Researchers point out that Meta Platforms, Inc META owned Instagram connects pedophiles and guides them to content sellers via recommendation systems.
The social network platform helps connect and promote a vast network of accounts openly devoted to underage-sex content, the Wall Street Journal and academic researchers found.
Instagram does not merely host these activities, its algorithms promote them.
The researchers found that Instagram has enabled people to search explicit hashtags and connect them to accounts that used the terms to advertise child-sex material for sale.
The accounts often claim to be run by the children and use overtly sexual handles incorporating words.
Certain accounts invite buyers to commission specific acts. Some menus include prices for videos of children harming themselves and “imagery of the minor performing sexual acts with animals.”
Meta acknowledged problems within its enforcement operations and set up an internal task force to address them.
Meta said it has, in the past two years, taken down 27 pedophile networks and is planning more removals.
A Meta spokesman told WSJ the company actively seeks to remove such users, taking down 490,000 accounts for violating its child safety policies in January alone.
Instagram, estimated to have more than 1.3 billion users, is especially popular with teens.
Meta has struggled with these efforts more than other platforms due to weak enforcement and design features, the WSJ report claims.
Price Action: META shares traded lower by 1.84% at $266.13 on the last check Wednesday.
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