(Bloomberg) -- Meta Platforms Inc. has run more than 300 advertisements on Instagram and Facebook containing suspected child sexual abuse material this year, according to a report Tuesday by the nonprofit Tech Transparency Project.
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The ads collectively reached more than 29,000 people and typically used artificial intelligence to depict young children being molested, TTP said. Many served to promote deepfake "nudify" apps, which were the subject of an earlier report by the group, which tracked their source to app developers and a Meta advertising partner in China. TTP is a research arm of the Washington, DC-based nonpartisan corporate and government watchdog Campaign for Accountability.
The failure to prevent such material appearing on Meta's services, used by billions globally, comes as the company faces unprecedented scrutiny for social media's alleged harms to children. The ads violate Meta's own policies prohibiting child exploitation, abuse and nudity, along with US federal laws. TTP said it reported the ads to the Congressionally mandated National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
"Content involving child sexual abuse is among the most serious that can be found online," said Katie Paul, TTP's director. "But this content isn't hiding in dark corners of the internet. It's being used in paid ads on Meta platforms."
In one instance, TTP said it found ads that used a photo a young girl had posted to her Instagram account in which she was wearing a sports uniform. The ad animated her image into a video in which she is depicted performing a sex act, TTP said. Another ad showed a preteen girl removing her shirt, with accompanying text promising "dark" content.
"We don't tolerate nudify apps or any kind of child exploitation, whether real or AI-generated," Meta spokesman Andy Stone told Bloomberg News. Many of the ads flagged had already been removed, he said. Those behind such activity frequently shift tactics to circumvent Meta's systems, and the company continues to strengthen its detection and enforcement, he added.
TTP in July reported Meta had shown thousands of sexually suggestive ads for nudification apps, which are designed to digitally remove clothing or place photos of real people into graphic images of videos. The new findings pertain to ads that are more graphic, TTP says.