Eight years of Project Arachnid
Since 2017, Project Arachnid has been on the forefront of the fight against the global proliferation of child sexual abuse material on the internet. Now, eight years on, the platform continues its offensive — uncovering, disrupting, and removing images from the web that capture some of the worst moments of a child’s life.
Project Arachnid’s reach and impact has rapidly expanded since launching thanks to a growing coalition of international allies. The information collected by the platform in the course of its worldwide operations has become a key source of knowledge for governments seeking to hold the technology industry accountable.
The result: Together, through its global network, Project Arachnid has rid the internet of tens of millions of images of child sexual abuse and exploitation and has helped make the internet a safer place for kids.
Eight pillars of growth Project Arachnid has achieved in eight years:
1.Supporting survivors
At its core, Project Arachnid is a victim-centric tool designed to help victims and survivors. For many, the moment recordings of their abuse begin to circulate online, a cascade of events follow leading to turmoil and trauma in their lives. Project Arachnid has helped ease the burden for survivors around the world by aggressively pursuing the removal of these traumatic images on their behalf.
“I feel like with Project Arachnid, I have been able to, in a way, move on with my life because I’m not constantly retraumatizing myself, searching for this video at all hours of day and night… I used to dream that somebody would do that for me. And, Project Arachnid is that dream.”
2.Targeting child sexual abuse material at scale
Project Arachnid relentlessly crawls the internet in search of child sexual abuse material. When discovered, the platform is designed to initiate and pursue a removal notice campaign for each and every image. For as long as the content is online, Project Arachnid has it in its crosshairs. To date, more than 47 million removal notices have been issued to over 1,500 online service providers across almost 100 countries.
3.Bringing victims’ voices to the court room
Through Project Arachnid, the voices of victims of child sexual abuse material have been heard in courtrooms across Canada. Historically, court proceedings related to child sexual abuse material where the offender and victim are unknown to each other have lacked the voice or perspectives from the survivors in the images. Project Arachnid data helps connect images held by an offender with victim impact statements written by the survivors recorded in the images. This upholds the rights of victims by giving them the opportunity to have a voice in proceedings that directly impact them and helps to combat any misperception that child sexual abuse material crimes are victimless.
4.Growth through global collaboration
Project Arachnid is more than just a technological tool. Under the hood, it is powered by an ever-growing network of analysts from 16 allied child protection organizations spanning five continents. As our network continues to grow, so does the scale of Project Arachnid’s reach.
5.Holding the technology industry accountable
Inadequate or even non-existent content moderation practices by many online service providers can lead to the spread of child sexual abuse material. The data collected through the operation of Project Arachnid has helped expose the central role online services play in helping facilitate the distribution of child sexual abuse material — historically so, with few consequences. Through the publication of reports, information sharing with researchers and journalists, and regularly briefing governments and law enforcement, Project Arachnid works to ensure industry cannot ignore the problem.
6.Disrupting distribution and offender communities
Beyond the core automation functions of Project Arachnid, specialized analysts make use of an array of purpose-built tools to help disrupt child sexual abuse material distribution in online child sexual abuse communities. In an effort to derail traditional content removal efforts, offenders will often deploy a number of tactics designed to slow the progress of child sexual abuse material removal. But, armed with Project Arachnid’s technology, some of the most challenging content has been successfully removed from hostile environments on the internet.
7.Encouraging industry best-practices
Project Arachnid makes a no-cost child sexual abuse material-flagging tool available to online service providers. The API — Shield by Project Arachnid — can be used as part of an operator’s overall content moderation strategy to improve upon and accelerate the detection, blocking, and removal of child sexual abuse material and harmful-abusive content. Online services from across the globe have been using this tool to great effect, helping curb distribution worldwide.
8.Enabling international research
Despite the scale of the problem, the realities of online child sexual abuse and exploitation remain poorly understood. A significant barrier to information about the issues plaguing children online is the fact that the subject matter itself is traumatic and often presents legal hurdles for conventional researchers. The vast quantities of data and information collected through Project Arachnid have been used to assist and enable a number of academic and journalistic projects over the years, including collaborations with the New York Times and Stanford University.