20M child sexual abuse images on Facebook in 2020, Watchdog Group Report Says

Facebook had more than 20 million child sexual abuse images on its platform in 2020, according to a report by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

“We are talking about crime scene photos,” said NCMEC’s Lauren Coffren. “We’re taking about the sexual abuse of the child that unfortunately has been memorialized.”

Coffren believes the numbers could be even higher than reported.

“The real story behind it is that some companies are making an awful lot of reports and some companies are not making a lot of reports,” said Coffren speaking to KOMO News.

KOMO News reported:

Facebook released a statement after doing their own analysis, sharing findings that “90% of this content was the same as or visually similar to previously reported content.” PornHub, which had over 13,000 incidents, said that the number includes several thousand duplicates. Coffren says the same images may be shared repeatedly, creating multiple reports and re-victimizing children.

“We have victims who are 20 years pass the actual hands-on or contact of use, and they are still suffering as a victim because the imagery is still being distributed,” said Coffren. “It’s the crime that never ends.”