Kalakshar US

European Union officials have delayed talks over proposed legislation that could lead to messaging services having to scan photos and links to detect possible child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Were the proposal to become law, it may require the likes of WhatsApp, Messenger and Signal to scan all images that users upload — which would essentially force them to break encryption.

For the measure to pass, it would need to have the backing of at least 15 of the member states representing at least 65 percent of the bloc’s entire population. However, countries including Germany, Austria, Poland, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic were expected to abstain from the vote or oppose the plan due to cybersecurity and privacy concerns, Politico reports. If EU members come to an agreement on a joint position, they’ll have to hash out a final version of the law with the European Commission and European Parliament.

The legislation was first proposed in 2022 and it could result in messaging services having to scan all images and links with the aim of detecting CSAM and communications between minors and potential offenders. Under the proposal, users would be informed about the link and image scans in services’ terms and conditions. If they refused, they would be blocked from sharing links and images on those platforms. However, as Politico notes, the draft proposal includes an exemption for “accounts used by the State for national security purposes.”

EU Council leaders are said to have been trying for six months to break the impasse and move forward negotiations to finalize the law. Belgium’s presidency of the Council is set to end on June 30, and it’s unclear if the incoming leadership will continue to prioritize the proposal.

Patrick Breyer, a digital rights activist who was a member of the previous European Parliament before this month’s elections, has argued that proponents of the so-called “chat control” plan aimed to take advantage of a power vacuum before the next parliament is constituted. Breyer says that the delay of the vote, prompted in part by campaigners, “should be celebrated,” but warned that “surveillance extremists among the EU governments” could again attempt to advance chat control in the coming days.

Other critics and privacy advocates have slammed the proposal. Signal president Meredith Whittaker said in a statement that “mass scanning of private communications fundamentally undermines encryption,” while Edward Snowden described it as a “terrifying mass surveillance measure.”

Advocates, on the other hand, have suggested that breaking encryption would be acceptable in order to tackle CSAM. “The Commission proposed the method or the rule that even encrypted messaging can be broken for the sake of better protecting children,” Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová said on Thursday, per EuroNews.

The EU is not the only entity to attempt such a move. In 2021, Apple revealed a plan to scan iCloud Photos for known CSAM. However, it scrapped that controversial effort following criticism from the likes of customers, advocacy groups and researchers.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/eu-delays-decision-over-scanning-encrypted-messages-for-csam-142208548.html?src=rss 

The California Civil Rights Department has revealed that Snap Inc. has agreed to pay $15 million to settle the lawsuit it filed “over alleged discrimination, harassment, and retaliation against women at the company.” California’s civil rights agency started investigating the company behind Snapchat over three years ago due to claims that it discriminated and retaliated against female employees. The agency accused the company of failing the make sure that female employees were paid equally despite a period of rapid growth between 2015 to 2022. 

Women, especially those in engineering roles, were allegedly discouraged to apply for promotions and lost them to less qualified male colleagues when they did. The agency said that they also had to endure unwelcome sexual advances and faced retaliation when they spoke up. Female employees were given negative performance reviews, were denied opportunities and, ultimately, were terminated.

“In California, we’re proud of the work of our state’s innovators who are a driving force of our nation’s economy,” CRD Director Kevin Kish said in a statement. “We’re also proud of the strength of our state’s civil rights laws, which help ensure every worker is protected against discrimination and has an opportunity to thrive. This settlement with Snapchat demonstrates a shared commitment to a California where all workers have a fair chance at the American Dream. Women are entitled to equality in every job, in every workplace, and in every industry.”

Snapchat denies that the company has an issue with pay inequality and sexual discrimination. In a statement sent to Politico and Bloomberg, it says it only decided to settle due to the costs and impact of a lengthy litigation. “We care deeply about our commitment to maintain a fair and inclusive environment at Snap, and do not believe we have any ongoing systemic pay equity, discrimination, harassment, or retaliation issues against women. While we disagreed with the California Civil Rights Department’s claims and analyses, we took into consideration the cost and impact of lengthy litigation, and the scope of the CRD’s other settlements, and decided it is in the best interest of the company to resolve these claims and focus on the future,” the company explains.

Under the settlement terms, which still have to be approved by a judge, $14.5 million of the total amount will go towards women who worked as employees at Snap Inc. in California between 2014 and 2024. The company will also be required to have a third-party monitor audit its sexual harassment, retaliation and discrimination compliance.

California’s Civil Rights Department was the same agency that sued Activision Blizzard in 2021 and accused the company of fostering a “frat boy” culture that encouraged rampant misogyny and sexual harassment. The agency also found that women in the company were overlooked for promotions and were paid less than their male colleagues. It settled with the video game developer in late 2023 for $54 million, though it had to withdraw its claims that there was widespread sexual harassment at the company. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/snap-will-pay-15-million-to-settle-california-lawsuit-alleging-sexual-discrimination-120019788.html?src=rss 

Instagram is recommending Reels with sexual content to teenagers as young as 13 even if they aren’t specifically looking for racy videos, according to separate tests conducted by The Wall Street Journal and Northeastern University professor Laura Edelson. Both of them created new accounts and set their ages to 13-years-old for the tests, which mostly took place from January until April this year. Apparently, Instagram served moderately racy videos from the beginning, including those of women dancing sensually or those that focus on their bodies. Accounts that watched those videos and skipped other Reels then started getting recommendations for more explicit videos. 

Some of the recommended Reels contained women pantomiming sex acts, others promised to send nudes to users who comment on their accounts. The test users were also reportedly served videos with people flashing their genitalia, and in one instance, the supposed teen user was shown “video after video about anal sex.” It took as little as three minutes after the accounts were created to start getting sexual Reels. Within 20 minutes of watching them, their recommended Reels section was dominated by creators producing sexual content. 

To note, The Journal and Edelson conducted the same test for TikTok and Snapchat and found that neither platform recommended sexual videos to the teen accounts they created. The accounts never even saw recommendations for age-inappropriate videos after actively searching for them and following creators that produce them. 

The Journal says that Meta’s employees identified similar problems in the past, based on undisclosed documents it saw detailing internal research on harmful experiences on Instagram for young teenagers. Meta’s safety staff previously conducted the same test and came up with similar results, the publication reports. Company spokesperson Andy Stone shrugged off the report, however, telling The Journal: “This was an artificial experiment that doesn’t match the reality of how teens use Instagram.” He added that the company “established an effort to further reduce the volume of sensitive content teens might see on Instagram, and have meaningfully reduced these numbers in the past few months.”

Back in January, Meta introduced significant privacy updates related to teen user protection and automatically placed teen users into its most restrictive control settings, which they can’t opt out of. The Journals’ tests were conducted after those updates rolled out, and it was even able to replicate the results as recently as June. Meta released the updates shortly after The Journal published the results of a previous experiment, wherein it found that Instagram’s Reels would serve “risqué footage of children as well as overtly sexual adult videos” to test accounts that exclusively followed teen and preteen influencers. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/instagram-is-reportedly-recommending-sexual-reels-to-teens-as-young-as-13-121626058.html?src=rss