Instagram ‘recommended sordid sex videos to child’

PICTURE sharing website Instagram has recommended shocking sexual and violent footage of children to users, an undercover investigation has reported.

Some provocative videos were even recommended as viewing to a journalist purporting to be a 13-year-old.

The app, popular among teenagers and owned by Facebook, recently launched a service called IGTV to compete with YouTube. In June, it reached the milestone of having one billion active users.

But the investigation by website Business Insider revealed the service was suggesting users should watch clips which featured what appeared to be child exploitation and genital mutilation. The site set up profiles that came into contact with the IGTV app when it was launched this summer and spent three weeks monitoring its content.

Videos marked as suggested viewing included footage of young girls and an explicit video of a mutilated male body part. The clips were reported to police in Britain by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).

Although some of the videos were eventually removed, BI said it reported the clips through the app and they took five days to be taken down. The videos were suggested through channels including a section which flags popular videos and a ‘for you’ tab, which recommends videos based on a user’s presumed taste. BI set up a child’s account with an age of 13 using an anonymous login. Days later, a video popped up called ‘Hot Girl Follow Me’ – despite the user having no history of looking at such videos.

The footage showed a girl who appeared to be aged around 11 or 12 who appeared to be about to strip off her top.

Some users condemned the videos, BI said, with one user writing: ‘BRO SHE’S LIKE F ****** 10 WHY THE F*** IS THIS IN MY INSTAGRAM RECOMMENDED?’.

The revelations will raise concerns about how the site could be used by predators to groom children.

Some accounts flagged by the news outlet are still active.

A spokesman for Instagram said: ‘We care deeply about keeping all of Instagram, including IGTV, a safe place for young people to get closer to the people and interests they care about. We have community guidelines in place to protect everyone using Instagram and have zero tolerance for anyone sharing explicit images or images of child abuse.

‘All the content reported to us by Business Insider has been removed from IGTV. We take measures to proactively monitor potential violations of our Community Guidelines and just like on the rest of Instagram, we encourage our community to report content that concerns them.

‘We have a trained team of reviewers who work 24/7 to remove anything which violates our terms,’ a spokesman added.