has not lived up to its potential and needs technological and other improvements to help law enforcement go after abusers and rescue victims, a new report from the Stanford Internet Observatory has found.
In addition, the system is behind technologically and plagued by a constant challenge among government and nonprofit tech platforms: the lack of highly skilled engineers, who can get paid far higher salaries in the tech industry. Sometimes those employees are even poached by the same companies that send in the reports.
The CyberTipline received more than 36 million reports in 2023, nearly all of them from online platforms. Facebook, Instagram and Google were the companies that sent in the highest number of reports. The overall number of reports has been dramatically increasing, according to the study. One relatively easy fix proposed in the report would improve how tech platforms label what they are reporting to distinguish between widely shared memes and something that deserves closer investigation.