WebProNews

Tag: exploitation

  • Google To Expand Efforts To Block Child Exploitation

    Google has been battling child exploitation on the Internet since at least 2006. This past summer, the company announced some additional measures it was taking.

    For one, Google set up a new $2 million fund to encourage the development of third-party tools to combat the problem. It also announced a cross-industry database where companies and organizations can share info to prevent the further spread of known exploitative images. This all amounted to a new $5 million from the company.

    A month later, the company came under some criticism as Microsoft announced that it would start including pop-ups aiming to deter those seeking out such content. Google elected not to do this, saying its current methods were better.

    Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt wrote an article for the Daily Mail on Sunday talking about the company’s efforts again.

    “Last week 348 people were arrested in Canada – and 386 young kids rescued – in one of the largest child sex investigations ever seen. It defies belief that anyone would sexually abuse children, especially teachers and doctors entrusted with their care,” he wrote. “But this awful case highlights the depths to which humanity can sink. And while society will never wholly eliminate such depravity, we should do everything in our power to protect children from harm.”

    “That’s why internet companies like Google and Microsoft have been working with law enforcement for years to stop paedophiles sharing illegal pictures on the web,” he continued. “We actively remove child sexual abuse imagery from our services and immediately report abuse to the authorities. This evidence is regularly used to prosecute and convict criminals. But as David Cameron said in a speech this summer, there’s always more that can be done. We’ve listened, and in the last three months put more than 200 people to work developing new, state-of-the-art technology to tackle the problem.”

    Schmidt went on to explain that Google has “fine tuned” its search engine to prevent links to abusive material from appearing in search results, but admits that not algorithm is perfect (something Google often reminds us of for a variety of reasons).

    Still the work Google has alrady done, he says, has resulted in over 100,000 queries that have been “cleaned up”.

    Google plans to roll out the changes in over 150 languages.

    Image: Google Solve For X

  • Jean Paul Gaultier Diet Coke Video Exploits Women

    The latest video in Diet Coke’s Serial Designer campaign has been giving viewers the heebie-jeebies.

    I don’t know if it is Bernadette’s (wooden supermodel puppet) heroine addicted visage or Jean Paul Gautier’s molester like grin and awkward groping of her that is responsible for sparking horror within its audience.

    This video could be damaging to women because it portrays models as being dumb, heavy drinking, and quick to submit. Gaultier leaves viewers feeling uneasy after he is entrusted to dress the female representation but infringes on professional boundaries by stripping the marionette of her robe and stroking her midsection.

    Gaultier has just been appointed as the new creative director for Diet Coke Europe. He will be given the challenge of redesigning the bottles and cans.

    Maybe I just don’t get it because I am not French and do not enjoy bizarre erotic humor.

    Here are some comments posted under the YouTube video:

    “This is absurd. Totally degrading; women are nothing like that (thank God) and it is nothing but a marketing lie to present diet coke and clothes as something that can make a woman more or less feminine. As if some sugar in water and a few stitched up pieces of cloth with a “designer” label on them can make one anything more than mainstream and impersonal.”

    “This is soo bad. How exactly does it sell Diet Coke? And moreover it’s kinda creepy. What a dud!”

    “Not funny and much too late”

    “Absolute craaaap…..”

  • Homeless Hotspots Could Result in Numerous Public Health and Safety Risks

    Marketing agency BBH Labs was been inspired to turn local homeless people into hotspots while attending the South by South West conference in Austin, Texas. Each homeless representative will be given a sign and a 4G connection to alert people of their location while they walk around and make connections for people in exchange for donations.

    This idea is sheer madness, the general public does not even want to share public facilities with the homeless (think about how many homeless people are kicked out of libraries) and they certainly aren’t going to initiate an interaction with a vagrant but according to The Inquirer BBH thinks that it will work: “They’re carrying MiFi devices. Introduce yourself, then log on to their 4G network via your phone or tablet for a quick high-quality connection. You pay what you want (ideally via the PayPal link on the site so we can track finances), and whatever you give goes directly to the person that just sold you access.”

    Some people have reacted to the idea by saying that BBH is exploiting the homeless and not paying them enough — that they are corrupt because the homeless representatives will be independent contractors meaning that they might not even make minimum wage.

    The homeless 4G vendor in the following YouTube thinks that this will be a wonderful experience and opportunity for him to get his life back on track:

    Commenters either vilified BBH on the blog for their Homeless Hotspot idea while others thought that it helped economically challenged people rise above:

    “Calling it “charitable” is a pretty crappy way to get around federal minimum wage laws. Luck for you the US Attorney in Texas is a Bush appointee.”

    “The critics have it all wrong. The homeless are not being exploited. They get paid, get a chance to meet and talk to people for a relatively minor chore of carrying a wireless hot spot. It’s safer than being a day laborer, pleasanter than standing on the street waving a sign directing drivers to a real-estate development, and offers more real contact than selling newspaper. Those who criticize the radiation exposure should ask whether a hot spot manned by paid staff, which is common at many conferences, is not just as risky. BBH labs deserves praise for an innovative idea to offer homeless a chance to make money and mingle with people.”

    “Plan A – homeless receive money for doing a job they agreed to. Plan B – homeless get nothing. And you think Plan B is more moral than Plan A??? lol. What a joke! This confirms my suspicions that the homeless are people the rest of you are ‘voting off the island’… and your wolf pack morality then views doing anything for them to be wrong. BBH if you read this, please don’t abandon this project because you’ve been besieged by evil – you are in the right here, and the homeless will be better off as a result of your efforts.”

    “I definitely see the merit in the arguments of those defending the program and of those who are outraged by it. I think it’s important, however, to consider that (from what I gather in the article) no one is being forced to do this. If an individual is fully aware of the risks/implications of participating in this program, shouldn’t they have the option to take part? it could, of course, be argued that the often extremely desperate situation that much of the homeless population face could take away this notion of agency. The moral integrity of this program, in my opinion, relies on the unlikely assumption that no deception or wrongful coercion of a participant would take place. My biggest issue with this program is actually the safety concerns associated with being able to track the hotspots, and with that, the individual. For a group that is already at huge risk for violence and other horrific assaults, this just doesn’t seem wise…”

    Safety might be the biggest issue that BBH needs to consider. The homeless contractors are under very little supervision. While there are many homeless that are clean cut hard working people capable of interacting with the community, there are also many homeless individuals suffering from mental and physical diseases that could lead to public health and safety risks for the people who elect to make exchanges with this specific group of representatives. We also need to protect these representatives from becoming targets of violent crimes.