Investigation Finds Teens Are Selling Inappropriate Images on Instagram

Teen Girls Caught Selling Illicit Images On Instagram

(ConservativeSense.com) – A British police investigation has found that teenage girls are selling inappropriate images of themselves on Instagram. The six-month operation discovered that girls as young as 15 were using Instagram’s bio and story-writing facilities to advertise sales of photos of themselves on separate sites.

Baroness Beeban Kidron, a member of the UK’s House of Lords and founder of the 5Rights Foundation, announced she has hired attorneys to file a “groundbreaking legal challenge” against Instagram, which she accuses of facilitating and profiting from child abuse material.

The lawyers have written to Meta, the company that owns Instagram and Facebook, requesting an independent examination of its policies and processes. The letter notes that explicit accounts are easily located by users who search for them with the word “sell.” Baroness Kidron subsequently told reporters that what is taking place on Instagram is a crime and not a victimless one. “It’s children selling their bodies,” she said.

In a separate investigation of the platform, undertaken by UK journalists, evidence of artificial intelligence (AI) generated images of child abuse was found. Reporters stated that Instagram allows users to advertise such images and generate enormous profits from their sales.

A report by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) stated that AI content is so realistic that it is impossible to distinguish it from reality, making police efforts to rescue victims far more difficult. The IWF said it has seen images of category A criminal offenses – meaning the most severe – and these often involve children as young as three.

Similarly, the UK’s National Crime Agency added that the availability of AI images “normalizes” child abuse and “materially increases the risk of offenders moving on” to abusing children.

At the first global summit on AI last year, then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak highlighted the issue and called for international action to mitigate the risks posed by the technology.

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