RantCrush Top 5: March 10, 2017

BBC journalist Angus Crawford investigated how child pornography is spread on Facebook, and the social media giant responded by reporting him to the police. Crawford started investigating the issue in 2016 and his coverage led to the arrest of one man. But when he discovered that inappropriate photos of children were still being posted to Facebook without the company taking the content down–despite the photos violating the company’s guidelines–he contacted Facebook directly. The social network asked him to send examples of the images he was referring to, which he did. Facebook then reported him and the BBC to police for sharing images of child exploitation.

Facebook says it will discuss sexualized photos of children on the site if BBC sends examples. They do, FB reports BBC journalists to police pic.twitter.com/nezUMUTz6g

— Amir Nasr (@amir_anasr) March 7, 2017

“It is against the law for anyone to distribute images of child exploitation,” said Facebook’s policy director in Britain, Simon Milner. “We also reported the child exploitation images that had been shared on our own platform. This matter is now in the hands of the authorities.” Crawford pointed out that it is very strange that Facebook determined the photos did not breach its guidelines but were still serious enough to report the BBC journalist to the police.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.