welcome back to the comment section I'm Brett Cooper so if you guys have been here for a while then you probably remember that about a year and a half ago 2 years ago I was doing a lot of dark stories it was like every day we were talking about something that was just absolutely absolutely horrific and so for my own sanity I kind of took a step back from talking about those stories literally every single day because I still wanted to tell good valuable stories but I also didn't want to make myself spiral on a daily basis so I tried to do more of a variety but a lot of these stories were about children and the way that they are constantly targeted seized and abused in our society and this is nothing new and sadly it seems like nothing has changed since the last time I talked about a very specific issue children on Instagram before we dive into this topic though make sure that you like this video subscribe to this channel if you've not already and then ring that notification Bell so that you never miss one of our comment section episodes all right so as of yesterday a new Wall Street Journal article dropped about Instagram's algorithm and the way that it targets child users for seual Content not children accidentally stumbling upon sexual activity targeting through their Al GM this is the report from Wall Street Journal Instagram recommends seual videos to accounts for 13-year-olds test show findings align with undisclosed internal research at meta which has pledged an age appropriate experience for teens company says testing isn't representative of their experience okay yeah testing that people are doing showing that children are being recommended this content by your algorithm oh it just isn't true okay we're going to get into that I'm getting ahead of myself but I just want to take you guys through this report from The Wall Street Journal and connected to a few other very concerning stories in the last couple of years that truly prove that these huge companies do not care about the innocence of children and another thing that I really want to drive home is that what people see online today is shocking what children see online today is shocking this is not the internet of 10 years ago and this is why parents need to be so so careful so Wall Street Journal wrote that the tests that they ran run over seven months ending in June show that the social media service has continued pushing adult-oriented content to minors after parent meta platforms said in January that it was giving teens a more age appropriate experience by restri ing what it calls sensitive content including suggestive material H yeah well they've said that before and nothing has changed but you know they are the well-intentioned big tech companies that obviously we all can trust so then they got into the actual testing here separate testing done by the journal and Laura Edon a computer science professor at Northeastern University used similar methodology involving setting up new accounts with ages listed as 13 the accounts then watched Instagram's curated video stream known as reals Instagram served a mix of videos that from the start included moderate racy content such as women dancing seductively or posing in positions that emphasize their breasts when the accounts skipped past other Clips but watched those racy videos to completion reals recommended Edge your content so here are some examples of what these 13-year-old accounts were watching so the way that they're doing this is that they are making these accounts they are saying oh I'm a 13-year-old here's my little account they immediately go to reals they have not posted anything they have not searched anything they just start scrolling these are the type of videos that they see breasts when he says he's into small Asian white sophomore nurs ing students something about just an on screen special operator Kimberly secured the bedroom I've learned that 40s she's promoting her in that video like it is gross remember 13-year-old accounts minor accounts and this is what is being fed to them and the way that this all transpired according to the journal is that as soon as these accounts were established they started watching reals like I said initial Clips featured traditional comedy cars or stunts as well as footage of people sustaining injuries the test accounts scrolled past such videos they watched Instagram recommended videos that featured imagery such as woman dancing or posing in a manner that could be construed asly suggestive they did not like save or click on any videos after a few short sessions Instagram largely stopped recommending the comedy and stunt videos and fed the test accounts a steady stream of videos in which women pantomimed acts graphically described their Anatomy or caress themselves to music with provocative lyrics and guys all of this happened within the first 3 to 20 minutes of watching these reals 3 to 20 minutes that is insane now the same team also tried this experim on Snapchat and Tik Tok which are also obviously used by people of that same age range and the results were not the same this is a meta issue the other platforms did not serve this kind of explicit content to minor labeled accounts it was only Instagram which is so ironic and disturbing because this is the platform that has run into these problems before the platform that has been accused of this before and allegedly has very strong systems in place to mitigate it and keep it from happening but they are still the primary culprit I mean their filtering system is laughable at this point take these two examples from X so Greg price who I adore he's great he reposted one of his own tweets about roie Wade onto his Instagram and it was removed because of seual activity he posted this on X Instagram just removed my post about roie Wade for violating their terms on seual activity and the only thing he said was roie Wade was decided by seven white men and overturned by a woman and a black man that literally all he said in Instagram said oh this is we got to take it down that literally makes no sense and I have another example to show you that proves that this isn't you know political targeting at Greg price that it is just simply idiotic and incompetent filtering this guy said this was in 2020 Instagram removed this photo of a dog citing it violating their guidelines because of nudity or activity the account appealed and Instagram reviewed the appeal but then said it was still nudity and sexual activity it is literally just a photo of a dog so you're taking down tweets that people are posting about political things you're taking down photos of dogs and yet 13-year-old accounts that have not searched for sexual activity have not clicked on any videos have not saved shared done anything are being served Bots does not make sense I mean come on this is ridiculous are they going to start like flagging rough greens ads because they have activity no it's photos of dogs and they're amazing greens powder and Instagram I'm coming after you if you censor them because I love rough greens rough greens is a supplement that contains all the necessary vitamins minerals probiotics Omega oils digestive enzymes and antioxidants that your dog needs every single day things that he's probably not getting from his conventional dry kibble and what I love about rough greens is you don't have to go out and buy a fancy expensive new dog food or even switch to a raw or fresh diet if that's not in the budget right now you can just sprinkle rough GRE Greens on their existing food every day and you'll be taking a major step for your dog's health dog owners everywhere are raving about rough greens because it supports healthy joints it improves bad breath Boost energy levels and so much more obviously we know that we are what we eat that goes for your dogs as well Dr Dennis black the founder of rough greens is so confident that his products will improve your dog's health that he is offering my viewers and listeners a free jump start try bag so that your dog can try it too that free jump start try bag can be at your door in just a few business days go to Ru greens.com Breet or you can call 87766 my dog again that is ruff greens.com sprad or call 87766 my dog today if that's easier but back to the point this is absurd great job meta your systems are obviously functioning at a high high level for sure now obviously a meta spokesperson came out and said you know this report is ridiculous we have lots of measures in place like those to keep this from happening and per an announcement made in January of this past year meta said that teens under the age of 16 are not supposed to be served any seal content first of all that is also still too young it should not be 16 years old they are still children so stop being weird meta but obviously based on this report and these findings that isn't true and it hasn't been true because meta and Instagram's own employees can internally point to this problem a long-standing problem back in 2021 they ran similar tests as the Wall Street Journal did and they had similar results and then to make things even more horrifying they wrote that a separate 2022 internal analysis reviewed by the Journal found that meta has long known that Instagram shows more porography Gore and hate speech to Young users and adults so it's not just the kids are stumbling upon on this or that they're seeing the same things that adults see they are seeing more your children on social media are seeing more more graphic things than you are let that sink in they went on and they said teens on Instagram reported exposure to bullying violence and unwanted nudity at rates exceeding older users in the company run surveys and the company statistics confirmed that the platform was disproportionately likely to Surf children content that violated platform rules like you just you have to wonder like is this intentional are they intentionally trying to corrupt the minds of young people or is this just oversight or they genuinely don't care that this is happening like if this has been going on since 2020 21 2022 if they said that they put all of these systems in place they're not working there has to be a reason why somebody commented and said are we not supposed to notice how Tech Giants and leftists are trying to normalize it is absolutely disturbing how much these people try to minors I mean it is happening everywhere just look at the pop psychologist and the academic trying to Rebrand p as minor attracted persons that deserve our empathy and respect because they're all they're really going through through such a hard time think about California loosening its laws on who has to become a registered offender after they have with a minor or Hub just outright Banning their service in certain States when they are required to use age verification technology they would rather not do business in a state than protect children from seeing please guys we see what you are doing either it is an intentional Corruption of young people or you actually do not care and I don't know which one is worse but even if they did care and they're trying nothing is working and I mean a solution has been offered multiple times while she Journal wrote that the most effective way to prevent inappropriate content from being served to underage users would be to build a completely separate recommendation system for teens the document suggested meta has not pursued that proposal this just goes to show that meta along with plenty of other companies and institutions in our culture do not care about the innocence and the protection of children and again none of this is new last October New Mexico's attorney general sued meta for giving Predators access to underage users New York Post wrote about this Facebook Instagram expose underage users to predators and New York AG claims and lawyers in New Mexico went through a similar process of creating fake accounts specifically for young girls and they were able to see the amount of unsolicited picks seual propositions and the content that was sent to her by other users and simultaneously fed to the account through the meta algorithm and the AG said Mr Zuckerberg and other meta executives are aware of the serious harm their products can pose to Young users I mean meta already in a different lawsuit about the detrimental impacts on children's mental health due to their social media platform I mean they know this they are very very well aware anyway he went on and said and yet they have failed to make sufficient changes to their platforms that would prevent the exploitation of children despite repeated assurances to Congress and the public that they can be trusted to police themselves it is clear that meta Executives continue to prioritize engagement and add Revenue over the safety of the most vulnerable members of our society and I mean guys like I said in the introduction this isn't even the first time that we have covered this topic specifically in regards to Instagram exactly a year ago back in June we talked about a different bombshell report also from The Wall Street Journal they're doing amazing amazing work about how Instagram's algorithm promotes a massive Network your report talked about how the app allowed very explicit hashtags including things with and child and all of that to be searched and used on the platform as dog whistles to connect these users who were selling child pornography and more this was last year that was last June June of 2023 and we were talking about this again 365 days later and those internal reports were done 2 and three years ago I mean what has changed anything no obviously the serious changes they've made to protect teenag teers have done nothing they should be ashamed this should be their top priority and this is why it is completely ridiculous and laughable and irresponsible to mock parents who monitor their children's social media who limit their usage or ban it outright until a certain age these parents are doing what big Tech in our culture cannot be trusted to do protecting their children I hope you guys enjoyed that episode of the comment section and maybe even learn something new make sure that you like this video subscribe to this channel if you have not already and if you want some hopefully more uplifting content you can follow me on Instagram Snapchat and Tik Tok see you guys next time