In response to the joint international campaign to #WakeUpInstagram— by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (United States), Collective Shout (Australia), and Defend Dignity (Canada)—a Facebook spokesperson told Fox News on November 20th that:
“Any content that endangers or exploits children is unthinkable and has no place on Instagram. We have policies that prohibit this type of content, and we use proactive technology to find and remove content that poses a risk to children. We’re constantly working on more ways to help prevent this behavior on our platform.”
Response from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation:
Facebook’s response to the #WakeUpInstagram campaign noting its current policies and practices is hollow boilerplate language. The evidence clearly shows that the status quo is not working!
Such a callous reply is a slap in the face to the children being exploited on Instagram right now. It’s time for Facebook’s Instagram to dispense with the corporate doublespeak and instead publicly commit to real-world improvements, including but not limited to, changing settings so strangers cannot direct message minors, and fixing its algorithm to proactively remove sexual, pedophile-like, comments on minor’s photos.
