// WIRED US/UK — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
Meta Failed to Catch Hundreds of AI Child Abuse Ads. Some Included Images of Real Kids
Editor’s note: This article contains descriptions of imagery depicting child sexual abuse. Reader discretion is strongly advised.
Early last month, Meta deleted around 50 ads posted on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads that directly included child sexual abuse material (CSAM), following reporting by WIRED. At the time, the company said that most of the abusive ads had been published prior to it rolling out new AI tools designed to “better detect and block” harmful ads being uploaded. That AI system, however, doesn’t appear to have been entirely effective.
Instead of spotting a decline in the abusive ads in recent weeks, researchers say they have now discovered hundreds more of the disturbing ads containing graphic sexual scenes involving children—including some that were identical to those Meta recently removed. More than 250 additional ads containing CSAM have run across Meta’s social media platforms since the start of August, according to researchers at the nonprofit Tech Transparency Project who shared its findings with WIRED. Unlike the 53 ads TTP researchers initially discovered, they were able to identify images of real children in the new ads.
These included sexual content depicting a minor belonging to a European royal family, transforming an officially released photograph into a video of a “graphic sex act.” The researchers are not naming the royal to protect the victim and say they contacted officials in the country. WIRED confirmed the source image came from the official website of a royal family.
“What we’re talking about here is not simply AI-generated child sex abuse material,” says Katie Paul, the director of the TTP. The researcher says it appears some images have been taken from the web before being used in the ads. “There’s a lot of harm that can come from this all while Meta is raking in money in the process.”
Overall, the researchers discovered that Meta has published more than 350 of the abusive video ads since the end of last year, with many of them linking to harmful harmful “nudification” apps linked to Chinese developers. In each instance, the researchers immediately reported the ads to US child safety authorities and through Meta’s reporting tools when ads were live and being shown to users at the time of their discovery. The researchers shared detailed findings with WIRED, which independently identified hundreds of other related “nudification” ads containing explicit content of adults on Meta’s platforms.
While the child abuse ads have now been removed for violating Meta’s policies on child exploitation, adult exploitation, and nudity, all of the ads were originally published despite the company’s policies saying it reviews all ads that run on its platforms. In some instances, the TTP researchers say, it took Meta a week to review live ads they had reported for containing CSAM with Meta’s tools. During that time, the ads racked up hundreds more views, according to screenshots seen by WIRED.
When some ads containing child sexual abuse were removed, TTP says, they did not initially include disclosures indicating that they violated Meta’s child sexual abuse policies; those details only appeared to be added after WIRED asked Meta about the discrepancy.
The cache of video ads published across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads, and Meta’s broader advertising network since the end of last year follow similar patterns. Many include an innocuous picture of a preteen or teenage girl—only one contained a boy, according to the researchers—and overlaid text saying it is “not just a photo” and “there are no restriction” [sic] on what can be done with the image. When the seconds-long video ads start playing, the children’s faces are morphed into graphic sexual videos, often showing them performing sex acts. When clicked, the ads directed people to download AI-face swapping or video apps from Apple and Google’s app stores. “This is the AI that men actually use,” many of the ads say.
Paul says the resea