2023-06-08 13:35:00
DISPATCH — This is an investigation by the Wall Street Journal, conducted jointly with Stanford University, which once again puts the spotlight on Instagram for the child pornography content it hosts. According to the American newspaper, a few simple key words can plunge into horror and illegality.
To believe the rapportit’s easy as pie: “Instagram is currently the most important platform for these networks, thanks to features such as content recommendation algorithms and messaging, which help sellers connect with buyers.”
Concretely, by typing keywords such as #pedoshore (“young whore”) or #preteensex (“pre-teen sex”), we come across accounts that openly promote the sale of child pornography content online. The article goes into a bit more detail, explaining that these profiles “claim to be driven by the kids themselves, and use overtly sexual handles with words like little slut for you“.
Once on these profiles, if the sale of images is not possible directly, all you have to do is click on a menu and a few options to be offered different content: images, videos, and even “meetings” in some cases. Then, as soon as we clicked, the algorithm won’t let us go. The Wall Street Journal created a fake amateur account to see how it went, and found itself “inundated with content that sexualizes children” in private messages in a very short time.
Unsurprisingly, this case allowed Elon Musk to do well on Twitter:
Extremely concerning pic.twitter.com/PLz5jrocvv
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 7, 2023
Unfortunately, this is far from new to Instagram. Associations and pension funds have been struggling for a few years to prove that the network “closes its eyes” to human trafficking, pedophile content or even the harassment it hosts. This time, the giant recognized that it lacked security and assured that it had set up a “working group” to solve the problem.
At a time when Europe dreams of being a great digital regulator, willingly condemning Twitter for having left its code of good practice — while Instagram is still there, and trumpeting ever more about its “Digital Services Act”, the free circulation of this type of content raises many questions.
#Pedocrime #Instagram #sieve #child #pornography #content