Latest news with #Sadleir
Business Insider
a day ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Meta faces legal battle in South Africa over illicit content involving minors
The decision comes as South Africa grapples with rising cybercrime, including WhatsApp scams and the spread of illegal content. This development follows a high-profile legal case initiated by social media law expert Emma Sadleir, who took action against the tech giant after discovering over 30 Instagram accounts and at least six WhatsApp channels distributing illicit content and personal information of South African schoolchildren. Court documents revealed that new accounts were being created "every few minutes" to distribute the material, indicating an organized and persistent campaign that has sparked nationwide concern and urgent legal action. Sadleir, representing The Digital Law Company, emphasized the importance of protecting vulnerable children. She said, " This is about protecting vulnerable children. Full compliance with the court order is critical to identifying the perpetrators.' In support of the lawsuit, the Pretoria High Court ordered Meta to discontinue the identified accounts and provide subscriber information, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, and IP addresses used at account creation and last login. Despite the urgency, Meta's initial refusal to comply prompted the legal team to file a contempt of court application. The tech giant however argued that the filing had misidentified legal entities, thereby delaying the process. Critics claimed that Meta was avoiding accountability despite having the technical means to respond. Amid growing public and legal pressure, Meta agreed to a settlement on July 18, specifically due to the threat of imprisonment for Meta's Southern Africa representative, Thabiso Makenete. The company has since deactivated over 60 accounts and promised to provide the requested data within three business days under strict confidentiality. Emma Sadleir, founder of The Digital Law Company, described the agreement as unprecedented, she said, " This may be the first time in South Africa that a global tech company has formally agreed in writing to provide such data in compliance with a local court order." Regulatory compliance mars Meta, SA relations Notably, this is not the first time both entities have conflicted. South Africa's Information Regulator has previously had disputes with Meta over compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). In 2024, WhatsApp was criticized for vague privacy terms and unauthorized data-sharing with Meta and third parties. This case adds another layer on recent security concerns, testing Meta's willingness to balance privacy obligations with public safety demands. While child protection advocates have welcomed the ruling as a major step toward digital accountability, digital rights organizations have warned about the broader implications. "We must ensure that data disclosures do not set a precedent for unchecked surveillance," a spokesperson for the South African Digital Rights Forum noted.
Eyewitness News
2 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 Citizen
2 days ago
- Business
- The Citizen
Meta agrees to hand over child pornography channel creator information
Social media giant found in contempt of court after an earlier high court ruling. Ordered to pay costs Tech giant Meta has agreed to permanently delete more than 60 WhatsApp channels publishing child pornography involving South African school children and to comply with all requirements of an earlier high court order. This was after Judge Mudunwazi Makamu in the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Johannesburg handed down a further order on Friday. Meta was found in contempt of court of an earlier ruling in urgent litigation brought by the Digital Law Company (DLC) led by social media law expert Emma Sadleir. Contempt On Monday, Makamu ordered the company to close all accounts and channels linked to the distribution of sexual content involving school children and to 'permanently disable the creator of the WhatsApp channels and Instagram profiles listed' from creating any further WhatsApp channels and Instagram profiles. While Meta agreed to shut down all the accounts and channels linked to the distribution of sexual content involving school children, it never complied with other aspects of the ruling, including handing over the account creators' details to DLC. Meta was then served with an urgent contempt of court application. In his ruling on Friday, Makamu also ordered Meta to disclose 'subscriber information' for whoever is behind the accounts distributing the child pornography on WhatsApp and Instagram. ALSO READ: Meta complies, shuts down Instagram accounts and WhatsApp channels posting sexual content of SA school children Ruling welcomed Sadleir welcomed the ruling. 'I will forever be indebted to these incredible humans who dropped everything and gave up a whole week to help us with this matter,' she said. 'It looked a bit like David and Goliath in court this morning – our young legal team against an army of senior lawyers. Thank you, team. You gave a whole lot more than 67 minutes this week.' Information handover Meta also agreed to provide DLC with information in its possession pertaining to the creator(s) of each of the WhatsApp channels and Instagram profiles listed, in no later than three business days. 'The information provided to the applicant shall not be publicly disclosed to the general public and shall only be used for purposes of reporting to law enforcement potential crimes related to the accounts at issue and taking appropriate legal steps for the protection of children,' the court ordered. Meta and WhatsApp also agreed to pay DLC's costs for the urgent application. ALSO READ: Communications department welcomes ruling on Meta's WhatsApp and Instagram Sexual content DLC launched the interdict in which all lawyers acted pro-bono after Sadleir was contacted about content on the channels that included several explicit images and videos, including that of a Grade 11 pupil from a school south of Johannesburg having sex with a girl in a room. Another video shows a Grade 12 boy having sex with a Grade 9 girl in a school bathroom, apparently filmed by another pupil. 'If you committed suitcase (sic) RIP, you can haunt me or whatever the plan,' the poster said. 'If your nudes got exposed sies ulayegile sfebe (you deserved it whore). When I come back, I'm opening a page on every single platform expect (sic) Facebook…there won't be any remorse. Next time when you wanna take nudes, you'll think more than twice.' It was such explicit content and filthy language that spurred Sadleir and DLC to pursue the matter in a mammoth David vs Goliath battle. ALSO READ: Meta ordered to shut down Instagram accounts and WhatsApp channels posting sexual content of SA schoolchildren [VIDEO]
Eyewitness News
3 days ago
- 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."
TimesLIVE
3 days ago
- TimesLIVE
Meta, parent company to Instagram and WhatsApp, to face contempt of court case
Meta Platforms Inc, which owns Instagram and WhatsApp, is facing being held in contempt of court for failing to comply with a court order concerning Instagram handles and WhatsApp channels that were posting child pornography . The Digital Law Company (DLC), which is litigating to protect the children, has asked the court to order that, if Meta does not comply with a new Saturday deadline, one of its officials should be committed to imprisonment. The litigation concerns Instagram profiles and WhatsApp channels that were posting 'graphic child pornography, devastating personal information, allegations of children being HIV positive – all the while identifying individuals and schools,' said the DLC's 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. After an urgent application on Monday, the Johannesburg High Court ordered Meta and three officials to immediately and permanently remove six WhatsApp channels and 30 Instagram profiles. It also ordered them to immediately and permanently disable the person behind the accounts from creating any further profiles; and to hand over information about the identity of the person. After the court order, the named Instagram profiles and some of the WhatsApp channels were deleted – either by Meta or their creator – but some remained active. With the WhatsApp channels that had been deleted by the creator, the content that was on them was still available to those that had followed it when they were active, said Sadleir. New profiles also soon began to emerge. New WhatsApp channels and Instagram accounts were 'being created ... every few minutes, soliciting and publishing private and pornographic information, images and videos involving South African children', said Sadleir in the contempt application, filed in court on Wednesday. 'That is why the order to disable and the disorder to disclose are so important,' she said.
