Meta under fire for Instagram’s recommendation algorithms promoting pedophile networks

A recent investigation has exposed how Instagram’s algorithms are facilitating the spread of child sexual abuse content on the platform.

A joint investigation from The Wall Street Journal and Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, via The Verge, discovered a network of pedophiles who use Instagram to advertise and sell child abuse content, using hashtags such as #pedowhore, #preteensex, and #pedobait.

The researchers created a burner account and followed some of these hashtags. They found that Instagram’s recommendation system quickly suggested more accounts to follow that were involved in the same activity. As the WSJ reports: “Following just a handful of these recommendations was enough to flood a test account with content that sexualizes children.”

Meta, which should be unsettled with the issue, is setting up an internal task force to address the issues raised by the investigation. “Child exploitation is a horrific crime. We’re continuously investigating ways to actively defend against this behavior,” said the company. The company has taken down 27 pedophile networks in the past two years, and is planning more removals. Meta also claimed that it has taken down 490,000 accounts that violated its child safety policies in January alone and has blocked thousands of hashtags associated with the sexualization of children, and restricted these terms from user searches.

“A team of three academics with limited access could find such a huge network should set off alarms at Meta,” said Alex Stamos, head of Stanford’s Internet Observatory and former chief security officer for Meta. He criticized Meta for not doing enough to prevent and combat the problem and how its moderation practices are often ineffective or inconsistent when it comes to dealing with reports of child abuse content.

Read the full WSJ report here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Via: The Verge