Mark Zuckerberg’s Instagram (which he controls through his Meta) claims to be protecting child users from predators.
When Instagram began fencing off teen accounts last year for safety reasons, content from people under 18 all but vanished for adults.
Teen accounts were automatically private, and posts and reels from those accounts no longer circulated in the Explore tab and main feeds, except in the case of adults who were already following teens. Predators suddenly had a lot harder time finding targets.
Actually, not so much.
But two moms affiliated with the family-advocacy organization ParentsTogether Action discovered a workaround, which they shared with me: When a teen account comments on a public post or video reel, and an adult account that hasn’t already been flagged for suspicious behavior sees it, the adult can chat up the teen in the comments and even send that teen a follow request. If the teen accepts, the two can engage in private direct messaging.
Those direct messages can—as these tests also proved—include nude picture exchanges, and then the sextortion operations can begin.
Zuckerberg’s claims, through his Instagram team, regarding these exchanges:
When the test accounts shared nude images with one another, they initially appeared blurred in the teen account, but the teen account user could opt to view the photos. Instagram says its nudity protection feature—on by default for teen accounts and including warnings about the dangers of sharing such images—has encouraged teens to think twice. In June, more than 40% of blurred images received in direct messages remained blurred, the company says.
And 60% did not remain blurred, apparently. If Zuckerberg’s Instagram programmers are that capable of identifying the teen accounts, why are nude images allowed to be transmitted to them at all?
These “workarounds” are so obvious that I have to question how seriously Zuckerberg is taking these threats to our children.
Who tested this stuff? Apparently, no one qualified or serious.