This week, while sitting in Dallas, we were reminded of what a former Soviet dissident once said to us. Sometimes the only thing that kindled hope that life could be better was the knowledge that somewhere in the world someone cared about his struggle, remembered that he was alive and was pressing for his release.
There is no government-sanctioned gulag in Texas, but there are some 27,000 children in the Dallas area who are abused each year. There are also runaways, some are escaping hard home lives and others kidnapped or otherwise exploited. But the despair that fuels this crisis of humanity is countered by a flame of hope that spreads among those who are working to save missing and exploited children. And here progress is being made.
We know this because we had the chance to attend part of the Crimes Against Children Conference underway this week. Often referred to simply as the Dallas Conference, this event draws thousands of advocates for children each year. Presented by the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center, the conference has become one of the most consequential events in the world for addressing crimes waged against children. Here, at a hotel in downtown Dallas, law enforcement agencies and advocates of all stripes met, shared ideas and conducted training. Strategies were hashed out for others to learn from, and the groundwork was laid for overcoming a multitude of problems in finding and rescuing missing children, ending child exploitation and dealing with loss.
This year, as has been the case for the past half dozen years, Facebook was a lead sponsor. We’ve argued that the rules of the road for the internet should be revised so that social media companies have skin in the game in terms of liability for what is published on their platforms. And we’ll continue to press for such reforms.
But as transformative as such ideas are, they aren’t the only steps that can be made to improve the safety of children online and on our streets. So we caught up with some of the officials at Facebook to ask about affirmative steps they are taking to protect children.
One takeaway announced at the conference is that Facebook will donate ad space to promote a newly released version of Soul Asylum's song "Runaway Train." To the uninitiated, that song, first released some 25 years ago, is about runaway children. Over the years it has helped encourage people to look for missing children, and it has led to scores of children being found. Most recently, some geolocating software has been added to a version of the music video. Now when you watch it on Facebook, for example, in addition to the video you will see images and details of children who are missing in your state. This is critical because more than 60% of children who are found are in the state in which they were first reported missing. This new video has been out just a few months, and already its making a difference.
This isn’t the only step being taken, of course. The social media giant engages with law enforcement agencies around the world to ensure that they are better equipped to deal with child exploitation online. Sometimes that’s as simple as knowing how and what to ask of Facebook when conducting an investigation. And sometimes it’s as basic as an officer in the United States knowing to answer a call in the middle of the night from, say, Singapore. Facebook is a global company, so sometimes a person on shift responding to an inquiry will be sitting in a far-off country but still able to share information pertinent to a local investigation.
Other steps being taken involving creating artificial intelligence to spot problematic posts, such as photographs of children being abused or exploited (child pornography, for example). More than 5 million such photos were taken down from Facebook in a recent quarter, with virtually all of them first spotted by artificial intelligence. The system works by creating a database of known problematic images, so whenever an image flagged as inappropriate (to put it gently) is shared, it won’t go up on the site. AI also flags potentially problematic images for human review.
There are other tools in development, but the goal here, as Emily Vacher, director of trust and safety at Facebook and a former special agent for the FBI, told us, is to ensure that this garbage never appears on Facebook or anywhere else on the internet. More broadly, the goal of those attending the Dallas Conference is to ensure that society never loses sight of the children who might otherwise fade into an invisible background of abuse. The Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center’s “Save Jane” campaign, for example, spent 27 hours in May at Klyde Warren Park reading out one Jane Doe or John Doe with the ages of every child that was abused in our region last year (once again that’s 27,000 children). So far this year, more than 11,000 children have been reported abused in our area.
We often engage in policy fights about such things as how to clean up the internet and debate such laws as the Kelsey Smith Act, which makes it easier for law enforcement officials to locate cellphones of missing children (and adults). But it’s important to note that even as these debates continue, progress is being made. The Kelsey Smith Act has passed in 24 states and is being pushed at the federal level; “Runaway Train” has been a runaway success; and the Dallas Conference continues to be another way that our town contributes to the vital cause of saving children who might otherwise feel alone, forgotten and cast aside. We can only hope that abused children know that there are thousands of people who care about them and work each day for their well-being.