Elon Musk expresses ‘extreme’ concerns over paedophile content on Instagram
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Alaina
- . June 8, 2023
- . Update: June 8, 2023 2:38 pm
Tech billionaire Elon Musk has expressed concerns over Instagram’s distribution and sale of self-generated child sexual abuse material after a report claimed that Instagram promoted paedophile content on the platform.
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Elon Musk expressed ‘extreme’ concerns over the report on Twitter. Elon Musk said that the findings were “extremely concerning.”
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Instagram is “openly devoted to the commission and purchase of underage-sex content.” A report from the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) also reveals that various accounts on Instagram advertise self-generated child sexual abuse material (SG-CSAM). The SIO report has said that Instagram is “currently the most important platform for these networks.” Reportedly, those Instagram accounts connect buyers and sellers of SG-CSAM.
The WSJ report claimed that Instagram recommended the accounts of paedophiles who sold child sexual abuse content on the platform.
Reportedly, a joint investigation was conducted by The WSJ, the researchers at Stanford University, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The report tracked paedophile accounts on Instagram.
After the report was published, Meta, an American multinational technology conglomerate that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, set up a task force to investigate the whole matter. A Meta spokesperson said the social media company had set up an internal task force to investigate the matter. The spokesperson said, “We are continuously exploring ways to actively defend against this behaviour, and we set up an internal task force to investigate these claims and immediately address them.”
The researchers also found that 128 accounts were offering to sell child sex abuse material on Twitter, which was less than a third of the number they found on Instagram.
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In April this year, The Guardian conducted an investigation into Meta. The report claimed that Meta failed to detect the use of Facebook and Instagram for child trafficking.
