Tracking social media’s failure to keep kids safe: Canadian Centre for Child Protection launches public archive documenting online harm

Winnipeg, Canada — A new archive of media and public reports highlighting the failure of the technology industry to protect citizens from online harm is now available, as part of a public awareness initiative by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P).

With a goal of carefully documenting harms occurring across several mainstream social media platforms millions of Canadians use daily, C3P has committed to maintaining a permanent and ever-growing archive of media reports and academic studies for the benefit of public research and policy makers.

The archive, which includes more than 200 reports, is intended to help shed light on specific actors in the technology industry and to bring focus to their overall track records on topics related, but not limited to:

• Child sexual abuse material;
• Child exploitation;
• Mental health and addiction;
• Breaches of privacy;
• Failures by platforms to moderate their platforms;
• Lack of industry investment in Trust & Safety

“To understand the true priorities of the social media companies who commercialize the attention of youth, we need to look to their actions, not their words,” says Lianna McDonald, Executive Director for C3P. “By laying out the tech industry’s track record in a simple timeline, a clear pattern has emerged showing empty promises, failures to act and the prioritization of profits over the safety for our children,” says McDonald.

The archive of reports can be accessed at the following link: www.protectchildren.ca/tech-timeline