Instagram is one of the social networks used in the world, which allows hundreds of contents to be produced at the same time, difficult to control. That is why in a recent investigation, analysts showed that this application would be allowing and even promoting the connection of a network of accounts dedicated to pedophilia.
The study was carried out by the internet observatory from Stanford University and of the University of Massachusetts Amherstto be later published by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
The Meta application is handled by recommender systems that have the objective of linking the contents of those who share interests to keep them active. It is through this algorithm that pedophiles can easily find the offenders. sellers of sexual content of minors.
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Research indicates that more than 90% of accounts selling illegal material are connected to each other through these recommendation systems. Also, the 75% of these profiles they also interact with users who post sexually explicit images or videos of children or adolescents.
How do pedophile networks work on Instagram?
Pedophile accounts advertise their content through explicit tagsas ‘preteen sex‘, which allows you to connect profiles that use these terms to advertise the sale of child sexual material and even organize ‘meetings’ with minors.
Using fake accounts, the researchers were able to verify that when viewing one of these accounts, the platform quickly proposed other similar onesthrough ‘suggestions for you‘, where they could find buyers and sellers of pedophile content.
“Following just a handful of these recommendations was enough to flood the test account with content that sexualizes children,” the post said. Stanford Internet Observatory.
In turn, the experts noted that users who sell illicit sexual material they do not do it explicitly so as not to be detected by the authorities, but rather offer content ‘menus’ where buyers can choose the content they want and even ask for ‘specific acts’.
Among the menus can be found prices of videos of children injuring themselves and “images of the minor engaging in sexual acts with animals,” the researchers said.
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In many cases, Instagram allowed users to search for terms that the algorithm knew to be could be associated with illegal materialadding the following warning: ‘These results may contain images of child sexual abuse’.
But instead of banning such content, the popup offered two options: ‘get resources’ o ‘see results anyway’.
“Instagram’s problem boils down to content discovery features, the ways topics are recommended, and how much the platform relies on search and cross-account links,” said David Thiel, Stanford’s chief technologist.
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Among the users were 405 sellers of pedophile content, including profiles that pretend to be minors. As a whole, the accounts would add up to about 22,000 followers who consume illegal content.
Meta’s defense of pedophilia on Instagram
The company recognized the problems of your algorithm and assured that it established an internal working group to address the distribution of illegal content on your social network. Similarly, he admitted that their systems are not perfect and that they depend to a great extent on the denunciations of the users to act.
“We provide updated guidance to our content reviewers to more easily identify and remove predatory accounts,” they said, indicating that the aforementioned technical problems would have already been resolved.
The platform noted that blocked thousands of tags that sexualize children, some with millions of posts, and which restricted systems that recommended users search for terms associated with sexual abuse. In addition, they assured that in the last two years they eliminated 27 pedophile networks.
They also stressed that “child exploitation is a horrible crime” and added that it is “continuously investigating ways to actively defend against this behavior.”
The difference with Twitter and Elon Musk’s comment
The researchers ran a similar search on sexual exploitation on other social networks, but emphasized that the main problem centered on the Meta app. “The most important platform for these networks of buyers and sellers seems to be Instagram.”, explained the experts.
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In the case of Twitterthe team of specialists found 128 accounts that offered to sell child sexual abuse material, less than a third of the number they found on Instagram, although it should be noted that the latter has a much larger user base than Musk’s social network.
The difference in pedophile accounts is also due to the fact that Twitter did not recommend them to the same extent as Instagram, in addition to remove them much faster. From the platform of the little bird they assured that they already suspended around 404,000 of these profiles related to children’s material.
The news about the dangers of the Instagram algorithm even reached Elon Musk, who used his social network to post a comment on the event. “Extremely concerning,” she said.
RV / ED