Amazon has come under fire after experts found disturbing images and videos of children being molested on its chat platform.
Criminals Take Advantage of Amazon Encryptions
Some users of Amazon’s encrypted chat app, Wickr, are using security guaranteed from the platform to facilitate the spread of videos of exploitation on minors. According to a new investigation from NBC, it was revealed that it has given rise to more molesters.
Evidence of these crimes against children on Wickr is strewn across the internet and dark web. The news channel used court records, online discussions and police reports, as well as speaking with law enforcement and anti-exploitation proponents to conduct their research.
It’s been revealed that people have been using their Wickr account usernames to advertise and post illicit content on Reddit, Tumblr, and Twitter threads.
The vice president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) John Shehan stated that Wickr has to do more to identify and prevent child sexual abuse material from being exchanged on their platform.
He further said that communication services are required by US law to report known or found child sexual abuse content to the institute.
Little has Been Done to Curb the Menace
Despite the fact that there is several evidence by experts that Wickr has a sizable community dedicated to trading child sexual abuse information or materials, the company has only self-reported 15 incidents of child sexual abuse imagery.
Even though Wickr is not the only site to distribute this type of content, other messaging applications such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, owned by parent firm Meta, use algorithms to search unencrypted text and media for evidence of child sexual abuse images.
This showed that Amazon appears to be doing very little to address and avoid the problem. The firm has also refused to comment on the incident.
