Instagram promoting child porn: After coming under heavy flak for allegations of its photo-sharing app Instagram promoting child porn, Meta has started a task force to investigate into the matter.
The step by the Facebook parent company follows a report from the Stanford Internet Observatory and Wall Street Journal that large networks of accounts apparently operated by minors, are openly advertising self-generated child sexual abuse material for sale.
Recommending content to pedophiles
The researchers found out that Instagram was not only allowing sexual content involving minors, but was also recommending it to pedophiles.
Taking cognizance, Meta said that it has set up a special taskforce to investigate the whole issue.
According to a WSJ report, Instagram is allowing pedophiles to share sexual content that contains minors. Not only has the platform failed to restrict child porn, but its algorithm is also promoting such content and recommending it to pedophiles. The report says that “Pedophiles have long used the internet, but unlike the forums and file-transfer services that cater to people who have interest in illicit content, Instagram doesn’t merely host these activities. Its algorithms promote them”.
The report further adds that Instagram ‘connects’ pedophiles and also ‘guides them to content sellers via recommendation systems that excel at linking those who share niche interests’.
According to the report, users could look up child porn on Instagram by searching explicit terms and hashtags that linked to the category. This would then lead the users to accounts that ‘sold’ explicit sexual content involving minors via ‘menus’. Talking about the content, it could be videos of ‘children harming themselves or committing acts of bestiality’, said the report. Not only this, some accounts even allowed ‘meet ups’ and buyers to ‘commission specific acts’.
Elon Musk says ‘extremely concerning’
Elon Musk shared the report on Twitter and termed it as ‘extremely concerning’.
Meanwhile, a Meta spokesperson said that Meta is ‘exploring ways to defend against such behaviour’.
A Meta spokesperson said, “Child exploitation is a horrific crime. We work aggressively to fight it on and off our platforms, and to support law enforcement in its efforts to arrest and prosecute the criminals behind it. Predators constantly change their tactics in their pursuit to harm children, and that’s why we have strict policies and technology to prevent them from finding or interacting with teens on our apps, and hire specialist teams who focus on understanding their evolving behaviours so we can eliminate abusive networks.”
“We’re continuously exploring ways to actively defend against this behaviour, and we set up an internal task force to investigate these claims and immediately address them. We’re committed to continuing our work to protect teens, obstruct criminals, and support law enforcement in bringing them to justice.”
Shocked netizens are expressing their concern over the same and some are even saying that they will delete their Instagram account altogether.
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