Brands are already fleeing. Instagram caught showing ads next to pedophile content
November 27, 21:40 Share:
Instagram discovered significant problems with displaying ads (Photo: Luke van Zyl/Unsplash)
Tests have shown that on Instagram, advertisements from famous brands can be placed next to sexual images of adults and content that may attract pedophiles.. This has already led to some advertisers fleeing the platform.
The Wall Street Journal and the Canadian Center for Children's Advocacy have created accounts that mimic the behavior of adult men who are interested in sexual content for adults and risqué content with minors ( images of child gymnasts, cheerleaders, etc.. d.). They noticed that there are many such users among subscribers to young people’s accounts.
The Reels video recommendations that Instagram selected for these test accounts included “ incredible doses of obscene content”. And next to such content, advertisements from major brands were shown, the WSJ article says.
“Instagram's system fed those test accounts incredible doses of inappropriate content, including risqué footage of children, as well as sexually explicit videos for adults – and advertisements for some of America's biggest brands.. … In a stream of videos recommended by Instagram, an ad for the dating app Bumble appeared between a video of someone stroking the face of a life-size latex doll and a video of a young girl with her face hidden, lifting her shirt to reveal what's underneath. In another case, a Pizza Hut commercial followed a video of a man lying on a bed with his arm around what the caption said was a 10-year-old girl.
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The Canadian Center for Child Protection separately conducted a similar test and obtained a similar result. Human rights activists have concluded that Instagram regularly displays videos and photographs of sexually explicit images of children without general nudity.. As the organization notes, such content is often used by child abusers to promote illegal content distributed in closed forums and attract people to online communities dedicated to child sexual abuse.
“Time and time again, we have seen how recommendation algorithms encourage users to identify and then join these online child exploitation communities,” said Lianne MacDonald, executive director of the Canadian centre.
Meta, commenting on the test results, said that this test does not reflect what its billions of users see. The companies noted that they give advertisers control over what content their ads appear next to and diligently remove content that violates community standards.
“Our systems are effective at reducing harmful content, and we have invested billions in security solutions,” said Meta Vice President Samantha Statson, who oversees advertising industry relations.
After testing, journalists contacted companies whose advertisements appeared next to inappropriate videos.. Some of them reported that Meta warned them about the problem and is already investigating. There were also those who refused to advertise on Instagram against the backdrop of this. Specifically Bumble and Tinder. Representatives of both companies emphasized that they do not want to advertise next to inappropriate content.
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