On Thursday, the European Commission demanded “immediate action” from the CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, in protecting minors on Instagram, after an investigation showed that this social network promotes pedophile networks.
Research from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and Stanford University and University of Massachusetts Amherst.
European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton wrote on Twitter: “Voluntary child protection meta code does not seem to be working. Now Mark Zuckerberg must explain himself and act immediately.”
Breton will meet with Zuckerberg on June 23 at Meta headquarters in Merlo Park, California (USA), a meeting that will take place before the implementation of the European Union’s Digital Services Act.
The regulation would force major digital platforms to quickly remove illegal content and be transparent about the design of algorithms, which determine what users see online and on social media.
“After August 25, under the Digital Services Act, Meta will have to show that it is taking action or face severe penalties,” Britton said.
The regulations allow the European Commission to impose fines of up to 6% of global turnover on large technology companies that do not meet the requirements. According to joint research by The Wall Street Journal, Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the Instagram algorithm helps connect and promote a network of accounts dedicated to child sexual abuse and procurement of sexual content from minors.
Investigators have found that Instagram allows people to search for explicit “hashtags” linking them to accounts that advertise the sale of child pornography, as well as “date” with minors.
Meta has already acknowledged problems with some processes, and revealed to the WSJ that it has set up an internal working group to address the issues raised.
Meta, the owner of the Instagram platform, claimed to have taken down 27 pedophile networks, and that since receiving the results of this study, it has blocked “thousands of pedophile ‘hashtags’, some with millions of posts.”
The company has also restricted recommendation systems that feature sexually charged videos and images of teens and children.
Instagram isn’t the only social network accused of distributing sexually oriented content featuring minors, as the Stanford Internet Observatory determined that Twitter had kept child sexual exploitation content classified as prohibited material for months.
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