European Union Threatens Mark Zuckerberg With Severe Punishment If Instagram Does Not Safeguard Children’s Privacy
Mark Zuckerberg, the Founder and CEO of Meta, has been cautioned by the European Union (EU) to promptly address the issue of safeguarding children on Instagram, or else face severe penalties.
The warning comes after reports that Instagram’s recommendation algorithms are promoting networks of pedophiles who order and sell child sexual abuse content on the popular photo-sharing platform.
The Wall Street Journal worked with researchers from Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst to encrypt and expose such a network of Instagram accounts.
EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said in a tweet that the company’s “voluntary child protection law does not seem to be working”.
“Mark Zuckerberg must now explain and take immediate action. I will be speaking with him at Meta’s headquarters in Menlo Park on June 23,” he said in a tweet.
After August 25, under the Digital Services Act (DSA), “Meta will have to submit measures to us or face severe sanctions,” he added.
The penalty for failing to comply with the DSA in curbing the spread of child sexual exploitation material (CSAM) can be up to 6% of a social media company’s annual global turnover.
According to the WSJ report, Instagram “helps connect and promote a vast network of accounts openly dedicated to ordering and purchasing content from minors.”
The researchers found “128 accounts offering to sell child sexual abuse material on Twitter, less than a third of what they found on Instagram.”
Meta told the Journal that it had not acted on those reports and that “it was reviewing its internal processes.”
