Photo by Martin Podsiad on Unsplash
Advertisements for child sexual exploitation material ran across Facebook and Instagram, according to research by the Tech Transparency Project (TTP), an NGO whose purpose is holding big tech companies accountable.
The report found that GatherOne, one of Meta’s largest advertising partners in China, placed thousands of ads on Facebook and Instagram promoting “nudify apps,” applications that generate naked or pornographic deepfakes of non-consenting people.
The advertisements were found in Meta’s ad library, a publicly searchable database that records a history of commercials run across the company's social platforms.
“The ads violate Meta’s ban on promoting AI nudify apps, and their content often violates Meta standards on nudity, sexual activity, and sexually suggestive content,” read the TTP report.
One TTP researcher found ads in the library on Meta's platforms promoting a nudify app specifically marketing the undressing of children.
“The ads point to apps that can digitally undress women or put them into pornographic videos,” the report read.
“Multiple reviews on one app flagged what appears to be child sex abuse material.”
TTP alleged Meta may have made an exception to its rules.
“TTP’s findings suggest that Meta is tolerating policy violations by one of its principal partners in the lucrative Chinese market,” the report read.
“In China, Meta’s ad sales work differently than they do in the rest of the world. Nearly all the company’s ads are placed through eleven hand-picked ad agencies, known as 'top-tier' resellers.
“Through the ad reseller system, Meta still has access to Chinese advertising dollars, and Chinese businesses still have access to Meta’s global audience.”
When approached by AdNews, Meta said it was doing everything in its power to prevent harm to children on its platforms.
“Sexual exploitation is horrific, and it has no place on our platforms,” said a spokesperson for Meta.
“The majority of these ads had minimal reach and many were disabled before Wired shared them.
“Many of these ads also predate new AI technology we recently launched to better detect and block violating ads at upload - and we're constantly improving these systems.
“This is a highly adversarial space and bad actors are constantly evolving their tactics to avoid detection, which is why we’re committed to improving our defences and holding them accountable.
“From removing over 36 million pieces of child sexual exploitation content globally last year to taking legal action against nudify app developers, we will continue to relentlessly fight this abuse.”
These comments come just weeks after the Australian eSafety commission released a report finding Meta and other major tech platforms had not implemented meaningful measures to prevent against sexual extortion of children and adults.
Meta pointed to the same suite of measures the eSafety Commission found to be inadequate.
“We tackle this problem by using advanced technology to root out potential predators, proactively identifying violating content and accounts, blocking links to suspicious websites, and sharing information with other companies so they can take action too,” said the Meta spokesperson.
“We have detailed and robust policies against child nudity, abuse and exploitation. This includes sharing or soliciting child exploitation imagery, inappropriate interactions with teens, and the sexualization of minors.
“As noted in our Ad Standards, all ads must comply with our policies against child nudity, abuse and exploitation.
“We have strict rules against adult nudity and sexual activity and adult sexual exploitation, which prohibits sharing or threats to share non-consensual intimate imagery - including when AI-generated.”
Meta’s ad standards policies prohibit the advertisement of nudity, sexual activity, nudify apps or sexually suggestive imagery, policies the ads TTP identified to have been bypassed entirely.
“Our ads review process has a number of layers of analysis and detection, some of which take place after an ad goes live,” the Meta spokesperson told AdNews.
“Our enforcement isn’t perfect, and both machines and people make mistakes - which is why we also give people ways to report any ad they think may break our rules.”
“We developed new technology specifically designed to identify these types of ads – even when the ads themselves don’t include nudity – and use matching technology to help us find and remove copycat ads more quickly.”
Despite these measures, these applications were advertised across Meta’s services, though Meta said they didn’t reach "many" people.
“The ads were not targeted towards Australian users,” said the spokesperson.
“Most ads Wired flagged were old or no longer on our platforms because our systems disabled them.
“They are only visible because we kept a record in our Ads Library, something most other companies don't do.
“That's not a systemic failure, that's our system working to remove horrific content and being transparent about it.
“Also, the ads that did run before being disabled reached very few people. We've since removed the ads from our Ads Library also.”
The eSafety Commission told AdNews the company was being investigated for it’s conduct.
“Technology companies have a legal responsibility under Australia’s Online Safety Act to take proactive steps to prevent their services from being used to facilitate child sexual exploitation and abuse,” a spokesperson from the eSafety Commission said.
“eSafety is aware of these concerning reports and is considering Meta’s compliance with their obligations under the Online Safety Act.”
The Unlawful Material Codes and Standards require online services to implement systems and processes to detect, disrupt and deter child sexual exploitation material, and also requires services to remove unlawful material and take steps to minimise further breaches, action and investigate user reports, and ensure appropriate safety resourcing and training, according to the eSafety spokesperson.
“The eSafety Commissioner has published a range of transparency reports about the extent to which tech companies, including Meta, are preventing, disrupting and deterring child sexual exploitation, including grooming, sexual extortion, livestreamed child sexual abuse,” said the spokesperson.
“In our most recent periodic report, released last week, we found whilst there has been some improvements and innovation, there is much more technology companies can do today to prevent this scourge.”
The commissioner's investigation is understood to be ongoing.
AdNews has approached TTP for comment.
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