More than 50 offending image and video ads were published across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or Threads, according to Meta’s ad library data. Some ran as recently as this week.
Editor’s note: This article contains descriptions of imagery depicting child sexual abuse. Reader discretion is strongly advised.
Over the last nine months, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has run dozens of paid ads that include explicit AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and images of minors alongside sexually suggestive statements, according to details of the ads shared with WIRED. The ads, which in some cases reached several thousand accounts, were targeted at people living in the United States, United Kingdom, and more than a dozen European countries.
More than 50 image and video ads containing abusive content were recently discovered in Meta’s ad library by researchers at the Tech Transparency Project (TTP), with the listings showing that some ads linked out to so-called nudify or undressing apps. Meta’s ad library—a transparency tool that catalogues ads displayed on the company’s platforms—shows the ads running across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and/or Threads. The findings are the second time in recent weeks that paid ads linked to child sexual abuse material have been found on Meta’s platforms.
“These ads made no effort to mask the images or hide what they were promoting,” Katie Paul, the director of the TTP, an independent watchdog group, tells WIRED. “It’s important to point out that this isn’t content posted by third parties on Facebook or Instagram, these are ads that were reviewed, approved, and allowed to run by Meta, never encountering interference while the company collected the ad dollars.”
The ads discovered by the researchers—which have now been removed by Meta for violating its policies on child sexual abuse and exploitation material, and adult sexual solicitation and nudity—were all published between November last year and the start of August. The ads, according to data in Meta’s ad transparency library, often ran over a period of several days and some only targeted men.
One video ad, the TTP researchers say, used a thumbnail image of a child sitting on the floor with text appearing on top of it saying: “Realizing Deep Fantasies with Generation AI [sic]. There is so much more than what is shown, use your imagination.” The researchers say that when the ad was clicked, it played video clips of adults involved in sexual acts and then added the child’s face from the thumbnail to a sex act.
Another ad the researchers say had been repeatedly posted showed an image of a young girl laying back with her legs spread in a sexual position with text above it saying: “I can show you more.”
Most of the ads were not actively being shown to users when researchers found them, but they continued to be available …
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Sounds like Fake book and InstaScam need to ban themselves instead of registrants. Charge Zuck with distributing harmful images to minors.
Who wants to bet that nobody gets prosecuted for this?
There are multiple people that have worked in that specific department to find that stuff that have come out stating that they do their job because they want to protect people but management over looks it. They’re definately guilty. They’ve weaponized a team of lawyers to be untouchable. They said they were gonna do something about this… over 10 years ago? Nothings changed. Did you know Facebook was the first company within the u.s. to use facial recognition?
Well, this should certainly be fun for the State attorney general’s who are suing meta a for $1.4 trillion! Today, NPR radio interviewed Minnesota’s AG regarding the lawsuit.
Meta, 29 states head to court in biggest test yet of youth social media litigation | Reuters
‘Not really understanding. 🤔 Was Meta/Facebook/Instagram using these artificial CSAM images as their own version of “To Catch a Predator” by slipping them into algorithm feeds to follow whoever might click on/view them?? 🤷🏻♂️
I want to add a point, just get people thinking. 1st amendment protects all citizens right to freedom of speech(we know what that covers) so we are told the constitution doesn’t apply to minors, until it does when they say they are being traumatized from social media. So question 1 do people under 18 have constitutional rights? Question 2 do they have freedom of speech and expression? Question 3 if minors are restricted broadly from social media until a certain age is that not violation of their freeedom of speech, and access to press? Might seem like dumb questions now, but I feel these might open up new avenues for new lawsuits, about constitutional rights, child safety, and even raise more questions against SORA.