Tech layoffs are hitting the San Francisco Bay Area hard. Many people are losing dream jobs in companies where perks abounded, even during the pandemic. Families face the harsh reality of living in a part of the country where median home prices approach or exceed one million dollars. They have to make hard decisions of staying and looking for new positions or packing up and moving to a more affordable part of the US.
Other families are now faced with immigration and Visa issues without full-time employment. Is this another casualty of the pandemic, or is this just an industry that grew too fast and spent too much money?
As someone who works in child sexual abuse prevention, I feel that one group of people that we are not focusing enough on is children.
According to Wired Magazine, Layoffs Have Gutted Twitter’s Child Safety Team. The Child Safety Team at Twitter, or any other tech company, is the team that works tirelessly to keep child sexual abuse material (CSAM) off of the site. The Child Safety Team at Twitter now consists of 1 person. Let that sink in. 1 person to monitor hundreds of millions of Twitter users posting hundreds of thousands of ‘tweets” every day.
Yes, software engineers have written code to help filter the CSAM material, but take away some of those engineers, those that monitor what their algorithms surface, and a Child Safety Team to quickly flag and remove the content. Then what are we left with? A social media site (or other sites) that cannot keep up with the amount of content that is flooding our feeds.
Not only are our children at risk of being exposed to the content, but our children are at risk of being a part of the content.
Sounds scary? It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. We can raise awareness and be knowledgeable, but we do not have to live in fear. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has many amazing resources for parents, caregivers, adults, and children about online safety. I encourage you to review their materials and see what they have to help you converse with your children at any age.
While we cannot control what tech giants are doing to manage their business, we can have control over managing our families. So mommas – be aware, be knowledgeable, and be vigilant. We do not have to accept the status quo simply because that is what is in front of us. Advocate what is best for our children and those in our circles. Imagine the possibilities!
