Microsoft Refuses to Answer Key Questions About Child Porn in Bing's Search Results

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, the second on the left, answers a question from shareholders. President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Brad, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood and Chairman John Thompson listen at Microsoft's annual meeting of Shareholders at the Meydenbauer Center November 28, 2018 in Bellevue Washington.

Microsoft's Bing search engine is facing heat as it includes images of child pornography in its search results. The publication was described Thursday by TechCrunch, which commissioned a study on Bing images from AntiToxin Technologies, an Israeli online security company, in response to an anonymous suggestion.

Images of child pornography, the definition of which does not require a minor to participate in a sexual act, are considered illegal contraband under US federal law. UU And they are considered illegal in at least 93 other countries. Any attempt to duplicate the results of the AntiToxin study or to access child pornography online may lead to your arrest. You were warned.

According to the report, searches for pedophile terms in Bing generate a wide range of illicit content describing child abuse. Even worse, an algorithm used by the site to recommend similar search terms has generally worked in response to these searches, helping researchers locate additional images of child pornography.

The study showed that researchers were looking for a popular discussion forum among teenagers with the word "children". It seems that Bing has suggested other related research, including research on 13-year-old girls. This term apparently appeared "widespread child pornography when a search took place".

Gizmodo did not independently verify the results of the AntiToxin investigation, allegedly conducted jointly with the police. Microsoft has confirmed that there is a problem, but declined to answer Gizmodo's questions and provided only a brief statement, the veracity of which seems debatable.

From the TechCrunch report:

• The evidence shows that Microsoft failed to properly control its Bing search engine and to prevent searches and suggested images from assisting pedophiles. Similar searches on Google did not produce images as clearly illegal or content-related as Bing. Internet companies such as Microsoft Bing must invest more in the fight against this type of abuse through scalable technology solutions and human moderators. There is no excuse for a company like Microsoft, which made $ 8.8 billion in profits in the last quarter, well below security measures.

TechCrunch reporter Josh Constine, who previously covered the children's exploitation on WhatsApp, said Microsoft responded to the questions by saying that a team of engineers was working on solving the problem. While some of the search terms used by AntiToxin appear to be outlawed now, he wrote, "others are still surfacing with illegal content".

Microsoft seemed to pretend otherwise. A public relations firm sent Gizmodo the following statement, attributed to Microsoft Vice President Jordi Ribas:

"Obviously, these results were unacceptable according to our rules and policies, and we appreciate that TechCrunch has informed us, we are acting immediately to eliminate them, but we also want to avoid any other similar violations in the future. required".

When Gizmodo asked Microsoft to confirm that he had really blocked all search terms that returned images of sexually explicit children, because TechCrunch was obviously not doing so, the company's public relations manager responded: more to share. "

Given the severity of your dilemma, you expect Microsoft to try to be as transparent as possible about what is being done to fix the problem. This does not seem to be the case. Apparently, the company first took a more defensive stance in response to the report, comparing it to Google, never miss an opportunity! And to say nonsense, "we do the best job possible".

The best of Microsoft is apparently insufficient. Constine adds to the initial response of the company:

• The spokesman for Microsoft refused to reveal the number of human moderators working at Bing or whether he was considering increasing his staff to strengthen his defenses. But then they tried to oppose this line of reasoning by saying, "I have the feeling that you say that we are totally wrong and that we have always been bad, and that is not the case in the historical context." The truth is that it has made a complete mistake, and being a pioneer of the PhotoDNA illegal image detection technology used by other technology companies does not change that.

Broadcast images of abused children are a plague on many platforms. This has been a problem for Facebook, a problem in Vine and, apparently, still a problem for WhatsApp. Microsoft's response to this short and long-term report is crucial. And simply blocking the obvious list of search terms that the AntiToxin team might conjure up is not enough. In fact, this can only bury the problem.