MetaQuestHeadsets.com
MetaQuestHolograms.com
MetaQuestMetaverse.com
MetaQuestNetwork.com
MetaQuestPlatforms.com
MetaVirtualPlatforms.com
MetaPlatformsAI.com
MetaPlatformsApp.com
MetaPlatformsAvatars.com
MetaPlatformsBank.com
MetaPlatformsCo.com
MetaPlatformsETF.com
MetaPlatformsFashion.com
MetaPlatformsGaming.com
MetaPlatformsHeadsets.com
MetaPlatformaHealthcare.com
MetaPlatformsHQ.com
MetaPlatformsHub.com
MetaPlatformsMetaverse.com
MetaPlatformsNews.com
MetaPlatformsReels.com
MetaPlatformsSports.com
MetaPlatformsTV.com
MetaPlatformsVideos.com
MetaPlatformsVR.com
MetaPlatformsWeb3.com
This entire content will be emailed to thousands of Facebook / Meta employees and users along with a multitude of news organizations, Facebook advertisers and government agencies throughout the world in hopes of garnering public outcry about the abuses this company has perpetrated against the global population and with minimal success and support it might bring this Coward to his knees and with some US Government pressure Zuckerberg might relinquish his dictatorship control so this company may proceed without Mark Zuckerberg at the helm and all of society will be the better for it!
Knowing that Facebook may block familiar email addresses there will be a batch of new addresses created that they are unaware of therefore the great majority of notifications will proceed unabated by Zuck as he prefers to be called.
More content will be forthcoming as soon as possible so this is just the beginning of the end for Mark Zuckerberg.
Facebook Pedophiles - Facebook Pedophilia - Facebook Child Abuse
Facebook asked users if pedophiles should be able to ask kids for 'sexual pictures'
Facebook is under fire for asking users whether pedophiles should be able to proposition underage girls for sexually explicit photographs on the giant social network.
The survey is the latest in a series of missteps by the Silicon Valley company, which has been criticized for allowing content that exploits children.
From violence on its Live streaming service to hate speech to divisive messages sent by Russian operatives trying to to meddle in the U.S. presidential election, toxic content flowing through its platform has heightened scrutiny of Facebook.
Facebook scrapped the survey that posed questions about teens being groomed by older men after it was spotted by media outlets in the United Kingdom. It now says the survey could have been better "designed."
The company routinely uses surveys to get feedback from the social network's more than 2 billion users. More recently, Facebook has been relying on user surveys to take their pulse on everything from the "fake news" epidemic to whether Facebook makes them happy as people have stopped spending as much time there.
But the two questions in Sunday's survey shocked and angered Facebook users.
"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," Facebook asked.
Sexual contact with minors online, part of a "grooming process" in which adults seek to gain trust and lower inhibition, is often a precursor to sexual abuse.
The possible responses Facebook offered to the question 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."
Another question asked who should decide whether an adult man can ask for sexual pictures on Facebook, with options ranging from "Facebook users decide the rules by voting and tell Facebook" to "Facebook decides the rules on its own."
Jonathan Haynes, digital editor at the Guardian newspaper, tweeted: “I’m like, er wait is making it secret the best Facebook can offer here? Not, y’know, calling the police?"
"That was a mistake," Guy Rosen, a vice president of product at Facebook, responded.
"We run surveys to understand how the community thinks about how we set policies,” he wrote on Twitter. “But this kind of activity is and will always be completely unacceptable on (Facebook). We regularly work with authorities if identified. It shouldn't have been part of this survey."
"It is hard to believe that Facebook could be so utterly tone-deaf when it comes to this issue," said Diana Graber, founder of Cyber Civics and CyberWise which teach digital literacy to kids and parents. "The fact that Facebook would even pose this question theoretically is disgusting."
In a statement, Facebook said the survey referred to "offensive content that is already prohibited on Facebook and that we have no intention of allowing."
Stacey Steinberg, a law professor at the University of Florida and author of Sharenting: Children’s Privacy in the Age of Social Media, says the Facebook survey sent a "terrible message" and, worse yet, normalizes predatory behavior.
Facebook shouldn't be asking users whether such behavior is acceptable, it should be educating families on the risks posed by online predators, she said.
"Working with law enforcement is an important first step, but Facebook can do even more. Instead of asking questions such as the ones posed in this survey, Facebook can use its reach to help families and victims," Steinberg said.
Digital citizenship expert and technology ethicist David Ryan Polgar chalks up the flap over the survey to "massive growing pains" as Facebook wrestles with its social responsibility.
"The misstep with the survey seems to be a situation of good intentions that did not fully appreciate the rightful anger and frustration the general public feels towards the current online environment," he said.
International attention to how pedophiles use social media to target and prey on children has grown in recent years.
An investigation by the BBC in 2016 uncovered numerous private Facebook groups by and for men with a sexual interest in children to share images, with one run by a convicted pedophile. Photos of children taken from their parents' Facebook accounts have also been found on pedophile sites.
Facebook faced criticism again in 2017 when the BBC flagged dozens of images and pages containing child pornography. Of the 100 reported images,18 were removed by Facebook, according to the BBC. At the time, the BBC said Facebook asked to be sent examples of the images and then reported the broadcaster to the child exploitation unit of Britain’s National Crime Agency.
Verified child sex abuse images are sent to the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and other organizations that work with law enforcement to find offenders. Facebook also combats the spread of child pornography with technology that detects and blocks content from being uploaded.
"We have prohibited child grooming on Facebook since our earliest days," the company said. "We have no intention of changing this, and we regularly work with the police to ensure that anyone found acting in such a way is brought to justice."
USA TODAY - Jessica Guynn
Paedophiles using secret Facebook groups to swap images
Paedophiles are using secret groups on Facebook to post and swap obscene images of children, the BBC has found.
Settings on the social network mean the groups are invisible to most users and only members can see the content.
Children's Commissioner for England Anne Longfield said Facebook was not doing enough to police the groups and protect children.
Facebook's head of public policy told the BBC he was committed to removing "content that shouldn't be there".
A BBC investigation found a number of secret groups, created by and run for men with a sexual interest in children, including one being administered by a convicted paedophile who was still on the sex offenders' register.
The groups have names that give a clear indication of their content and contain pornographic and highly suggestive images, many purporting to be of children. They also have sexually explicit comments posted by users.
We found pages specialising in pictures of girls in school uniform - accompanied by obscene posts.
Images appeared to be stolen from newspapers, blogs and even clothing catalogues, while some were photographs taken secretly, and up close, in public places. One user had even posted a video of a children's dance show. - by Angus Crawford BBC News
Paedophiles are using secret groups on Facebook to post and swap obscene images of children, the BBC has found.
Settings on the social network mean the groups are invisible to most users and only members can see the content.
Children's Commissioner for England Anne Longfield said Facebook was not doing enough to police the groups and protect children.
Facebook's head of public policy told the BBC he was committed to removing "content that shouldn't be there".
A BBC investigation found a number of secret groups, created by and run for men with a sexual interest in children, including one being administered by a convicted paedophile who was still on the sex offenders' register.
The groups have names that give a clear indication of their content and contain pornographic and highly suggestive images, many purporting to be of children. They also have sexually explicit comments posted by users.
We found pages specialising in pictures of girls in school uniform - accompanied by obscene posts.
Images appeared to be stolen from newspapers, blogs and even clothing catalogues, while some were photographs taken secretly, and up close, in public places. One user had even posted a video of a children's dance show. - by Angus Crawford BBC News
Ten Years of Protecting Our Children - Cracking Down on Sexual Predators on the Internet
A decade ago, a 10-year-old boy disappeared from his Brentwood, Maryland, neighborhood. Within weeks, the investigation would uncover two pedophiles and a larger ring of online child pornographers. Within two years, it would spawn a major national initiative that is now the centerpiece of the FBI’s efforts to protect children from predatory pedophiles in cyberspace.
Here’s how the events unfolded: When FBI agents and Prince George’s County police detectives went door-to-door to talk with neighbors following the boy’s disappearance in 1993, they encountered a pair of suspicious men who had been “befriending” local children, showering them with gifts and even taking them on vacation.
Evidence followed that the men had been sexually abusing children for a quarter century. More recently, they had moved online, setting up a private computer bulletin board service not only to “chat” with boys and set up meetings with them but also to share illicit images of child pornography.
That, in turn, led investigators to a larger ring of computer pedophiles. When a similar case with national reach turned up the following year, the FBI realized it was onto an alarming new trend: sexual exploitation of children via the Internet.
A Program is born. In 1995, the FBI created its Innocent Images National Initiative (IINI). Its goals: to break up networks of online pedophiles, to stop sexual predators from using the Internet to lure children from their families, and to rescue victims.
Today, 28 of the FBI’s 56 field offices have undercover Innocent Images operations. More than 200 FBI agents work these cases. Some pose as teenagers or pre-teens in chat rooms to identify “travelers” who seek to meet and abuse children. Others focus on dismantling major child exploitation enterprises.
Since 1995, we’ve opened more than 10,000 total cases and helped secure nearly 3,000 convictions.
Keeping Safe. To report child pornography and/or potential cases involving the sexual exploitation of children, please contact the Crimes Against Children Coordinator at your local FBI Field Office. You can also file an online report at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline at www.cybertipline.com; these reports are forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.
Reporting to authorities
Calling 800–4-A-Child connects you with the Childhelp National Abuse Hotline. — How to Report Suspected Pedophile Activity
Suspicions of internet-based child sexual abuse, like hosting child pornography websites, should be directed to the FBI. Suspicions of a local adult who may be grooming and engaging in sexual contact with children should be reported to the local police.
Reports of suspected sexual abuse should include as much information as possible, including the names of the parties involved, the location where the alleged abuse has occurred or is currently occurring, whether the reporter believes the child is in immediate danger, the signs that led the reporter to believe the child is being abused and contact information for the child’s parent or legal guardian.
Some professions require legal reporting to the authorities:
•Teachers.
•Children’s librarians.
•Police officers.
•Clergy members.
•Medical professionals.
•Social services employees.
A decade ago, a 10-year-old boy disappeared from his Brentwood, Maryland, neighborhood. Within weeks, the investigation would uncover two pedophiles and a larger ring of online child pornographers. Within two years, it would spawn a major national initiative that is now the centerpiece of the FBI’s efforts to protect children from predatory pedophiles in cyberspace.
Here’s how the events unfolded: When FBI agents and Prince George’s County police detectives went door-to-door to talk with neighbors following the boy’s disappearance in 1993, they encountered a pair of suspicious men who had been “befriending” local children, showering them with gifts and even taking them on vacation.
Evidence followed that the men had been sexually abusing children for a quarter century. More recently, they had moved online, setting up a private computer bulletin board service not only to “chat” with boys and set up meetings with them but also to share illicit images of child pornography.
That, in turn, led investigators to a larger ring of computer pedophiles. When a similar case with national reach turned up the following year, the FBI realized it was onto an alarming new trend: sexual exploitation of children via the Internet.
A Program is born. In 1995, the FBI created its Innocent Images National Initiative (IINI). Its goals: to break up networks of online pedophiles, to stop sexual predators from using the Internet to lure children from their families, and to rescue victims.
Today, 28 of the FBI’s 56 field offices have undercover Innocent Images operations. More than 200 FBI agents work these cases. Some pose as teenagers or pre-teens in chat rooms to identify “travelers” who seek to meet and abuse children. Others focus on dismantling major child exploitation enterprises.
Since 1995, we’ve opened more than 10,000 total cases and helped secure nearly 3,000 convictions.
Keeping Safe. To report child pornography and/or potential cases involving the sexual exploitation of children, please contact the Crimes Against Children Coordinator at your local FBI Field Office. You can also file an online report at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline at www.cybertipline.com; these reports are forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.
Reporting to authorities
Calling 800–4-A-Child connects you with the Childhelp National Abuse Hotline. — How to Report Suspected Pedophile Activity
Suspicions of internet-based child sexual abuse, like hosting child pornography websites, should be directed to the FBI. Suspicions of a local adult who may be grooming and engaging in sexual contact with children should be reported to the local police.
Reports of suspected sexual abuse should include as much information as possible, including the names of the parties involved, the location where the alleged abuse has occurred or is currently occurring, whether the reporter believes the child is in immediate danger, the signs that led the reporter to believe the child is being abused and contact information for the child’s parent or legal guardian.
Some professions require legal reporting to the authorities:
•Teachers.
•Children’s librarians.
•Police officers.
•Clergy members.
•Medical professionals.
•Social services employees.
Facebook responsible for 94% of 69 million child sex abuse images reported by US tech firms
The figures emerge as the UK is among seven nations warning of the impact of end-to-end encryption on public safety online.
Facebook was responsible for 94% of the 69 million child sex abuse images reported by US technology companies last year.
The figures emerged as seven countries, including the UK, published a statement on Sunday warning of the impact of end-to-end encryption on public safety online.
Facebook has previously announced plans to fully encrypt communications in its Messenger app, as well as its Instagram Direct service - on top of WhatsApp, which is already encrypted - meaning no one apart from the sender and recipient can read or modify messages.
The social media site said the changes are designed to improve user privacy on all of its platforms.
But law enforcement agencies fear the move will have a devastating impact on their ability to target paedophiles and protect children online.
But the National Crime Agency (NCA) has warned the number could drop to zero if Facebook presses ahead with end-to-end encryption.
Millions of child sex abuse images have been shared on Facebook
Some 16.9 million referrals were made by US tech firms to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) last year, including 69 million images of children being abused - up 50% on the previous year.
Some 94% of the reports, which include the worst category of images, came from Facebook, Home Office officials said.
Robert Jones, the NCA director responsible for tackling child sexual abuse, said of the plan: "The lights go out, the door gets slammed, and we lose all of that insight. It is as simple as that.
"And nothing, you know we're relying on the best technical expertise... in the UK, the same people that keep the UK safe against terrorists, hostile states, cyber attacks, are telling us there is no viable alternative. I believe them. And I am deeply concerned."
The NCA believes there are at least 300,000 people in the UK who pose a sexual threat to children, with 86,832 UK-related referrals to NCMEC last year, including 52% from Facebook and 11% from Instagram.
Mr Jones said industry reporting led to the arrest of more than 4,500 offenders and the safeguarding of around 6,000 children in the UK in the year to June 2020.
He continued: "The end-to-end encryption model that's being proposed takes out of the game one of the most successful ways for us to identify leads, and that layers on more complexity to our investigations, our digital media, our digital forensics, our profiling of individuals and our live intelligence leads, which allow us to identify victims and safeguard them.
"What we risk losing with these changes is the content, which gives us the intelligence leads to pursue those offenders and rescue those children."
Home Office officials say Facebook has not published credible plans to protect child safety a year on from Home Secretary Priti Patel's open letter to the firm's co-founder Mark Zuckerberg asking it to halt its end-to-end encryption proposals.
A statement signed by Ms Patel, along with the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and Japan - whose populations represent around a fifth of Facebook's two billion global users - is calling for tech companies to ensure they don't blind themselves to criminality on their platforms.
Ms Patel said: "We owe it to all of our citizens, especially our children, to ensure their safety by continuing to unmask sexual predators and terrorists operating online."
The statement calls for public safety to be embedded in systems, for law enforcement to be given access to content, and for engagement with governments.
It reads: "Encryption is an existential anchor of trust in the digital world and we do not support counter-productive and dangerous approaches that would materially weaken or limit security systems
"Particular implementations of encryption technology, however, pose significant challenges to public safety, including to highly vulnerable members of our societies like sexually exploited children." Sky News, Tom Gillespie - October 12, 2020
The figures emerge as the UK is among seven nations warning of the impact of end-to-end encryption on public safety online.
Facebook was responsible for 94% of the 69 million child sex abuse images reported by US technology companies last year.
The figures emerged as seven countries, including the UK, published a statement on Sunday warning of the impact of end-to-end encryption on public safety online.
Facebook has previously announced plans to fully encrypt communications in its Messenger app, as well as its Instagram Direct service - on top of WhatsApp, which is already encrypted - meaning no one apart from the sender and recipient can read or modify messages.
The social media site said the changes are designed to improve user privacy on all of its platforms.
But law enforcement agencies fear the move will have a devastating impact on their ability to target paedophiles and protect children online.
But the National Crime Agency (NCA) has warned the number could drop to zero if Facebook presses ahead with end-to-end encryption.
Millions of child sex abuse images have been shared on Facebook
Some 16.9 million referrals were made by US tech firms to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) last year, including 69 million images of children being abused - up 50% on the previous year.
Some 94% of the reports, which include the worst category of images, came from Facebook, Home Office officials said.
Robert Jones, the NCA director responsible for tackling child sexual abuse, said of the plan: "The lights go out, the door gets slammed, and we lose all of that insight. It is as simple as that.
"And nothing, you know we're relying on the best technical expertise... in the UK, the same people that keep the UK safe against terrorists, hostile states, cyber attacks, are telling us there is no viable alternative. I believe them. And I am deeply concerned."
The NCA believes there are at least 300,000 people in the UK who pose a sexual threat to children, with 86,832 UK-related referrals to NCMEC last year, including 52% from Facebook and 11% from Instagram.
Mr Jones said industry reporting led to the arrest of more than 4,500 offenders and the safeguarding of around 6,000 children in the UK in the year to June 2020.
He continued: "The end-to-end encryption model that's being proposed takes out of the game one of the most successful ways for us to identify leads, and that layers on more complexity to our investigations, our digital media, our digital forensics, our profiling of individuals and our live intelligence leads, which allow us to identify victims and safeguard them.
"What we risk losing with these changes is the content, which gives us the intelligence leads to pursue those offenders and rescue those children."
Home Office officials say Facebook has not published credible plans to protect child safety a year on from Home Secretary Priti Patel's open letter to the firm's co-founder Mark Zuckerberg asking it to halt its end-to-end encryption proposals.
A statement signed by Ms Patel, along with the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and Japan - whose populations represent around a fifth of Facebook's two billion global users - is calling for tech companies to ensure they don't blind themselves to criminality on their platforms.
Ms Patel said: "We owe it to all of our citizens, especially our children, to ensure their safety by continuing to unmask sexual predators and terrorists operating online."
The statement calls for public safety to be embedded in systems, for law enforcement to be given access to content, and for engagement with governments.
It reads: "Encryption is an existential anchor of trust in the digital world and we do not support counter-productive and dangerous approaches that would materially weaken or limit security systems
"Particular implementations of encryption technology, however, pose significant challenges to public safety, including to highly vulnerable members of our societies like sexually exploited children." Sky News, Tom Gillespie - October 12, 2020
Facebook reported more than 20 million child sexual abuse images in 2020, more than any other company
The material was flagged to the NCMEC, a charity that fights child sexual abuse.
Facebook reported more than 20 million child sexual abuse images on its platform in 2020, according to a new report by the National Council for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
According to the report released Wednesday, Facebook recorded 20,307,216 instances for child sexual exploitation on its platforms in 2020. The figures cover Instagram as well as the main Facebook site.
Insider first reported the figures in January, when Facebook confirmed the number. The full report has figures for other companies, and shows that Facebook made more than 35 times as many reports as the next company on the list, Google.
Facebook's platforms contain the vast majority of all child sexual content flagged to the NCMEC, which represent a 31% increase on the 16 million images reported to them by the platform in 2019.
Facebook highlighted its proactive policies and use of technology to detect and remove child exploitation material in response to the increase.
"Using industry-leading technology, over 99% of child exploitation content we remove from Facebook and Instagram is found and taken down before it's reported to us," said a spokesperson to Insider in January.
Other sites remove material after it is found or flagged to them, but don't have proactive policies to find it.
Following Facebook, the platforms with the most reports were:
•Google with 546,704.
•Snapchat with 144,095.
•Microsoft with 96,776.
•Twitter with 65,062.
•TikTok with 22,692.
•Omegle (a video and text chat platform) with 20,265.
Mindgeek, the company that owns porn websites including PornHub, logged 13,229 reports. Last year a series of credit card companies severed ties with Pornhub after it was revealed by The New York Times' that the site was hosting child sexual exploitation videos.
Facebook said in a blog post ahead of the release of the NCMEC report that it was building new tools to track down child sexual abuse material, and that most of the material it identified was old material being shared or re-sent.
"We found that more than 90 percent of this content was the same as or visually similar to previously reported content," said the post.
"And copies of just six videos were responsible for more than half of the child exploitative content we reported in that time period. While this data indicates that the number of pieces of content does not equal the number of victims, and that the same content, potentially slightly altered, is being shared repeatedly, one victim of this horrible crime is one too many."
The NCMEC told Insider in January that COVID-19 lockdowns were likely among the factors behind the overall increase in the amount of material reported to them in 2020.
Vulnerable children were less able to get help, and there was a new trend of abuse being livestreamed on demand, said the NCMEC at the time.
The 160 companies signed up to the NCMEC's child sexual abuse reporting mechanism voluntarily share the information, which is then used by law enforcement to investigate people committing the crimes.
Insider by Tom Porter Feb 26, 2021
The material was flagged to the NCMEC, a charity that fights child sexual abuse.
Facebook reported more than 20 million child sexual abuse images on its platform in 2020, according to a new report by the National Council for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
According to the report released Wednesday, Facebook recorded 20,307,216 instances for child sexual exploitation on its platforms in 2020. The figures cover Instagram as well as the main Facebook site.
Insider first reported the figures in January, when Facebook confirmed the number. The full report has figures for other companies, and shows that Facebook made more than 35 times as many reports as the next company on the list, Google.
Facebook's platforms contain the vast majority of all child sexual content flagged to the NCMEC, which represent a 31% increase on the 16 million images reported to them by the platform in 2019.
Facebook highlighted its proactive policies and use of technology to detect and remove child exploitation material in response to the increase.
"Using industry-leading technology, over 99% of child exploitation content we remove from Facebook and Instagram is found and taken down before it's reported to us," said a spokesperson to Insider in January.
Other sites remove material after it is found or flagged to them, but don't have proactive policies to find it.
Following Facebook, the platforms with the most reports were:
•Google with 546,704.
•Snapchat with 144,095.
•Microsoft with 96,776.
•Twitter with 65,062.
•TikTok with 22,692.
•Omegle (a video and text chat platform) with 20,265.
Mindgeek, the company that owns porn websites including PornHub, logged 13,229 reports. Last year a series of credit card companies severed ties with Pornhub after it was revealed by The New York Times' that the site was hosting child sexual exploitation videos.
Facebook said in a blog post ahead of the release of the NCMEC report that it was building new tools to track down child sexual abuse material, and that most of the material it identified was old material being shared or re-sent.
"We found that more than 90 percent of this content was the same as or visually similar to previously reported content," said the post.
"And copies of just six videos were responsible for more than half of the child exploitative content we reported in that time period. While this data indicates that the number of pieces of content does not equal the number of victims, and that the same content, potentially slightly altered, is being shared repeatedly, one victim of this horrible crime is one too many."
The NCMEC told Insider in January that COVID-19 lockdowns were likely among the factors behind the overall increase in the amount of material reported to them in 2020.
Vulnerable children were less able to get help, and there was a new trend of abuse being livestreamed on demand, said the NCMEC at the time.
The 160 companies signed up to the NCMEC's child sexual abuse reporting mechanism voluntarily share the information, which is then used by law enforcement to investigate people committing the crimes.
Insider by Tom Porter Feb 26, 2021
FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization
December 9, 2020
Agency challenges Facebook’s multi-year course of unlawful conduct
The Federal Trade Commission today sued Facebook, alleging that the company is illegally maintaining its personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct. Following a lengthy investigation in cooperation with a coalition of attorneys general of 46 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam, the complaint alleges that Facebook has engaged in a systematic strategy—including its 2012 acquisition of up-and-coming rival Instagram, its 2014 acquisition of the mobile messaging app WhatsApp, and the imposition of anticompetitive conditions on software developers—to eliminate threats to its monopoly. This course of conduct harms competition, leaves consumers with few choices for personal social networking, and deprives advertisers of the benefits of competition.
The FTC is seeking a permanent injunction in federal court that could, among other things: require divestitures of assets, including Instagram and WhatsApp; prohibit Facebook from imposing anticompetitive conditions on software developers; and require Facebook to seek prior notice and approval for future mergers and acquisitions.
“Personal social networking is central to the lives of millions of Americans,” said Ian Conner, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. “Facebook’s actions to entrench and maintain its monopoly deny consumers the benefits of competition. Our aim is to roll back Facebook’s anticompetitive conduct and restore competition so that innovation and free competition can thrive.”
According to the FTC’s complaint, Facebook is the world’s dominant personal social networking service and has monopoly power in a market for personal social networking services. This unmatched position has provided Facebook with staggering profits. Last year alone, Facebook generated revenues of more than $70 billion and profits of more than $18.5 billion.
Anticompetitive Acquisitions
According to the FTC’s complaint, Facebook targeted potential competitive threats to its dominance. Instagram, a rapidly growing startup, emerged at a critical time in personal social networking competition, when users of personal social networking services were migrating from desktop computers to smartphones, and when consumers were increasingly embracing photo-sharing. The complaint alleges that Facebook executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, quickly recognized that Instagram was a vibrant and innovative personal social network and an existential threat to Facebook’s monopoly power.
The complaint alleges that Facebook initially tried to compete with Instagram on the merits by improving its own offerings, but Facebook ultimately chose to buy Instagram rather than compete with it. Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram for $1 billion in April 2012 allegedly both neutralizes the direct threat posed by Instagram and makes it more difficult for another personal social networking competitor to gain scale.
Around the same time, according to the complaint, Facebook perceived that “over-the-top” mobile messaging apps also presented a serious threat to Facebook’s monopoly power. In particular, the complaint alleges that Facebook’s leadership understood—and feared—that a successful mobile messaging app could enter the personal social networking market, either by adding new features or by spinning off a standalone personal social networking app.
The complaint alleges that, by 2012, WhatsApp had emerged as the clear global “category leader” in mobile messaging. Again, according to the complaint, Facebook chose to buy an emerging threat rather than compete, and announced an agreement in February 2014 to acquire WhatsApp for $19 billion. Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp allegedly both neutralizes the prospect that WhatsApp itself might threaten Facebook’s personal social networking monopoly and ensures that any future threat will have a more difficult time gaining scale in mobile messaging.
Anticompetitive Platform Conduct
The complaint also alleges that Facebook, over many years, has imposed anticompetitive conditions on third-party software developers’ access to valuable interconnections to its platform, such as the application programming interfaces (“APIs”) that allow the developers’ apps to interface with Facebook. In particular, Facebook allegedly has made key APIs available to third-party applications only on the condition that they refrain from developing competing functionalities, and from connecting with or promoting other social networking services.
The complaint alleges that Facebook has enforced these policies by cutting off API access to blunt perceived competitive threats from rival personal social networking services, mobile messaging apps, and other apps with social functionalities. For example, in 2013, Twitter launched the app Vine, which allowed users to shoot and share short video segments. In response, according to the complaint, Facebook shut down the API that would have allowed Vine to access friends via Facebook.
The lawsuit follows an investigation by the FTC’s Technology Enforcement Division, whose staff cooperated closely with a coalition of attorneys general, under the coordination of the New York State Office of the Attorney General. Participating Attorneys General include: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
The Commission vote to authorize staff to file for a permanent injunction and other equitable relief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia was 3-2. Commissioners Noah Joshua Phillips and Christine S. Wilson voted no.
NOTE: The Commission issues a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the law has been or is being violated, and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest.
The Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition, and protect and educate consumers. You can learn more about how competition benefits consumers or file an antitrust complaint.
Betsy Lordan elordan@ftc.gov - Office of Public Affairs 202-326-3707
December 9, 2020
Agency challenges Facebook’s multi-year course of unlawful conduct
The Federal Trade Commission today sued Facebook, alleging that the company is illegally maintaining its personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct. Following a lengthy investigation in cooperation with a coalition of attorneys general of 46 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam, the complaint alleges that Facebook has engaged in a systematic strategy—including its 2012 acquisition of up-and-coming rival Instagram, its 2014 acquisition of the mobile messaging app WhatsApp, and the imposition of anticompetitive conditions on software developers—to eliminate threats to its monopoly. This course of conduct harms competition, leaves consumers with few choices for personal social networking, and deprives advertisers of the benefits of competition.
The FTC is seeking a permanent injunction in federal court that could, among other things: require divestitures of assets, including Instagram and WhatsApp; prohibit Facebook from imposing anticompetitive conditions on software developers; and require Facebook to seek prior notice and approval for future mergers and acquisitions.
“Personal social networking is central to the lives of millions of Americans,” said Ian Conner, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. “Facebook’s actions to entrench and maintain its monopoly deny consumers the benefits of competition. Our aim is to roll back Facebook’s anticompetitive conduct and restore competition so that innovation and free competition can thrive.”
According to the FTC’s complaint, Facebook is the world’s dominant personal social networking service and has monopoly power in a market for personal social networking services. This unmatched position has provided Facebook with staggering profits. Last year alone, Facebook generated revenues of more than $70 billion and profits of more than $18.5 billion.
Anticompetitive Acquisitions
According to the FTC’s complaint, Facebook targeted potential competitive threats to its dominance. Instagram, a rapidly growing startup, emerged at a critical time in personal social networking competition, when users of personal social networking services were migrating from desktop computers to smartphones, and when consumers were increasingly embracing photo-sharing. The complaint alleges that Facebook executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, quickly recognized that Instagram was a vibrant and innovative personal social network and an existential threat to Facebook’s monopoly power.
The complaint alleges that Facebook initially tried to compete with Instagram on the merits by improving its own offerings, but Facebook ultimately chose to buy Instagram rather than compete with it. Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram for $1 billion in April 2012 allegedly both neutralizes the direct threat posed by Instagram and makes it more difficult for another personal social networking competitor to gain scale.
Around the same time, according to the complaint, Facebook perceived that “over-the-top” mobile messaging apps also presented a serious threat to Facebook’s monopoly power. In particular, the complaint alleges that Facebook’s leadership understood—and feared—that a successful mobile messaging app could enter the personal social networking market, either by adding new features or by spinning off a standalone personal social networking app.
The complaint alleges that, by 2012, WhatsApp had emerged as the clear global “category leader” in mobile messaging. Again, according to the complaint, Facebook chose to buy an emerging threat rather than compete, and announced an agreement in February 2014 to acquire WhatsApp for $19 billion. Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp allegedly both neutralizes the prospect that WhatsApp itself might threaten Facebook’s personal social networking monopoly and ensures that any future threat will have a more difficult time gaining scale in mobile messaging.
Anticompetitive Platform Conduct
The complaint also alleges that Facebook, over many years, has imposed anticompetitive conditions on third-party software developers’ access to valuable interconnections to its platform, such as the application programming interfaces (“APIs”) that allow the developers’ apps to interface with Facebook. In particular, Facebook allegedly has made key APIs available to third-party applications only on the condition that they refrain from developing competing functionalities, and from connecting with or promoting other social networking services.
The complaint alleges that Facebook has enforced these policies by cutting off API access to blunt perceived competitive threats from rival personal social networking services, mobile messaging apps, and other apps with social functionalities. For example, in 2013, Twitter launched the app Vine, which allowed users to shoot and share short video segments. In response, according to the complaint, Facebook shut down the API that would have allowed Vine to access friends via Facebook.
The lawsuit follows an investigation by the FTC’s Technology Enforcement Division, whose staff cooperated closely with a coalition of attorneys general, under the coordination of the New York State Office of the Attorney General. Participating Attorneys General include: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
The Commission vote to authorize staff to file for a permanent injunction and other equitable relief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia was 3-2. Commissioners Noah Joshua Phillips and Christine S. Wilson voted no.
NOTE: The Commission issues a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the law has been or is being violated, and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest.
The Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition, and protect and educate consumers. You can learn more about how competition benefits consumers or file an antitrust complaint.
Betsy Lordan elordan@ftc.gov - Office of Public Affairs 202-326-3707
California Bans Deceptive “Dark Patterns” With Update To State Privacy Law, Dark patterns no longer welcome in California
The term describes a design practice that makes navigation to elements that publishers would prefer users not access, like account deletion or requests for personal information, intentionally opaque and confusing. A change to California’s state privacy law is the first regulation to directly take on this practice, threatening civil penalties brought under the state’s existing unfair competition laws.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced that the change was part of a set of new regulations developed for the existing California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The new regulations forbid publishers from using “confusing language,” “unnecessary steps” or requirements that they listen to a sales pitch to change their mind about opting out before they’re allowed to access the relevant function. In a statement to the press, Becerra said that the new addition to the state privacy law would “ensure that consumers will not be confused or misled when seeking to exercise their data privacy rights.”
If the state identifies a dark pattern, the organization will be given a 30 day cure notice in which the situation must be remedied. If the offending element is not brought back into compliance in that time, the state threatens civil fines (of unspecified amounts) brought under the authority of anticompetition laws.
The CCPA now specifies that consent obtained via dark patterns is not legally valid. Businesses must also now count the steps it takes to opt in to a service, as the amendment requires that there is not a greater amount of steps to opt out.
On social media and on shopping and search websites such as Amazon, Facebook and Google,and even childrens’ apps, companies are using deceptive user experience design techniques to trick us into giving away our data, sharing our phone numbers and contact lists, and submitting to fees and subscriptions. Everyday, we’re exploited for profit through “dark patterns”: design tactics used in websites and apps to manipulate you into doing things you probably would not do otherwise. Dark Patterns are tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn't mean to, like buying or signing up for something. When you use websites and apps, you don’t read every word on every page - you skim read and make assumptions. If a company wants to trick you into doing something, they can take advantage of this by making a page look like it is saying one thing when it is in fact saying another. You can defend yourself by learning about Dark Patterns on this site.
Dark patterns can be deceptive in a variety of ways. For example, a website may trick visitors into submitting to unwanted follow-up emails by making the email opt-out checkbox on a checkout page harder to see: for instance, using a smaller font or placing the opt-out in an inconspicuous place in the user flow.
Consider Amazon. The company perfected the one-click checkout. But canceling a $119 Prime subscription is a labyrinthine process that requires multiple screens and clicks.
Amazon, Facebook and Google are some of the most egregious perpetrators of "Dark Patterns" and they must be stopped at all costs!
Examples of “dark patterns,” the techniques that companies use online to get consumers to sign up for things, keep subscriptions they might otherwise cancel or turn over more personal data. They come in countless variations: giant blinking sign-up buttons, hidden unsubscribe links, red X’s that actually open new pages, countdown timers and pre-checked options for marketing spam. Think of them as the digital equivalent of trying to cancel a gym membership.
There are plans in both the House and Senate to tackle dark patterns. And there’s movement at the state level, too. California strengthened its data privacy laws to include certain dark patterns.
Enforcement against dark patterns has been uneven, and generally left to the Federal Trade Commission under its rules prohibiting “unfair or deceptive acts.” But those unfair and deceptive acts can be hard to identify, or even to notice — which is, of course, precisely as practitioners intend. Without a clear baseline of federal enforcement, they have flourished. Yet stronger rules defining the extent of the problem and addressing the more egregious tricks could help to curtail the practice.
Parting consumers from their money is as old as retail itself. But with the benefit of real-time user data and the ability to quickly change online interfaces, dark patterns can be far more effective — and diabolical — than offline tricks.
“While there’s nothing inherently wrong with companies making money, there is something wrong with those companies intentionally manipulating users to extract their data,” said Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Delaware Democrat, at the F.T.C. event. She said she planned to introduce dark pattern legislation later this year.
At the state level, California has addressed some of the more unscrupulous dark patterns. It prevents companies from using design tricks to dupe Californians out of exercising their right to prohibit their data from being sold, for instance. The state’s privacy laws, due to be updated in 2023, will include further consumer protections.
The requirement that end users not be forced to “listen to reasons why they shouldn’t opt out” could prove to be relevant to Facebook’s current plans to counter Apple’s new privacy requirements. Reports are that Facebook plans to have users view a video extolling the virtues of opting in to targeted advertising prior to the mandatory pop-up that will soon be in every app on the Apple Store. If Facebook forges ahead with this plan, it will be interesting to see if California considers it a violation of the new privacy law amendments.
That’s a start. But there are many other common practices that must still be addressed for all consumers, like obscuring or burying unsubscribe buttons, fake sales countdown clocks, forcing users to file multiple requests to end a service, inoperable links, intentionally confusing choices and miniature or obscured fonts.
A federal bill that named dark patterns was introduced to the Senate in 2019; it would have banned them from any platform with over 100 million users.
The term describes a design practice that makes navigation to elements that publishers would prefer users not access, like account deletion or requests for personal information, intentionally opaque and confusing. A change to California’s state privacy law is the first regulation to directly take on this practice, threatening civil penalties brought under the state’s existing unfair competition laws.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced that the change was part of a set of new regulations developed for the existing California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The new regulations forbid publishers from using “confusing language,” “unnecessary steps” or requirements that they listen to a sales pitch to change their mind about opting out before they’re allowed to access the relevant function. In a statement to the press, Becerra said that the new addition to the state privacy law would “ensure that consumers will not be confused or misled when seeking to exercise their data privacy rights.”
If the state identifies a dark pattern, the organization will be given a 30 day cure notice in which the situation must be remedied. If the offending element is not brought back into compliance in that time, the state threatens civil fines (of unspecified amounts) brought under the authority of anticompetition laws.
The CCPA now specifies that consent obtained via dark patterns is not legally valid. Businesses must also now count the steps it takes to opt in to a service, as the amendment requires that there is not a greater amount of steps to opt out.
On social media and on shopping and search websites such as Amazon, Facebook and Google,and even childrens’ apps, companies are using deceptive user experience design techniques to trick us into giving away our data, sharing our phone numbers and contact lists, and submitting to fees and subscriptions. Everyday, we’re exploited for profit through “dark patterns”: design tactics used in websites and apps to manipulate you into doing things you probably would not do otherwise. Dark Patterns are tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn't mean to, like buying or signing up for something. When you use websites and apps, you don’t read every word on every page - you skim read and make assumptions. If a company wants to trick you into doing something, they can take advantage of this by making a page look like it is saying one thing when it is in fact saying another. You can defend yourself by learning about Dark Patterns on this site.
Dark patterns can be deceptive in a variety of ways. For example, a website may trick visitors into submitting to unwanted follow-up emails by making the email opt-out checkbox on a checkout page harder to see: for instance, using a smaller font or placing the opt-out in an inconspicuous place in the user flow.
Consider Amazon. The company perfected the one-click checkout. But canceling a $119 Prime subscription is a labyrinthine process that requires multiple screens and clicks.
Amazon, Facebook and Google are some of the most egregious perpetrators of "Dark Patterns" and they must be stopped at all costs!
Examples of “dark patterns,” the techniques that companies use online to get consumers to sign up for things, keep subscriptions they might otherwise cancel or turn over more personal data. They come in countless variations: giant blinking sign-up buttons, hidden unsubscribe links, red X’s that actually open new pages, countdown timers and pre-checked options for marketing spam. Think of them as the digital equivalent of trying to cancel a gym membership.
There are plans in both the House and Senate to tackle dark patterns. And there’s movement at the state level, too. California strengthened its data privacy laws to include certain dark patterns.
Enforcement against dark patterns has been uneven, and generally left to the Federal Trade Commission under its rules prohibiting “unfair or deceptive acts.” But those unfair and deceptive acts can be hard to identify, or even to notice — which is, of course, precisely as practitioners intend. Without a clear baseline of federal enforcement, they have flourished. Yet stronger rules defining the extent of the problem and addressing the more egregious tricks could help to curtail the practice.
Parting consumers from their money is as old as retail itself. But with the benefit of real-time user data and the ability to quickly change online interfaces, dark patterns can be far more effective — and diabolical — than offline tricks.
“While there’s nothing inherently wrong with companies making money, there is something wrong with those companies intentionally manipulating users to extract their data,” said Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Delaware Democrat, at the F.T.C. event. She said she planned to introduce dark pattern legislation later this year.
At the state level, California has addressed some of the more unscrupulous dark patterns. It prevents companies from using design tricks to dupe Californians out of exercising their right to prohibit their data from being sold, for instance. The state’s privacy laws, due to be updated in 2023, will include further consumer protections.
The requirement that end users not be forced to “listen to reasons why they shouldn’t opt out” could prove to be relevant to Facebook’s current plans to counter Apple’s new privacy requirements. Reports are that Facebook plans to have users view a video extolling the virtues of opting in to targeted advertising prior to the mandatory pop-up that will soon be in every app on the Apple Store. If Facebook forges ahead with this plan, it will be interesting to see if California considers it a violation of the new privacy law amendments.
That’s a start. But there are many other common practices that must still be addressed for all consumers, like obscuring or burying unsubscribe buttons, fake sales countdown clocks, forcing users to file multiple requests to end a service, inoperable links, intentionally confusing choices and miniature or obscured fonts.
A federal bill that named dark patterns was introduced to the Senate in 2019; it would have banned them from any platform with over 100 million users.
Collusion is a deceitful agreement or secret cooperation between two or more parties to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading or defrauding others of their legal right. Collusion is not always considered illegal. It can be used to attain objectives forbidden by law; for example, by defrauding or gaining an unfair market advantage. It is an agreement among firms or individuals to divide a market, set prices, limit production or limit opportunities. It can involve "unions, wage fixing, kickbacks, or misrepresenting the independence of the relationship between the colluding parties". In legal terms, all acts effected by collusion are considered void.
Amazon and Google are engaged in a collusion which is a secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose and have illegally conspired together, in violation of both state and federal antitrust laws, to prevent this website, and the 200+ websites listed herein, from appearing in their appropriate locations within the Google search because they don't want the public to learn about their many illegal activities. The website domain names contain very specific keyword phrases for the express purpose of being located in the first or second pages on Google, based upon the algorithms utilized, yet most do not show up at all or are deliberately relegated to the last or next to last pages so the general public will never be aware of their existence thereby accomplishing Amazon and Google's goal of not allowing the content to be viewed considering that the majority of internet visitors rarely search for anything beyond the very few pages at the beginning regardless of what they search for. Amazon nor Google should be allowed to participate in illegal censorship.
Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos and the incoming CEO Andy Jassy along with Google's CEO Sundar Pichai are not honest people and the owner of these websites anxiously anticipate the time when the three of them can be questioned at length on the witness stand regarding their unlawful actions in conjunction with the documentation to verify their respective crimes.
Both Amazon and Google consistently engage in "antitrust evils", to coin a phrase used by numerous states Attorneys General in the current Antitrust lawsuits against Google and soon to be Amazon, for their flagrant abuses of the law. These individuals are criminals in the purest sense and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and should be incarcerated in prison for decades because they are "criminal sociopaths" and will never act honestly towards the millions of people who use their services! They are no better than your common street thugs stealing purses from the elderly or mistreating young children, these individuals have no morals nor a conscience.
Amazon and Google are engaged in a collusion which is a secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose and have illegally conspired together, in violation of both state and federal antitrust laws, to prevent this website, and the 200+ websites listed herein, from appearing in their appropriate locations within the Google search because they don't want the public to learn about their many illegal activities. The website domain names contain very specific keyword phrases for the express purpose of being located in the first or second pages on Google, based upon the algorithms utilized, yet most do not show up at all or are deliberately relegated to the last or next to last pages so the general public will never be aware of their existence thereby accomplishing Amazon and Google's goal of not allowing the content to be viewed considering that the majority of internet visitors rarely search for anything beyond the very few pages at the beginning regardless of what they search for. Amazon nor Google should be allowed to participate in illegal censorship.
Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos and the incoming CEO Andy Jassy along with Google's CEO Sundar Pichai are not honest people and the owner of these websites anxiously anticipate the time when the three of them can be questioned at length on the witness stand regarding their unlawful actions in conjunction with the documentation to verify their respective crimes.
Both Amazon and Google consistently engage in "antitrust evils", to coin a phrase used by numerous states Attorneys General in the current Antitrust lawsuits against Google and soon to be Amazon, for their flagrant abuses of the law. These individuals are criminals in the purest sense and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and should be incarcerated in prison for decades because they are "criminal sociopaths" and will never act honestly towards the millions of people who use their services! They are no better than your common street thugs stealing purses from the elderly or mistreating young children, these individuals have no morals nor a conscience.
The Laws governing the American people are derived from the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights which includes one of the most important, the First Amendment, allowing Free Speech which means we can all speak our voices without fear of prosecution.
This website is a repository to disseminate and publish important information regarding any potentially illegal or unethical activities by the leadership management of the Amazon (dot com) Inc. organization and will be constantly updated as facts become known and available.
Amazon is Notorious for being involved with intolerable actions within its ranks and the company should be broken up into numerous different and smaller parts or eliminated completely due to them allowing despicable acts to occur and Amazon has been accused by several governmental agencies for deplorable activities such as Anti Competitive Business, Antitrust Concerns, Bribery, Counterfeit Products, Defective Products, Discrimination, Fake Product Reviews, Illegal Insider Stock Trading, Intellectual Property Piracy, Market Dominance, Predatory Pricing, Price Fixing, Price Gouging, Racism, Retaliation, Receiving and Selling 'Stolen Goods', Sexism, Sexual Harassment, Social Injustice, Unethical Practices and Unsafe Working Conditions just to name a few.
This website is a repository to disseminate and publish important information regarding any potentially illegal or unethical activities by the leadership management of the Amazon (dot com) Inc. organization and will be constantly updated as facts become known and available.
Amazon is Notorious for being involved with intolerable actions within its ranks and the company should be broken up into numerous different and smaller parts or eliminated completely due to them allowing despicable acts to occur and Amazon has been accused by several governmental agencies for deplorable activities such as Anti Competitive Business, Antitrust Concerns, Bribery, Counterfeit Products, Defective Products, Discrimination, Fake Product Reviews, Illegal Insider Stock Trading, Intellectual Property Piracy, Market Dominance, Predatory Pricing, Price Fixing, Price Gouging, Racism, Retaliation, Receiving and Selling 'Stolen Goods', Sexism, Sexual Harassment, Social Injustice, Unethical Practices and Unsafe Working Conditions just to name a few.
The President of the United States and Leader of the Free World, Joe Biden, states emphatically that Facebook is Killing People, then obviously it must be totally true so therefore we must all be afraid of Facebook’s lack of concern for our lives which are at risk each and every day that Facebook allows and condones misinformation on his Facebook platform regarding the COVID-19 virus to be promoted on Facebook that could kill us.
Facebook members be aware! Millions of people could die due to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook!
FacebookSexTrafficking.com
FacebookHumanSmuggling.com
FacebookKillingPeople.com
FacebookWhistleblowers.com
FacebookPedophiles.com
FacebookChildAbuse.com
FacebookDiscrimination.com
FacebookRacism.com
FacebookIncSucks.com
FacebookKillsPeople.com
MessengerSucks.com
WhatsAppSucks.com
This website will be an ongoing repository of fact gathering and reporting of a multitude of news articles pertaining to Facebook’s dangerous activities that negatively affect our very existence.
Facebook Killing People, Facebook Sex Trafficking, Facebook Human Smuggling, Facebook Discrimination, Facebook Racism, Facebook Child Abuse, Facebook Pedophiles and Facebook Whistleblowers are of great concern to everyone and we should all be leery of Facebook’s actions against free people everywhere!
Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook platform have a blatant disregard for human suffering and his only concern is his insatiable thirst for the almighty DOLLAR $$$$$$$ regardless of who may die!
Facebook members be aware! Millions of people could die due to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook!
FacebookSexTrafficking.com
FacebookHumanSmuggling.com
FacebookKillingPeople.com
FacebookWhistleblowers.com
FacebookPedophiles.com
FacebookChildAbuse.com
FacebookDiscrimination.com
FacebookRacism.com
FacebookIncSucks.com
FacebookKillsPeople.com
MessengerSucks.com
WhatsAppSucks.com
This website will be an ongoing repository of fact gathering and reporting of a multitude of news articles pertaining to Facebook’s dangerous activities that negatively affect our very existence.
Facebook Killing People, Facebook Sex Trafficking, Facebook Human Smuggling, Facebook Discrimination, Facebook Racism, Facebook Child Abuse, Facebook Pedophiles and Facebook Whistleblowers are of great concern to everyone and we should all be leery of Facebook’s actions against free people everywhere!
Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook platform have a blatant disregard for human suffering and his only concern is his insatiable thirst for the almighty DOLLAR $$$$$$$ regardless of who may die!