Free, the French telecom giant that is majority owned by billionaire Xavier Niel, is not doing enough to tackle child sexual abuse imagery on its servers, according to The Canadian Center for Child Protection.
The nonprofit group alleges that nearly half of the child sexual abuse material (CSAM) discovered during a two-year investigation it conducted was “physically hosted” and downloaded using Free’s telecom services.
The research report, released Wednesday, looked at the availability of child sexual abuse material and the role of electronic service providers in spreading it, and found that Free was used by those “hosting and sharing” around 1.1 million images or video files of alleged CSAM or harmful-abusive content between 2018 and 2020.
In the report, titled Project Arachnid, the Canadian Center for Child Protection says that those intent on distributing CSAM “have taken advantage of Free’s hosting service to anonymously store media online, and then disseminate the direct download link on forums across the internet.”
There is no indication at this time that Free or majority owner Xavier Niel, who holds over 70% of parent group Iliad, were aware of the issue.
Ignorance is bliss.