Instagram systems helping to connect 'vast' pedophile network - report
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Policies at Meta Platforms' (NASDAQ:META) Instagram are helping to connect a "vast network" of accounts devoted to trafficking in underage-sex content, according to a new report.
While Instagram doesn't really host forums and file-transfer services catering to users with an interest in illicit content, its algorithms promote them, says new research conducted by investigators at Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and The Wall Street Journal.
Systems designed to link users invested in niche interests have resulted in Instagram accounts that are "brazen" about their interest in underage-sex content, though they are out of sight for most of the platform, according to the report.
Explicit hashtags are being used to connect visitors to accounts using them to advertise child-sex materials for sale, as well as more coded hashtags and emojis (such as a picture of cheese pizza acting as shorthand for "child pornography" due to shared initials), the report notes.
Such promotion violates federal law as well as Meta's own rules.
Meta and Instagram say they are improving internal controls, noting that the parent company has taken down 27 pedophile networks over the past two years and is planning more removals.
"Child exploitation is a horrific crime," Meta said in response, adding, "We're continuously investigating ways to actively defend against this behavior."