“Meta Failed To Protect Instagram’s Child Models From Pedophiles”

I was meeting with Giovanna, my previous intern at Shape, and she shared with me a TikTok video of a woman discussing “parent ran Instagram accounts” for children as young as four. Then I stumbled upon an article from Forbes where they exposed over a dozen Instagram accounts with over half a million followers sexualizing child and teenage models. 

From the article “Andy Burrows, head of child safety online policy at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, a U.K. nonprofit, said the child model accounts identified by Forbes “serve the sole purpose of being a shop window for child abuse, allowing offenders to identify each other and organize in plain sight while Instagram appears to look the other way.”“

What goes on a social media platform can be taken and shared in other places not so innocent. From the article. “McDonald said that images of one of the victims referenced in the search warrant provided by Forbes was promoted on dark web child sexual abuse forums “where they are being used in more sexually abusive and explicit ways.”

We can not rely on the tech companies to monitor and protect our kids content on their platforms. Please take a minute and read this article and then help spread awareness about what goes on social media platforms can be taken for the wrong purpose and shared on sites such as the dark web.