There is a week left until the start of a new year, but Facebook’s scandal ridden year is in full swing. WhatsApp, the highly popular instant messaging platform owned by none other than Facebook, is being used for the purposes of spreading child pornography according to the findings of an online safety group based in Israel. Apparently, third party apps are being used by certain users to discover WhatsApp groups that are involved with these kinds of activities. These groups are shared via links which users can use to access them.
The truly shocking part of this story is the fact that these groups aren’t even well hidden. Indeed, some of the groups had names that were very clearly indicative of what they were about. This is negligence on the part of both WhatsApp as well as its parent company Facebook. The social media giant has come under fire again and again because of the fact that it did not take enough measures to prevent malicious actors from accessing data that was considered by users to be completely private. This level of negligence may have crossed a line, though. Child porn is a serious matter, and the fact that these sick individuals were able to find a home on WhatsApp of all places is very concerning indeed. And now, pornography that was previously considered to only be available to unlisted websites that comprised the deep net is available on the messaging platform you probably use every day.
Read Next: Cyber bullying on the rise as the use of social media increases
The truly shocking part of this story is the fact that these groups aren’t even well hidden. Indeed, some of the groups had names that were very clearly indicative of what they were about. This is negligence on the part of both WhatsApp as well as its parent company Facebook. The social media giant has come under fire again and again because of the fact that it did not take enough measures to prevent malicious actors from accessing data that was considered by users to be completely private. This level of negligence may have crossed a line, though. Child porn is a serious matter, and the fact that these sick individuals were able to find a home on WhatsApp of all places is very concerning indeed. And now, pornography that was previously considered to only be available to unlisted websites that comprised the deep net is available on the messaging platform you probably use every day.
Related: Recent Study Indicated That Social Media Platforms Are Increasingly DistrustedWhatsApp is criminally understaffed, with just 300 employees compared to the total 20,000 that Facebook currently has. Facebook doubled its number of employees this year, but that clearly didn’t extend to WhatsApp. This is probably what has caused things like this to occur, and it’s just one of the many problems that Facebook needs to deal with.
Read Next: Cyber bullying on the rise as the use of social media increases
