Instagram’s Pedophile Problem
Pedophiles are flooding the accounts of child influencers on Instagram. Who is to blame—and who can make them stop?
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Episode Notes
As the debate around child safety online rages on, an investigation by The New York Times found a seedy world of pedophiles interacting with child influencer accounts, often run by their parents, on Instagram.
Meta sent a statement that said, in part:
“Child exploitation is a horrific crime and online predators are determined criminals. We use sophisticated technology, hire child safety experts, report content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and share information and tools with other companies and law enforcement, to help root out predators. We’ve developed sophisticated technology to identify potentially suspicious adults and prevent them from finding, following or interacting with teens - and each other. We use a range of signals to help identify these accounts, and accounts that show enough signals are automatically sent to our content reviewers, or removed from Instagram completely.”
Guest: Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, investigative reporter at the New York Times.
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