WhatsApp’s child porn problem: Google and Facebook’s ad networks funded apps that led users to groups on the private messenger that are dedicated to swapping illegal images

In case you thought that the worst thing about social media is that it allows facists and religious fundamentals to spread hatred, think again. In the last week of December two charities in Israel dedicated to online safety, Netivei Reshet and Screensaverz, published research showing that WhatsApp is now the favoured method to circulate child porn.

“WhatsApp is being used to distribute child porn via third party apps that have received funding from Google and Facebook’s advertising networks. That’s the finding of an investigation into the growing problem of illegal images of children on the instant messaging service. Paedophiles have been abusing the protection offered by the app’s data encryption to spread vile images of abuse on private groups. These groups can be discovered through specially created third-party software, which offenders use to seek them out, that can be downloaded from app stores. Now it has been discovered that these third-party apps were receiving funding via Google and Facebook’s advertising networks….

The true scale of the problem emerged after Israeli researchers warned Facebook – the owner of WhatsApp – in September how easy it was to find and join group chats dedicated to the spread of child pornography.

In some cases, up to 256 people were sharing sexual images and videos of children, according to reports in the Financial Times (FT).

The matter escalated in recent weeks when two charities in Israel dedicated to online safety, Netivei Reshet and Screensaverz, made their findings public. Over the course of several months they discovered identifiers – that were not encrypted and able to be viewed publicly – advertising the disturbing contents of said groups.

Speaking to the FT on December 20, Netivei Reshet’s Yona Pressburger said: ‘It is a disaster: this sort of material was once mostly found on the darknet, but now it’s on WhatsApp.’”