Thread by @nytimes

Ten years ago, when the two sisters were just 7 and 11, their father did the unthinkable: He and another man drugged and raped the 7-year-old. He posted photos and videos on the internet documenting violent assaults of the girls. nyti.ms/2p1zkFB

The men are now in prison, but in a cruel consequence of the digital era, the two sisters, now 17 and 21, are among the first generation of child sexual abuse victims whose anguish has been preserved on the internet, seemingly forever. nyti.ms/2QcKpPB

Because online predators sometimes stalk people depicted in the sexual abuse photos and videos, the two sisters do not discuss their experiences publicly for fear of being recognized. They agreed to talk to The New York Times if they were not named. nyti.ms/2CpkLim

We asked these sisters: What does it mean to you that pictures of you are still out there? nyti.ms/2CpkLim

For victims like these two sisters, the trauma of the constantly recirculating photos and videos can have devastating effects. Their mother said both sisters had been hospitalized for suicidal thoughts. nyti.ms/2QcKpPB

Horrific experiences are being recirculated across the internet because search engines, social networks and cloud storage are rife with opportunities for criminals to exploit. nyti.ms/2QcKpPB

Our journalists created a computer program that scoured Bing and other search engines. The automated script repeatedly found images — dozens in all — that Microsoft’s own PhotoDNA service flagged as known illicit content. nyti.ms/2QcKpPB

Our computer program blocked all images from being downloaded or displayed. We reported the images’ URLs to @MissingKids and @CdnChildProtect, which work to combat online child sexual abuse. nyti.ms/2QcKpPB

@MissingKids @CdnChildProtect Similar searches on DuckDuckGo and Yahoo, which use Bing results, also returned known sexual abuse imagery. In all, our program found 75 images of abuse material across the three search engines before stopping the computer program. nyti.ms/2QcKpPB

@MissingKids @CdnChildProtect A spokesman for Microsoft described the online child sexual abuse imagery problem as a "moving target." nyti.ms/2QcKpPB

@MissingKids @CdnChildProtect "The first thing people need to understand is that any system that allows you to share photos and videos is absolutely infested with child sexual abuse," said Alex Stamos, the former security chief at Facebook and Yahoo who is now a professor at Stanford. nyti.ms/2QcKpPB

@MissingKids @CdnChildProtect Tech companies have known for years that videos of children being sexually abused are shared on their platforms, according to former employees at Microsoft, Twitter, Tumblr and other companies. nyti.ms/2QcKpPB

@MissingKids @CdnChildProtect None of the largest cloud storage platforms, including Amazon Web Services, Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft’s OneDrive and Azure, scan for sexual abuse material when files are uploaded. nyti.ms/2QcKpPB

@MissingKids @CdnChildProtect A spokesman for Amazon, which does not scan for sexual abuse imagery whatsoever, said that the "privacy of customer data is critical to earning our customers’ trust," and noted that the company had a policy that prohibited illegal content.

@MissingKids @CdnChildProtect Microsoft Azure also said it did not scan for sexual abuse material, citing similar reasons.

@MissingKids @CdnChildProtect This year, photos and videos of the abuse of two sisters were found in over 130 child sexual abuse investigations involving mobile phones, computers and cloud storage accounts.

It has been 10 years since their abuse and the images continue to haunt them. nyti.ms/2CpkLim

@MissingKids @CdnChildProtect We asked a survivor what people should know about online child sexual abuse: "I would love to speak out about it." nyti.ms/2CpkLim

@MissingKids @CdnChildProtect To report online child sexual abuse or find resources for those in need of help, contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678 or missingkids.org/gethelpnow nyti.ms/2QcKpPB