(Daily360.com) Teenage girls are selling pornography to pedophiles on Instagram, and the social media platform is complicit in the abuse according to a lawsuit.
According to a six-month investigation, girls as young as 15 are creating explicit material to sell on private websites. These girls are using Instagram profiles to advertise their off-platform adult materials while Instagram has allegedly failed to do anything to stop the illegal activity.
Baroness Beeban Kidron is the founder of a foundation that has hired legal representation to take on Meta, the parent company of Instagram. Kidron said the girls are mimicking the OnlyFans model of selling explicit material, but using Instagram as the platform to market their illegal businesses.
Meta claims that they are actively working to prevent exploitation of minors on their social media platforms. A spokesperson said that they use technology to find accounts that are sharing, selling, or asking for images exploiting children. The spokesperson said the lawyer hired by Kidron has not provided them specific examples, but they are actively investigating. The spokesperson also said “swift action” will be taken whenever they find accounts breaking these rules against child exploitation.
Meta has been accused of enabling pedophiles to find and groom minors while soliciting them. There was a reported sting operation in New Mexico called “Operation MetaPhile” in which authorities lured adults who were attempting to meet children for sexual transactions via Meta’s platforms. Raúl Torrez, the Attorney General for New Mexico, said the sting operation targeted adults who were sending graphic images to the children and made it very clear they were interested in sexual relations with minors. Torrez also said Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta executives aren’t interested in putting forth the necessary resources to resolve this issue.
Torrez also said the sexual exploitation of minors that is enabled by Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram is CEO Zuckerberg’s fault. Meta changed the default settings on minor accounts in January to prevent anyone from messaging them unless the minor is already following that account.
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