Both Google and Facebook have recently been under fire for not taking enough measures to prevent the spread of child pornography. Google’s Play Store was found to allow apps such as Tumblr which allowed child porn to slip through the cracks, and Facebook was guilty of letting its instant messaging platform WhatsApp be used for the spread of child porn. A recent investigation by TechCrunch has revealed that there are actual apps that you can download that would show you child pornography, and what’s worse is that Google and Facebook actually lets these apps run ads that they could potentially even profit from.
Basically what is happening is that these apps are running SDKs that allows them to become a part of Google and Facebook’s ad network. The fact that this is able to happen shows an enormous lapse on the part of both Google and Facebook. The secret links that lead to WhatsApp groups where child pornography is propagated are also in a lot of ways supported by ad revenue. The existence of these apps and WhatsApp groups in the first place is an abomination, but the fact that the owners of these groups are actually earning money because the people at Google and Facebook aren’t doing enough to prevent this pornography from spreading is utterly unacceptable.
Basically what is happening is that these apps are running SDKs that allows them to become a part of Google and Facebook’s ad network. The fact that this is able to happen shows an enormous lapse on the part of both Google and Facebook. The secret links that lead to WhatsApp groups where child pornography is propagated are also in a lot of ways supported by ad revenue. The existence of these apps and WhatsApp groups in the first place is an abomination, but the fact that the owners of these groups are actually earning money because the people at Google and Facebook aren’t doing enough to prevent this pornography from spreading is utterly unacceptable.
Related: Recent Study Indicated That Social Media Platforms Are Increasingly DistrustedIt is pretty clear that this needs to be looked into, and that the creators of these apps and groups need to be prevented from using SDK toolkits to profit from ad revenue. The two biggest internet companies in the world definitely need to be a lot more proactive about protecting children, especially considering the fact that they profit from a space that is notoriously unregulated as of right now, and they possess significant power within this space.
