What is wildlife trafficking online and why is it a problem?
Hidden among popular dance-off videos, viral memes and virtual shopping carts lies an illegal online trade in wild species like elephants, tigers, pangolins and birds. With the cloak of anonymity and ease of connecting with other users worldwide, wildlife traffickers are able to identify interested buyers and complete transactions using everyday apps and services. Desired for their parts as ornaments, fashion, food and medicine, or as live pets, and fueled further by the promotion of exotic pet ownership on social media, wild populations have been decimated by this illicit activity. With hundreds of billions of advertisements and posts live across global platforms, identifying and removing this content at scale is a massive challenge.
What is the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online and what is its mission?
The Coalition aims to unite the tech industry to reduce wildlife trafficking online by standardizing prohibited wildlife policies, training staff to better detect illicit wildlife products, enhancing automated detection filters and educating and empowering users to report suspicious listings. At the core of this effort is sharing learning and best practices across company platforms to avoid duplication of efforts and prevent wildlife traffickers from shifting activities from one platform to the next. The Coalition aims to complement mainstream solutions, such as those of law enforcement agencies, to help reduce wildlife trafficking online.
Who is involved in the Coalition?
The Coalition is convened jointly by conservation NGOs WWF, TRAFFIC and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). Launched with 21 companies in 2018, the Coalition now comprises 47 tech company members with operations across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. A full list of company members can be accessed here. The Coalition points of contact within each company are often policy staff responsible for environmental, social or governance issues.
How do WWF, TRAFFIC and IFAW work with companies through the Coalition?
Each member company works closely with WWF, TRAFFIC and IFAW to first understand the basics of the illegal wildlife trade and vulnerabilities on their respective platforms. The company and one of the convening NGOs then collaboratively develop an action plan tailored to their platforms, identifying approaches they can take to address illegal wildlife trade. Given that each company operates in a unique way, no one action plan can be applied across all platforms. For example, an e-commerce response will be very different from a social media response. The member company collaborates with the Coalition conveners to implement the action plan and proceeds to track progress.
How does the Coalition measure success?
Given the size and scale of the illegal wildlife trade globally, establishing baselines and measuring change over time poses an immense challenge. In response, the Coalition measures success using a series of indicators, similar to other organizations working to address illicit activity, to track progress over a period of time. Examples of these indicators include:
The number of listings removed (on traditional e-commerce platforms)
The number of posts, accounts and groups removed (on social media platforms)
The number of company enforcement staff trained to detect illegal wildlife
Whether or not the companies have strong and visible prohibited wildlife policies in place
Company communication efforts to educate users, such as with pop-up alerts and redirection
If companies are including the Coalition’s list of key search terms in block filters
As highlighted in the Coalition’s 2020 Progress Report and 2021 Progress Update, disruption is occurring across online platforms. Given the nature of illicit activity and the global dependence on web-based platforms, there is much more work to be done. As the Coalition’s efforts expand, the analytics used to track that progress will reflect those efforts.
What has the Coalition achieved to date?
Since launching in 2018 with 21 companies, the Coalition has grown to include 47 company partners with more than 11 billion user accounts around the world. To date, member companies have reported blocking or removing more than 11 million listings that violate prohibited wildlife policies. Company members such as Facebook, Pinterest, TikTok and Douyin have launched in-app pop up alerts to educate users of their policies. Many platforms now have reporting pathways specifically for suspicious wildlife content, enabling companies to better track action against these items and use the information to enhance automated systems. Volunteers in the Coalition’s Cyber Spotter program helped to identify more than 11,000 prohibited wildlife listings for review by company members. Alongside efforts to enhance enforcement, companies have launched joint user messaging campaigns on World Elephant Day, Global Tiger Day, and World Sea Turtle Day to educate users about the issue. More information can be viewed in our 2020 Progress Report and 2021 Progress Update.
What else needs to be done to solve the broader issue of illegal wildlife trade online?
The work of the Coalition is an important step to tackling the issue of illegal wildlife trade online. It is however, just one piece of a comprehensive solution. Everyone has a responsibility to do their part to address this problem. From online platforms, to governments, to law enforcement, to individual consumers and all users of the internet. This is a complex, global issue that requires both cross-sector collaboration and the general public to resolve.
Can wildlife traffickers find ways to bypass the Coalition’s efforts?
It has become increasingly challenging for wildlife cybercriminals to post content and keep the content live on Coalition member platforms. While users can always create a new account when content is removed, it takes time and trust to build connections and establish a profile/page, which disrupts ongoing trafficking activities.
What automated detection technologies are being used? How are they helpful?
The Coalition actively maintains a library of commonly used keywords across multiple languages that is shared confidentially with Coalition company partners on a regular basis. These are keywords that WWF, TRAFFIC and IFAW have identified as most often used by sellers to evade detection, as well as by buyers to search for prohibited wildlife products online. Coalition companies incorporate these wildlife-specific keywords into their automated text identification filters, preventing sellers from posting listings that contain these keywords. Such technologies are immensely important to learning about trends and understanding how to thwart potential illegal criminal activity.
How does the Coalition collaborate with law enforcement?
Coalition conveners WWF, TRAFFIC and IFAW share online monitoring data with law enforcement for review, and to ensure that none of the monitoring data shared with companies for removal interferes with an ongoing investigation. The Coalition also aims to help companies and law enforcement connect and understand how best to collaborate to address illegal wildlife trade.
Law enforcement agencies globally have reiterated the challenge in addressing the massive scale of illegal wildlife trade online. Practically, they must prioritize the most serious criminal cases. This makes the work of the Coalition even more critical as it helps to remove millions of prohibited listings on online platforms annually, preventing successful illegal sales.
Does the Coalition advocate for stricter government regulations to address wildlife trafficking online?
The efforts of the Coalition are reinforced when governments enact and implement appropriate regulations to address wildlife trafficking online. However, the Coalition does not itself play any role related to legislative developments or lobbying. Its current scope focuses on helping companies understand the issues related to addressing the problem of illegal wildlife trade on their platforms.
How will the Coalition evolve in the future and what will long term success look like?
As the illegal trade in wildlife online evolves, so will the breadth and scope of the Coalition. No single solution is perfect, and it is just one element of a range of solutions that must continue to be supported in order to continue making progress. In addition to private sector partnerships such as the Coalition, law enforcement, regulation, and overall changes in consumer awareness will continue to not only evolve, but be fundamental to tackling the issue. It is likely that machine learning techniques will advance to make it easier to automatically remove prohibited listings. These listings may shift from open platforms to the dark web, where wildlife sales will be less accessible and less profitable without the mainstream potential of the global clear web.
Why are company action plans confidential?
Company action plans are confidential because much of the content involves internal company processes and technologies. Additionally, wildlife criminals would benefit from understanding exactly how companies were aiming to prohibit their activity. The Coalition welcomes companies to share non-sensitive information about their activities externally, either through their own social media channels or through Coalition communications, such as the Winter Spotlight Series.