Lantern is a free program created by the Tech Coalition to combat cross-platform abuse and exploitation of minors. Offenders often spread across different online platforms to avoid detection, making it challenging to identify and act on them. Lantern provides a solution by helping participants securely share signals about potentially harmful or abusive users. The program is open to tech companies and select financial institutions.

How does it work?

Lantern enables participating companies to share information about activities and accounts violating their policies against online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA). This information can include email addresses, usernames, child sexual abuse material (CSAM) hashes, or keywords used to groom or purchase CSAM. By sharing these signals, other participating companies can investigate and address threats to child safety on their platform, all while establishing a solid network for secure data and knowledge-sharing.

The Process

1. A participating company detects a violation on its platform.
2. The company takes action according to its policy.
3. The company adds relevant signals to Lantern.
4. Another participating company can use these signals to identify violating content or activity on its platform.
5. This company reviews the content and activity against its policies.
6. The company takes action according to its policies.
7. The company provides feedback to Lantern about the signals used, enriching Lantern’s data and helping other participants detect violations.
   
   

Sharing Signals to Safeguard Children

Over the course of 2 years, participating companies acted on almost 40,000 accounts for violations of child sexual abuse and exploitation policies. Over 1000 CSAM uploads and almost 400 URLs were removed. (View their full transparency report.) Since then, the program has been steadily growing and currently includes 21 participating companies. The more participants join, the more data can be collected on harmful activities and users, allowing platforms to interfere quickly in cases of policy violations.

Programs like Lantern thrive with increased participation, making it essential to raise awareness of these initiatives to advance their mission and broaden their reach.