Share and Follow
The Wall Street Journal dropped a bombshell report Wednesday charging that one of the chief enablers in the disturbed world of child pornography is none other than Instagram. Not only is illicit material hosted there, but the recommendation algorithm actually points users to where they can get more:
Instagram, the popular social-media site owned by Meta Platforms, helps connect and promote a vast network of accounts openly devoted to the commission and purchase of underage-sex content, according to investigations by The Wall Street Journal and researchers at Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Pedophiles have long used the internet, but unlike the forums and file-transfer services that cater to people who have interest in illicit content, Instagram doesn’t merely host these activities. Its algorithms promote them. Instagram connects pedophiles and guides them to content sellers via recommendation systems that excel at linking those who share niche interests, the Journal and the academic researchers found. [emphasis mine]
That is insane. Just how stupid—or how evil—are these software engineers?
Since the beginning of the internet, one of the main drivers of technology advancements has been the porn companies who took advantage of the seemingly endless appetite for smut in this country (and around the world). A friend commented to me the other day that the Apple Vision Pro looks cool, but sadly it won’t be until the porn people get ahold of it that true innovation will blossom.
Revenue worldwide for online porn producers is estimated at $100 billion a year.
We know that children routinely come across hard-core fare that messes with their minds and causes them sexual confusion when they mature. (“Why don’t I look like that ‘star?’” “How come I have no interest in doing whatever that thing is they’re doing?”)
We’re also aware that child porn has proliferated and that children—often trafficked—are the victims. If you’re like me, however, you imagined creepy men in hoodies in their basement using secret internet alleyways on the Dark Web to find stuff that we could never (and wouldn’t want to) find.
Turns out, a lot of this happens out in the open, and Big Tech is too busy censoring conservatives to do anything about it.
Tucker Carlson weighed in on his new Twitter show, saying, “One of the things that this tells us is the people who run our country no longer see child molesters as the worst among us”:
TUCKER: We just found out massive pedophile networks are operating across Instagram and no one did anything about it pic.twitter.com/TNJj3PHA80
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) June 8, 2023
What the researchers found out is absolutely shocking. These predators don’t even try very hard to hide their predilections:
Though out of sight for most on the platform, the sexualized accounts on Instagram are brazen about their interest. The researchers found that Instagram enabled people to search explicit hashtags such as #pedowhore and #preteensex and connected them to accounts that used the terms to advertise child-sex material for sale. Such accounts often claim to be run by the children themselves and use overtly sexual handles incorporating words such as “little slut for you.”
Instagram is owned by Mark Zuckerberg’s social media giant Meta. The company said it had recently set up an internal task force to look into these issues. When I say “recently,” perhaps it was within 15 minutes of this report dropping. Their words don’t inspire a lot of confidence:
Child exploitation is a horrific crime. We’re continuously investigating ways to actively defend against this behavior.
What I find amazing about this outrage is that for the last several years, if I had gone on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter and posted, “Fauci’s a Fantastical Freaking Fibber and the mRNA vaccines don’t work!” I would have been booted off the platform almost before I hit the “send” button. Yet people are all over the interwebs posting vile and abusive material, and Big Tech claims to be powerless to stop it.
However, I don’t believe that—they’ve shown quite clearly with anyone who dares to question the progressive orthodoxy that they’re actually quite capable when they feel like it. To their credit, Meta has software that scans for known images and shuts down the accounts of anyone it finds to be posting them; however, they have been far less aggressive than Twitter in combatting the scourge, according to the report.
It’s apparent from this study that pedophiles don’t just prowl the dark corners of the ‘net—they’re right there in front of us, using the seemingly willing Big Tech empire to spread their evil.
