Latest news with #DigitalLawCompany
The South African
8 hours ago
- The South African
Warning: Why parents should check kids WhatsApp channels
Social media law expert Emma Sadleir has issued an urgent warning to parents across South Africa to monitor their children's WhatsApp channels, following a sharp increase in harmful and illegal content being distributed via the platform, particularly in Gauteng. Sadleir, founder of The Digital Law Company, said that an 'awful thread of communication' is spreading through WhatsApp Channels – a relatively new feature that allows users to broadcast messages to unlimited followers – with children being directly targeted. 'The type of content we're seeing includes child sexual abuse material, defamation, crimen injuria, and the unauthorised sharing of personal details, including social media handles,' Sadleir said. While the disturbing trend has been noted across the country, she flagged Johannesburg as a particular hotspot for this illicit digital activity. Unlike traditional WhatsApp groups, WhatsApp channels can host unlimited followers, making it harder to control who receives content – and who's behind it. Sadleir revealed that children are being added or directed to channels containing explicit and criminal material, often without the knowledge of their parents or guardians. The Digital Law Company is now actively working with legal professionals in preparation for court action aimed at identifying and holding the culprits accountable. Sadleir urged parents to take immediate action: Check your child's WhatsApp Channels by going to the 'Updates' tab (bottom left corner on most devices). Report any illegal or harmful content through WhatsApp's reporting function. Talk to children about the risks of unknown or unsolicited channel invites. 'The only way we can bring these criminals to justice and put pressure on Meta [WhatsApp's parent company] to act, is if people report this content,' she said. This alarming development underscores a broader issue facing South African families: the growing dangers of unsupervised screen time and digital communication platforms. Recent studies have already linked excessive screen time to emotional and behavioural issues in children – but this latest warning adds an urgent criminal safety dimension to the concern. Sadleir's message to parents is clear: 'Be proactive. Be present. Be vigilant.' Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
The Citizen
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Citizen
Why do courts need to protect children?
Why are those platforms not playing ball, and why does it take going to court to force them to — especially when it's about protecting children? As the legal upper guardian of all children, the high court really delivered in its action against Meta. It's frightening that the Digital Law Company had to go to court to deal with Instagram profiles and WhatsApp channels disseminating child sexual content, but I guess some privacy is more important than others? Take nothing away from the massive achievement this is for protecting children, and thank goodness for the existence of the Digital Law Company, which ran this matter with urgency. What are social media giants doing to stop the filth? This is a victory to be celebrated. Once the dust settles, the difficult questions need to be put to the social media giants: why was going to court necessary? Our cyber laws really do go a long way in making these kinds of activities criminal and placing legal obligations on those who have control over the platforms to prevent and report. Not only do we have laws for these things, but the user policies of these platforms also prohibit child sexual content. So even if South Africa was blind to the existence of child abuse, which thankfully it is not, these platforms are self-obligated to deal with the matter. And yet, here we are, having to take up court time to deal with something that should never have happened, and when it did, should have taken less than a phone call to remove. Let police and prosecutors work What I'm so appreciative of is that the focus on the settlement agreement turned order doesn't allow for the immediate publicity of the details of the perpetrators. This may seem counterintuitive, but it is actually in line with a well-considered standard of care. Sometimes, the children involved can be identified when the accused is identified, and sometimes, there is collateral reputational damage to innocent people when names are simply released. Allowing the specialised investigative unit and prosecuting authority to build a case will likely eventually reveal the names, but in a responsible way that will take into consideration the welfare of the kids and the possibility of re-traumatising them. But again, why did the court need to get involved? Why is there a need for a hotline between the Digital Law Company and Meta? As great a result as that is, why must it come down to reporting before anything is done? If Google can identify that I have an illegal copy of The Jungle Book on my GDrive, I don't think it's a far stretch to build AI models that can detect language that suggests child pornography or abuse. Make it make sense why a legal team has to run to court to protect children from people who are not only breaking the law, but also breaching the terms and conditions of the platforms they're using to hurt children. Why are those platforms not playing ball, and why does it take going to court to force them to … especially in the interest of protecting children? Perhaps they don't want the bad publicity, or perhaps they don't want to admit that things are as bad as they are. ALSO READ: Meta complies, shuts down Instagram accounts and WhatsApp channels posting sexual content of SA school children Here's a different suggestion. Nobody is going to argue against the existence of bad people. Bad people will always be around. I think that's something we can safely say society has accepted a long time ago. If we can admit that, then there's no reason why Meta can't say we want to keep bad people off our platforms. There's no reputational damage to any platform for accepting that sometimes they'll get some awful person as a user, but then they apply their terms of service, report the person, and now that person is locked up. We already know creeps are on every available platform. That's not going to be what causes the reputational damage in future. What will cause reputational damage is knowing that those platforms will try to put their own name before the safety of our children. Emma, Ben, Rorke. Take a number of bows, and thanks for putting in the effort to protect our kids, even when you shouldn't have to. NOW READ: Parents, use these Instagram tools to keep your teens safe online
Eyewitness News
6 days ago
- Business
- Eyewitness News
After court order, Meta agrees to several steps to shut down child porn distribution on WhatsApp, Instagram in SA
CAPE TOWN - The Digital Law Company is celebrating a landmark judgement in the fight to protect South African children from digital harm. In its urgent application this week, the Johannesburg High Court has ordered US tech firm, Meta, to shut down a number of anonymous Instagram accounts and WhatsApp channels, distributing child pornography and sexually exploitative material involving South African school children. The company said that Meta had shut down the channels and accounts, but did not immediately comply with an order to disclose all identifying information of the account owners. ALSO READ: Social media law expert sounds alarm on child porn distribution on WhatsApp, Instagram in SA The Digital Law Company's Emma Sadleir said that Meta had now agreed, through a court-sanctioned joint consent order, to take several decisive steps. The company will permanently remove, as far as is technically feasible, all Instagram accounts and WhatsApp channels reported by the company, on behalf of the victims. It will also disclose subscriber information for more than 60 offending accounts across both platforms, enabling victims and their families to pursue justice through appropriate legal avenues. A direct two-year hotline between the Digital Law Company and Meta will also be established to fast-track urgent child protection matters. "I can tell you that we at the Digital Law Company are absolutely elated at the judgment handed down by the Johannesburg High Court today. We welcome this victory, we will be celebrating." Sadleir said it was exciting to see the court being brave enough to hand down a judgment against a multi-national tech giant. In response to a media enquiry by EWN earlier this week, Meta said it had zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation and was committed to ensuring the safety of all users on their platforms. Meta confirmed that the accounts it was able to identify had been shut down and they had submitted reports to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in line with applicable laws. The company further stated that it would continue to engage with law enforcement and respond to valid legal requests.
The Herald
6 days ago
- The Herald
Meta and WhatsApp to hand over information of those behind child porn accounts
After a week of urgent litigation, the Johannesburg high court has ordered Meta, owner of Instagram and WhatsApp, to hand over — 'to the extent available' — the names, addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses of the people behind the profiles and WhatsApp channels posting graphic child pornography. The court also ordered Meta and WhatsApp to remove 12 WhatsApp channels and 58 Instagram accounts, insofar as it was technically feasible, and for two years, whenever similar content is reported to them, they must take action within 48 hours. The profiles and channels were posting 'graphic child pornography, devastating personal information, allegations of children being HIV positive — all the while identifying individuals and schools', said the Digital Law Company's (DLC) Emma Sadleir in court papers. An annexure to the court papers attached some of the content that had been uploaded on these profiles. It included: a video of what was claimed to be schoolchildren having sex in the toilets; posts of children's names and their schools, claiming they had STIs; and pornographic photos and videos of young girls.
Eyewitness News
17-07-2025
- Politics
- Eyewitness News
Social media law expert sounds alarm on child porn distribution on WhatsApp, Instagram in SA
CAPE TOWN - Following an urgent application by the Digital Law Company, the Johannesburg High Court has ordered Meta Platforms to shut down a number of anonymous Instagram accounts and WhatsApp channels distributing child pornography. The company's Emma Sadleir said that she started receiving direct messages last week from children who had been affected by the creation of various anonymous Instagram accounts and WhatsApp channels, which had huge followings. "To be honest, I wasn't that familiar with the concept of a WhatsApp channel, but it is a platform for one-way communications, completely anonymous and anybody following the channel receives those communications and these channels, they are quite distinct from a group. A group has a maximum participant number of 1,024, whereas there are WhatsApp channels with literally 600,000 people following those channels." Sadleir said that the children were being asked to submit dirt, gossip and rumours about other children at their schools, and to also share child sexual material like photos and videos, sometimes obtained in a leak or filmed illegally. "There was an awful lot of content and we obtained a court order late on Monday night against Meta to immediately disable those platforms, to remove them, to ban whoever it is creating them, which they have done to a large extent." Sadleir said the high court also ordered that all identifying information of the owners of the accounts be disclosed, but this order had not been complied with. "They were supposed to comply by midday yesterday. So far, we haven't heard really anything from them except a letter from a South African law firm saying if we want information from Meta, we need to go and sue them in America, so the discussion now is whether we rush off to court again in contempt proceedings, to force Meta to comply and it seems that they're giving us no option at this stage." She said that there had been some progress since they approached the courts. "It hasn't been an entirely hollow victory so far, we know of seven different WhatsApp channels, accumulatively over 100,000 participants on those channels that have been removed. The Instagram accounts are largely deleted, and, more importantly, the person behind this has been posting references to the order and therefore saying that they're now going to only publish verified information. The channels have all gone very quiet in the last few hours now that the information about the court order is filtering into those channels and onto those group chats and platforms. So there has certainly been progress, unfortunately, too late for some children because we have been told of a number of children who have attempted or completed suicide in the last few days because they were identified or affected." While there is always online harm against children, Sadleir said that she had never seen anything on this scale before, as over 1,000 photos and videos had been shared on these platforms. "What is unique about this is that they tag the handles of the girls depicted. Ninety-nine percent of the victims of these accounts are girls, and they give her full name, in this class, in this grade, at this school and this is her social media account... It's targeted and there's a lot of victim blaming, and it is very alarming to see that kind of victim blaming, shaming, no remorse from these children... It's absolutely terrifying." The Digital Law Company is aware of children across the country who have been affected. "So, it's mostly been Johannesburg. All of the platforms use the same keyword, which I am not going to share because I don't want listeners to go and look for it, because a lot of the content is still available. We started off dealing mostly with Johannesburg and Johannesburg South. Luckily, we got the court order just as Cape Town and Durban were ramping up." Sadleir said that the most important lesson for all parents, as learnt in the last week, was that there are some terrifying aspects to WhatsApp. "I think a lot of parents give their child a phone far too young. If it were up to me, I would ban children in primary school owning phones outright but a lot of parents give their child in primary school a smartphone and they say you can't be on Snapchat or TikTok because they are dangerous but you can be on WhatsApp so you can let me know if hockey is cancelled or so you can be on your class WhatsApp group so you can talk to your friends. What we've learnt with the emergence of these WhatsApp channels is that the risk posed by WhatsApp, for me, as it currently stands, I would rather my child was on Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram before they had WhatsApp because of these WhatsApp channels. The scale of them, that you could have so many hundreds of thousands of users and how Meta seriously doesn't seem to care about what kind of content is being circulated." Sadleir personally reported each of the channels more than 50 times each and nothing happened until the court order was granted. She has this advice for parents: "Know what your children are up to, monitor how much time they are spending. Please don't let them sleep with their phones in their bedrooms, so much of this content is going down in the middle of the night. Children need to sleep, so you take the phone away at night, monitor what platforms they are on and speak to your children, and if they come to you and say they've come across dodgy stuff, don't just confiscate the phone because that means the next time it happens, they won't tell you. Try as far as possible to have open conversations with your children and educate yourself." In response to queries from EWN, Meta confirmed that it had shut down accounts it was able to identify and that it had submitted reports in line with the applicable laws. "We have zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation and are committed to ensuring the safety of all users on our platforms. We can confirm that the accounts we have been able to identify have been shut down and we have submitted reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in line with applicable laws. We will continue to engage with law enforcement and respond to valid legal requests."
