The majority of online recruitment in active sex trafficking cases in the U.S. last year took place on Facebook, according to the Human Trafficking Institute’s 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report.
“The internet has become the dominant tool that traffickers use to recruit victims, and they often recruit them on a number of very common social networking websites,” Human Trafficking Institute CEO Victor Boutros said on CBSN Wednesday. “Facebook overwhelmingly is used by traffickers to recruit victims in active sex trafficking cases.”
Data from the last two decades included in the human trafficking report showed that 30% of all victims identified in federal sex trafficking cases since 2000 were recruited online.
In 2020 in the U.S., 59% of online recruitment of identified victims in active cases took place on Facebook alone. The report also states that 65% of identified child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media were recruited through Facebook.
Instagram and Snapchat were the most frequently cited platforms after Facebook for recruiting child victims in 2020. For adult victims, the next-most cited were WeChat and Instagram.
“These data do not reflect the prevalence of online solicitation in sex trafficking schemes beyond those federally prosecuted. To be sure, the internet is implicated in many sex trafficking situations, but the high numbers of federal prosecutions involving internet solicitation are equally if not more reflective of the strategies law enforcement use to investigate these crimes,” the report states.
The majority of victims in active sex trafficking cases in 2020 were targeted with a fraudulent job offer, the report notes, followed by feigned romance. The data is based on the 602 victims identified in active sex trafficking cases for whom details of their recruitment were known.
Full story at cbsnews.com.
Oh, this is rich. So Facebook will censor conservatives and open inquiry, but it doesn’t seem to have the same enthusiasm to censor sex traffic recruiters.
The young men and their friends and associates in the “hippie generation” in Silicon Valley, who invented personal computers in the 1970s, had no concept of morality. I was horrifically shocked when first introduced to the computer– no Code of Ethics, no professional standards, no censorship, no laws, no protection for the innocent, no safety for society! If some deranged criminal sends obscene, filthy, dangerous material, you cannot call the police, and have them arrested! Prior to that, there were heavy fines and arrests, if a criminal made an obscene phone call, or sent obscene material in the mail– it was strictly illegal. Society was protected from criminals, and serious sin and crime was taken seriously. I will never be an advocate of public use of the computer or the internet– unless there is a strict Code of Ethics, and strict laws and limitations, for the good of society. Not immature, criminal, “hippie” interpretations of the meaning of “free speech.” Freedom of speech is a responsibility of citizens of a good society, that requires lots of adult maturity.
Alfred Nobel unavailable for comment.
Alfred Nobel, notorious chemist, “angel of death,” as he was famously called– among other things, his most famous inventions were explosives, notably– dynamite. He created the Nobel Prize for peace, science, and literature, to ease the pain of being famous and remembered for his most “deadly” explosives inventions. So what did he have to do with computers– and human trafficking?? He died in the late 19th century.
Anon. How did you message appear on CCD? Was it via carrier pigeon?
Why do people continue to use and give power to FB and Twitter?
Human trafficking victims are now suing Big Tech companies Iike Facebook, Twitter, etc., with the aid of groups like the National Center On Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE). Plus, there are a great many other industries that are either knowingly or unknowingly cooperating in the evil, filthy human trafficking industry– hotels, motels, taxis, truck stops, trains, busses, airlines, etc.
After college, my child put his resume on job sites. He started to get solicitations for jobs in sales. I told him no legitimate company does that. He told the callers that he was not looking for a sales job. They stopped calling, eventually.
Don’t throw out the good because of the bad.