Amazon and its subsidiaries are committed to preventing Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (CSEA) material across all of Amazon's services. In 2020, we detected or received reports of CSEA that resulted in 2,235 reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). By working closely with NCMEC and other trusted organizations committed to eliminating CSEA from the internet, including the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the INHOPE network, and the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, our actions have resulted in the removal of thousands of pieces of CSEA content overall.
In every segment of our business, we take our responsibility to fight CSEA material seriously. Our terms of service prohibit this illegal content, and we do not tolerate it. When we learn of illegal content, we act immediately and take whatever action is needed to remove it. We employ technology, including machine learning and automated detection tools, and reviewers to screen and moderate user-submitted content, such as customer review videos or product images on our services. Our public-facing abuse reporting tools allow users, third parties, and trusted organizations to report CSEA to us.
In our cloud computing business, we have teamed up with Thorn, a non-profit dedicated to eradicating CSEA, to enable its Safer solution and offer it on the AWS Marketplace to other companies. AWS has partnered closely with Thorn to help combat child sexual abuse material, providing millions of dollars in AWS credits for Thorn to develop and operate their services, along with hundreds of hours of pro bono advanced cloud services and technical support, so Thorn can continue to innovate and scale the growth of its products. This provides AWS customers an effective tool to identify and appropriately address CSEA material in the computing resources they control and run on top of AWS' infrastructure.
Our subsidiaries are equally committed to combatting CSEA. Twitch is finalizing and will soon publish its first Transparency Report which details its approach to combating inappropriate material, including CSEA. Our subsidiary Ring has partnered with NCMEC to make missing child posters visible directly in the Ring app to users whose defined neighborhoods fall within the area of interest. Posts prompt users to contact the proper authorities if they have any information that could help in the search for a missing child.Read more about how this program is already helping find missing children.
Fighting this issue together
Tackling the issue of online CSEA requires cooperation and collaboration between the private sector, internet community, non-governmental organizations, and law enforcement. In 2020, Amazon joined the Technology Coalition, an organization of 18 technology companies committed to eradicating CSEA by accelerating technology innovation and collective action across the tech industry. We also support the Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse and are members of WePROTECT Global Alliance, an ambitious international effort to end CSEA online.
For us, technology is crucial to the ongoing fight against CSEA online. We work with organizations such as NCMEC, IWF, law enforcement, Marinus Analytics, Thorn, and many others to use technology to help them in their mission. As an example, these organizations use our advanced machine learning technologies to scour the internet in order to fight child exploitation and trafficking. Read more about the heroic work these organizations are doing.
Amazon looks forward to continuing to partner with NCMEC, our peer companies, and others to continue the fight against CSEA. As our services evolve, we will continue innovating to help keep our customers and the public safe.
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