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Comment by nl | Hacker News Reader

This is an excuse that makes no sense. As the article makes clear, this is not happening only on private chat:

> It could, for instance, be investing more to develop better tools to “flag suspicious words and phrases on unencrypted parts of the platform – including coded language around grooming,” he said. “This is, fundamentally, not a technological problem, but one of corporate priorities.” (There is a separate debate about how to handle encryption. Meta’s plans to encrypt direct messages on Facebook Messenger and Instagram has recently drawn criticism from law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and Interpol.)

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None of this is Meta's problem though. Requiring platforms to monitor user activity is unreasonable.

The main issue here is one of education. By 12 years old, a person should have learned enough about sexual exploitation in school that if a stranger asks them for nude photos, they would call the police.

I think the early generation of internet kids had trouble with this and other things like the permanence of Facebook, etc. Today, my kid and her friends are highly sensitive to "creepers," who might be lurking and their tactics. They are well aware of the pitfalls of posting on social media and all that. It seems society has adapted.

> It seems society has adapted.

Apparently not, going by the article.

> Requiring platforms to monitor user activity is unreasonable

That is absurd. Facebook spends billions algorithmically sorting their post, and they could spend a tiny fraction filtering them, just like they already do when required by law.

Facebook and Instagram do a significant amount of automated filtering. People from scammers to spammers to pimps have incentives to try to bypass the filtering. It's a cat and mouse game Meta has a significant incentive to stay ahead in; everyone from advertisers to app store owners to users will punish them for having too much of any of that, or even legal adult content.

Policing is the job of the police. If criminals are advertising sex with children on Instagram to the point that child molesters can find it, police can find it too. They can then use the low-tech method of posing as buyers, witnessing illegal acts, and arresting the offenders.

Instagram should provide assistance when legally required and technically possible of course, but should not be expected to perform law enforcement functions. That's not just because it would be some sort of undue burden on the huge corporation operating it, but because it lacks the checks and balances we apply to police agencies.

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