Today we are releasing our first Lantern transparency report and our annual report for 2023. Both reports provide insights into the work of both the Tech Coalition and industry to protect children from online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA). 

Lantern Transparency Report

The Tech Coalition launched Lantern in November 2023 following a two-year pilot. The Lantern Transparency Report provides an overview of how Lantern functions under the oversight of the Tech Coalition and a snapshot of metrics and outcomes from the pilot through the end of 2023. Subsequent reports will be released annually. 

The signals being shared in Lantern are producing tangible outcomes and helping to protect children from cross-platform abuses. As a result of signals shared in Lantern through December 2023, participating companies identified, confirmed, and took action on 30,989 accounts for violations of policies prohibiting child sexual exploitation and abuse. In addition, 1,293 individual uploads of child sexual exploitation or abuse material were removed, and 389 URLs/bulk uploads (meaning, a given URL could host numerous pieces of content) of child sexual exploitation and abuse material were removed. These outcomes are in addition to the enforcement actions taken by individual companies against violations on their own platforms in accordance with their established terms of service.

The report also provides data about signals uploaded and removed from Lantern. As Lantern is still in its early stages, over time, we will expand the scope and depth of the information we share. This evolution will not only reflect our growing experience and capabilities, but also our commitment to being accountable to the communities we serve. 

By the end of 2023, Lantern grew to 12 participating companies, nine of which are Tech Coalition members. The report does not include metrics nor outcomes from all participants. Some companies have not yet reached the operational maturity needed to provide signals, particularly those that did not participate in the pilot, while others are still working to operationalize Lantern's activities within their internal teams. Going forward, the Tech Coalition plans to implement ways to increase signal contributions and outcome reporting from participating companies as Lantern matures.

While there is more work to be done, we are encouraged by the progress to date. Our focus remains on incorporating the recommendations from the Human Rights Impact Assessment, engaging with stakeholders to actively listen and gather insights on where we can improve, and expanding Lantern to more participants.

The 2023 Annual Report showcases how the Tech Coalition is helping to advance industry’s collective efforts to protect children from OCSEA. It also includes our transparency report with metrics and insights from our members. In addition to the those metrics, here’s a look at the report by the numbers: 

  • The Tech Coalition welcomed seven new member companies, bringing the total number of member companies to 37.
  • 35 of our 37 members tangibly enhanced their capacity to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse, based on objective milestones we've established for them in five key areas
  • For the second straight year, member companies increased their adoption of image and video-based hashing technologies.
  • 57 percent of our members now use machine learning classifiers to help detect previously unknown images of CSAM.
  • The Tech Coalition, in partnership with WeProtect Global Alliance, brought together more than 150 people from across sectors - technology, finance, policy, civil society, academia, medicine, and law enforcement - to address the growing global trend of online financial sextortion of children at our biennial Multi-Stakeholder Forum in June.
  • Representatives from 26 Tech Coalition member companies joined select child safety experts, advocates, and members of law enforcement at an industry briefing on gen AI in December.
  • We ended 2023 with 12 companies in the Lantern program.
  • In October, more than 30 engineers representing 13 member companies and our partner, Thorn, gathered for two days of collaborative working sessions at our second annual hackathon called Initiate.
  • The Tech Coalition worked with four members to pilot Thorn’s grooming classifier and strengthen each platform’s ability to enforce their respective policies that keep young people safe online.
  • We hosted 11 webinars for members on topics such as the threat landscape, detection technologies, generative AI, user reporting design and flows, and transparency reporting.
  • Of the 13 initial projects funded by the Tech Coalition Safe Online Research Fund in 2021, five were completed in 2023. We announced an additional $1 million of support for this Fund.

We look forward to making even more impact in 2024 and beyond.