Meta knew of child exploitation subscriptions, allowed them anyway
4 Min Read
Meta’s staffers find proof that some parents were well aware that they were producing content for other people's sexual needs.
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis hearing in Washington on Jan. 31, 2024. (AP)
A report by The Wall Street Journal has put Meta platforms on blast. Although the Meta safety staff warned last year that paid subscription tools on both Facebook and Instagram were being abused by adults to profit from exploiting their children, the company did not act effectively to stop it.
Two Meta teams sounded the alarms after finding that hundreds of “parent-managed minor accounts” were abusing the subscription feature to sell content often featuring young girls in bikinis to an overwhelmingly male audience and one that is often open about sexual interest in children, according to sources familiar with the investigations.
Even though no child nudity was involved, Meta’s staffers found proof that some parents were well aware that they were producing content for other people's sexual needs.
Sarah Adams, a Canadian mother and social-media activist, sounded the alarm over a group of Instagram accounts selling bikini photos of teen girls last year, which was later confirmed by Meta’s own reviews that these modeling accounts were serving users with pedophilic interests.
The Meta staffers found that in some cases as well, parents offered additional content on other platforms.
Read next: FB knew danger of Instagram on girls: Internal doc
When the issue was brought to attention, instead of banning the subscriptions, Meta built an automated system to prevent suspected pedophiles from subscribing to parent-run accounts. That, however, could be evaded by setting up a new account.
Not only so, but a tipping feature, called “gifts", was added. A WSJ probe detected abuses of that feature as well. Meta profits from it by collecting a commission on the gifts. Meta claims these features are well monitored.
Spokesperson Andy Stone said, “We launched creator monetization tools with a robust set of safety measures and multiple checks on both creators and their content,” as he called Meta's plans to limit pedophiles from subscribing as “part of our ongoing safety work.”
This comes in the same month after Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, apologized to victims and their families harmed by his social media sites, including teens who were sexually abused online and those who committed suicide because of bullying on his platforms.
During a contentious Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Zuckerberg was confronted about the negative effects his platforms have on children and teenagers, with families and victims sharing concerns on a wide range of issues, including sexual predators, mental health, and the addictive nature of social media.
Cashing out for children, Meta?
A review by the WSJ detected clear failures of enforcement.
For example, two parent-run accounts were promoting pinup-style photos of children to a Facebook group of 200,000 followers devoted to adult-sex content and pregnancy fetishization. After the WSJ flagged the accounts, Meta took them down and acknowledged enforcement failures. Yet again, it failed to remove “backup” social media profiles promoted in their bios.
Further evidence shows, as per screenshots sent to the WSJ by a child-safety advocate, that adult men reposted Instagram images of the girls and were proven to have discussed if some parents were willing to sell more sexual content privately.
In June last year, Meta established a task force to address child sexualization after the WSJ exposed its algorithms for promoting accounts openly devoted to underage sex content.
With all that said and done, reports by the WSJ still show that Meta continued to recommend search terms like “child lingerie”.
Read more: Meta failed to safeguard children despite ability, whistleblower says
Additionally, many cases prove that the “send gift” button was featured on posts offering links to what they indicated were child sexual abuse videos, while other instances were discovered by the WSJ offering subscriptions and gifts for content against Meta’s rules, carrying sexually explicit names.
After being reported, Meta claimed it started screening accounts that sell subscriptions for indications of suspicious activity involving children using a tool called Macsa, short for “Malicious Child Safety Actor”, but still, that has not shown positive results yet.
The Meta spokesperson argued that the send gift button did not mean that Meta actually paid money to the accounts soliciting tips and added that videos that successfully bring in cash donations are subject to an additional amount of review.
