*Content warning: themes and images are distressing

A woman slumps in a bathtub full of water, arms tied behind her back, her thighs and ankles bound. Another is restrained: several layers of rope snake around her shoulders and chest and criss-cross around her neck. White liquid (suggestive of semen) is splashed between her breasts and oozing from her mouth. Yet another reclines on a bed, shirt unbuttoned to expose her cleavage. A man’s hand grips her rope-bound neck. There are others. Some wear fetishised costumes, playing the role of nurse, maid, school girl or flight crew. Others are naked. They are accessorised with duct tape and blindfolds. Some look comatosed, others distressed and in pain. Still others look lifeless. They all have Asian features. One woman is bound and propped on a toilet, as though to remind her of what she’s viewed as and how little she’s valued.

There are hundreds of these images. Tagged #Asianbondage, they carry the themes of submission and sexual servitude of Asian women.

We’ve been exposing Pornhub for hosting racialised violence against women and girls and weren’t surprised to find this content on a porn website. The sex industry is notorious for stereotyping and fetishising women of Asian descent. 

But this isn’t Pornhub. It’s Instagram. 

Why is mainstream social media giant Instagram - a platform pitched to a 13+ audience - playing host to racialised fetish and misogyny? 

Despite our call to Instagram to address its child predator problem and to improve safety measures on the platform, even underage girls are victimised. One image of a young girl with Asian features was captioned ‘thicc Asian’, while another attracted comments such as ‘Love Asian food’ and ‘Taste the sweet and sour’. Bondage and torture narratives are also attached to images of young girls. The image below shows an 11-year old girl and a friend in a staged ‘Christmas light challenge’. In the comments, predators reflected on the girls’ bound state and described sex abuse fantasies involving rope and duct tape. 

Continuing the broader theme of women and girl hatred is an account (recently pointed out to us by a supporter) called girlsgettinghurt. True to its name, the page - with 648k followers - is dedicated to sharing videos of girls injuring themselves. The page appears to trade off of the popular “fails” genre of video shorts, but there’s something sinister about an account dedicated to ‘girls getting hurt’ as entertainment: it’s an open invite to the audience to participate in and celebrate the real-life pain of women and girls. 

In one clip, a girl wearing a high school cheer uniform appears to be heavily intoxicated. The camera follows her as she stumbles into a glass door and collapses on the floor. The video drew a host of predatory, rape-themed comments, such as 'Perfect for that a**f***ing', and 'She’s gonna be a lot of fun for somebody'. 

Several videos carry a “Sensitive Content” warning, stating “This video may contain graphic or violent content.” One of these shows a group of young people standing on a river bank. A young woman jumps from the bank while holding onto a rope swing. The camera pans as she plummets face-first into the shallow water below. Did she even survive? Is she paralysed? How is this entertaining? The tone of comments on this post and others - which include victim-blaming ('she deserved it', 'karma'), name-calling ('slut', 'trashy bitch') and misogyny ('where are all the serial killers when you need them?') - is distressing. Where is the compassion? The outrage? Is this a hate group? Does Instagram endorse these attitudes? Why is it broadcasting them?

Recently, Campaigns Manager Caitlin Roper was quoted in the media after the discovery of a Facebook Melbourne-based “boys only” group which was posting so-called revenge porn and rape jokes. Facebook purportedly hosts hundreds of other similar groups. Do women and girls matter at all to the social media giant?

When Facebook-owned Instagram accommodates racist, sexualised bondage and torture images of women and girls, and offers up real-life pain and injury of women and girls as entertainment, we must ask: what sort of culture is it hoping to foster, on its own platform and in society at large? Should Instagram users get a free pass to promote misogyny, racialised violence or the fetishisation of little girls? Is there more Facebook could do to combat the degrading and exploitative treatment of women and girls on its platforms? What repurcussions will there be if they don't?

 Does Instagram really want to serve as a prelude to Pornhub?

Take action

Help shut down girlsgettinghurt and #asianbondage on Instagram:

• Use Instagram's in-app reporting tool to report the girlsgettinghurt page (we reported it for hate speech).
• Use Instagram's in-app reporting tool to report the #asianbondage hashtag for exploitation. See below for instructions.

1. Tap the search icon and enter 'asianbondage' into the search bar

2. Tap the ▪▪▪ icon in the top right corner

3. Tap 'Give feedback on this hashtag'

4. Select 'Nudity or sexual activity'

5. Select 'Sexual exploitation or solicitation', then tap 'Give feedback'

Let us know if you hear back from Instagram.

See also:

Facebook shuts down anti-women Melb Guys Pal group but others take its place

Racist and antisemitic: Pornhub is a hate group

Instagram hosts sharing of child sex abuse fantasies

"Get off in Thailand" Air Asia advertises sex tourism on Brisbane City Council buses

"Holocaust #2 but instead of jews we target women"

How Instagram broadcasts live sex acts to kids

*Content warning: this article describes real events that may be distressing for readers

As a researcher and campaigner advocating for an end to the objectification of women and sexualisation of girls, I follow dozens of underage girls on Instagram. They are aspiring models, gymnasts and dancers. They pose in swimwear and leotards. I watch how they use Instagram to promote a new brand-name bikini, or to exhibit their latest ventures in flexibility: an attempt at oversplits or a contorted backbend. Some of the girls have hundreds of thousands of followers. We - their followers - didn't have to look for them: Instagram’s search , ‘Explore’ and ‘Suggested for you’ features served them to us in an algorithm-procured gallery of pre-pubescents and young teens that caters to the predator’s eye.

An Instagram feed filled with prepubescent girls in bikinis

The setting is a picture of after-school normality: an average kitchen in a home in Australian suburbia. Two girls in school uniform do what kids up and down the eastern seaboard are doing: arriving home after a long day of school, they dump their school bags and head to the kitchen to make a snack. 

One of the girls - 14 according to information on her Instagram account - casually picks up her phone. Still in her uniform (easily providing information about what school she attends and where) she opens Instagram and with a tap of an icon starts a live post: a livestream video that her followers can watch. Instagram even promotes the live broadcast. I, one of her 12,000 algorithm-procured followers - and one of hordes of strangers whose identities, whereabouts and motives for watching a 14 year old girl are unknown - get  an Instagram notification that she’s started a ‘live’. I click her avatar to start the livestream, and instantly I’m transported into the family kitchen. The girl and her friend occupy the foreground, creating a soundtrack with teenage chatter. In the background is a fridge plastered with photos, bills and reminders – artefacts of average family life. 

One of the 50+ viewers makes a request to ‘be in’ the ‘live’. This request is one of Instagram’s built-in live-post features that allows viewers to interact with the host via a simultaneous, live video broadcast which the other viewers can see. The girl accepts the request, smiling curiously at the screen as she scans viewers’ incoming comments. As she does, my screen splits horizontally, making way for the viewer’s live video broadcast. 

The viewer is a man. He is naked. And he is masturbating.

The girl bursts into nervous laughter and steps out of view, leaving viewers to watch the fridge and the man. He repositions his phone to show his genitals from a different angle before his school girl host returns, hand over mouth, and ends his live video. With the screen to herself again, she continues her live post giggling, while, from off-camera, her friend makes a comment to the effect that they shouldn’t be laughing: it’s not funny.  But they don’t appear all that shocked. It’s almost as if this isn’t the first time a stranger has made a sexual approach this way, as though this after-school event is also normal. Parents aren’t told, no alarm is raised. They continue with their live post - even accepting another viewer’s request to be in the live post.

An underage girl has just – with no moderation or intervention from the global multi-billion dollar Facebook-owned platform - broadcast a live video of a naked man masturbating. She and her friend - and fifty other people - just witnessed a serious criminal act, prohibited by Australia’s Commonwealth, state and territory child exploitation material laws.  

Who else witnessed the live sex act? Other school friends? Perhaps younger children – cousins or neighbours who tuned in to catch up on some big-girl news? How widely did Instagram disseminate this piece of child exploitation material that it failed to moderate and helped produce? How many times is this scene being played out in Australia each day? How many kitchens and bathrooms and bedrooms of Australian homes are being infiltrated by predators who want to abuse underage girls in this way? How many men are using Instagram to broadcast live sex acts to children? Has this type of criminal behaviour become ‘normal’ for girls who have been desensitised to predatory advances because sexual objectification, harassment and predation are so entrenched in their everyday, lived experiences? Why - in flagrant disregard of human rights, law, child safety principles and common sense - is Instagram connecting predators to minors?

Four days later our concerns that this event was not a one-off, that predators are targeting underage girls for the purpose of broadcasting live sex acts to them and that this is 'normal' for some girls were confirmed when we found the public Instagram account of a 9 year old girl based in Europe. She had saved a live post to her profile, allowing anyone to watch it for the 24-hour period that followed. We watched the video and saw that it was interupted several times as the young girl accepted requests from different viewers to be in the broadcast. We counted three different viewers who filmed themselves masturbating. We then followed the girl. Within an hour we received a notification from Instagram that she had started a live post. We began viewing the video immediately and within seconds she accepted a viewer's request to be in the broadcast. It was another naked, masturbating man.

In the week since I first saw men masturbating via live videofeed at those girls, I have not been able to erase the images from my mind. These are among the most disturbing things I’ve come across since my colleagues and I began investigating hundreds of predatory approaches to underage girls through their Instagram pages. Within a short time of making a report to Instagram about the 9 year old girl her account was removed. But how many backup accounts does she have? How long until she creates a new account? How long until Instagram reconnects her old followers to her? How long before they're again using Instagram as a webcam to broadcast live sex acts to her and other children? How many other victims are there? And what does the future hold for these girls who have been groomed by Instagram's predators to believe that men exposing and rubbing their genitals at them is normal? Will they be safe from unwanted sexual advances from their bosses and colleagues? From strangers? Will the #MeToo movement mean anything for them? Will others enable men to harass or commit other heinous, sexual crimes against them, the way Instagram did in their childhood?

Our investigation began last July and demonstrated how Instagram serves as a pedophile directory and forum. We reported web-based pedophile forums containing direct links to underages girls’ Instagram accounts, in which pedophiles described violent sex abuse fantasies involving Instagram’s child models, gymnasts and dancers - girls as young as one. We reported multiple examples of child exploitation material. 

In November 2019, Collective Shout, in coalition with the National Centre on Sexual Exploitation in the US and Defend Dignity in Canada, launched #WakeUpInstagram - an international campaign to hold Instagram and Facebook executives accountable for the exploitation and predation of underage girls on their platform to try to leverage our combined weight to force the platforms to act. 

We then wrote to Instagram’s Head of Global Policy with some of our key discoveries, including countless sexualised and predatory comments made by men to underage girls, and to ask Instagram to address its widespread child predator problem. In the letter we made several recommendations and asked Instagram to stop adults from contacting minors during live posts. Having viewed several live posts hosted by girls as young as 11, we knew that men were using ‘lives’ to harass and solicit sexualised content from minors. 

Three months later – while Instagram’s investigations continued - we witnessed yet another example of how Instagram caters to predators and even facilitates criminal behaviour, and how girls’ safety and well-being are sidelined. Instead of safeguarding children, Instagram is bringing child predators - naked and masturbating in real-time - into their homes. 

Instagram’s catchphrase rings of utopian ideals of boundless connectivity: “Bringing you closer to the people and things you love”. When juxtaposed against our discoveries which show that the ‘people’ are often predators, and the ‘things’ they love are underage girls, the slogan rings sinister. Nowhere in society are we fostering connections between child predators and children. In fact we are vigilant in our efforts to prevent such connections. Why are the rules different for social media companies? Shouldn’t Instagram not only stop connecting predators to children but work fastidiously to prevent these connections? 

Instagram does prevent certain adult-child connections: those between parents and their children. According to its “Tips for Parents” Instagram can’t - due to privacy laws - give a parent access to their 13+ year old child’s account. But an Instagram-procured predator who wants to masturbate at a child has the freedom to do so. 

In a timely report, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children highlighted some of the dangers of social media that we - through the #WakeUpInstagram campaign - are calling on Instagram's corporate leaders to address:

'Offenders, traffickers and criminal groups use Internet tools, such as social media, to identify child victims more easily and establish relationships, subsequently intimidating them into exploitative situations.'

The report further pointed out that offenders are empowered by impunity:

'Ultimately, the essential feature of most offenders is their knowledge or belief that their actions will go unpunished'. 

Our investigations have shown that predators are fed a steady stream of victims via Instagram’s algorithms and that predators are free to roam and prey at will, not just with impunity but with the endorsement of moderators who tell us their behaviour ‘doesn’t go against community guidelines’. 

Australia is at the forefront of global efforts to improve online safety. The Office of the eSafety Commissioner’s user-centred initiative, Safety by Design, was the outcome of consultation with industry, service providers, parents and young people and resulted in a set of principles that prioritises user rights and safety. Safety by Design highlights the imperative role of service providers like Instagram in the broader context of shared responsibility for online safety. It spells out eight initiatives designed to 'ensure that known and anticipated harms have been evaluated in the design and provision of an online service'. 

In the same week we witnessed how Instagram is used by sex predators to broadcast live sex acts to children, its parent company Facebook committed to a set of new, voluntary standards developed by the Five Country Ministerial (represented by government Ministers of Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand) to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Can Instagram abide by these principles and standards without a drastic overhaul to its ethos and operations? While it is underpinned by ideals like boundless connectivity which connects child predators to children? While it stands by community guidelines that accommodate the sexual harassment of little girls? While it indiscriminately gives its users tools - like 'Explore' and live posts - which predators can use to find child victims and commit sexual crimes against them? 

As Campaigns Manager Caitlin Roper warned:

'We cannot overlook the significance of a wider culture that sexualises children and treats them as appropriate objects of men’s sexual desire.'

Instagram - through its predator-friendly policies and practises - has fostered a community that fetishises underage girls and helped fuel a culture that normalises their sexualisation and harassment. Now - as well as upholding the principles it has committed to, Instagram must work to eradicate its child predator community, and to foster a culture in which the sexualisation, harassment, exploitation and abuse of children is unthinkable. We owe it to girls and women - this and future generations - to make sure they do.

Note:

• If you are concerned about suspected online child exploitation material, make a report to the eSafety Office.
• If you are concerned about an adult behaving inappropriately online toward a child, make a report to the Australian Federal Police.
• Make an anonymous report to Crime Stoppers or phone their toll free number 1800 333 000.

See also:

Insta must act on predators: Collective Shout letter to platform heads

eSafety commissioner backs Collective Shout's call for Instagram overhaul

I was so concerned about porn-themed portrayals of young girls on Instagram I reported to police

Melinda Tankard Reist on ABC Radio National discussing the #WakeUpInstagram campaign

If Instagram can restrict diet products they can stop child sexual exploitation

‘Sexy girl’: How Instagram allows the offering of young girls as fetishised flesh

Tech companies turn a blind eye to child sexual abuse material

We've been running an experiment on Instagram, here's just some of what we've found. More to come.

WATCH: Social media dangers exposed

Each week we find new evidence that underage girls are at risk from predators on Instagram. We've rounded up some of the worst, recent examples of predatory comments we've come across and shared these below. Some of the comments depict male fantasies for carrying out violent sex abuse acts on little girls.

There should be no room anywhere for these comments, and that's why we are continuing to call on Instagram heads to stop the fetishisation and harassment of little girls that is happening on their platform. Join our campaign and help #WakeUpInstagram to child exploitation. Learn how here.

[CONTENT WARNING]

Join the Twitter conversation by tagging @collectiveshout and using #WakeUpInstagram and #InstaPimpsGirls.

See also:

Insta must act on predators: Collective Shout letter to platform heads

eSafety commissioner backs Collective Shout's call for Instagram overhaul

I was so concerned about porn-themed portrayals of young girls on Instagram I reported to police

Melinda Tankard Reist on ABC Radio National discussing the #WakeUpInstagram campaign

If Instagram can restrict diet products they can stop child sexual exploitation

‘Sexy girl’: How Instagram allows the offering of young girls as fetishised flesh

Tech companies turn a blind eye to child sexual abuse material

(Addressed to Instagram Global Head of Policy)

December 4, 2019

Widespread predation of underage girls on Instagram 

We have identified and collected hundreds of comments posted by men on the Instagram pages of underage girls between August and the time of writing. These include grooming-style comments, sexually harassing comments, requests for sexualised content (including nudes), requests for direct messages and for images to be sent via DM. Large numbers of comments are porn-themed. Men describe in explicit detail sexual abuse fantasies involving the underage girls whose identities and locations are often exposed, placing them at risk of further sexual exploitation. (We have compiled some of the most graphic comments here.) 

Inadequate tools for keeping children safe

These predatory comments exist in plain view, unmoderated and unremoved. In some cases they have remained for more than a year - including on posts of girls as young as 4-years- old. Our reports to Instagram are often dismissed as not violating its ‘community guidelines’. Recent examples of dimissed comments include: (on a 13-year-old girl’s post) ‘Omg i sooooo wanna (emoji denoting) lick your (emoji denoting) pussy n (emoji dentoing) ass’; (on a child advertising underwear) ‘Ok im going out of line you put it on i take it off’; ( on a 9- year-old girl’s post) ‘please open your legs’ + emojis including kiss-lips; (various comments on underage girls’ posts) eggplant/peach/cucumber/squirt emojis denoting sexual acts. If these comments are not deemed in violation of whatever standards you use to determine whether content you host is in breach or not, perhaps those standards need to be revised? 

There is also a serious shortcoming in Instagram’s reporting system. While comments can be reported as ‘harassment/bullying’ or as ‘violence/threat of violence’, there is no option which properly conveys the serious predatory and grooming nature of these comments. Instagram’s reporting system should include “sexualised/predatory/grooming comment directed at a minor” as its own category. 

Instagram also needs to take action to prohibit adults from using ‘live’ posts to contact minors. We have viewed a 13-year-old girl’s live posts during which she was bombarded with sexual comments including a request for sex, questions about her underwear, a man telling her he wanted her to give him an erection, another saying he would pay to meet her and others pressuring her to remove her shoes and show her feet. 

We note your statement about having “proactive technology” to keep the platform free from content that is harmful to children. Whatever methods Instagram has employed to date are insufficient for dealing with the rampant predation of children that we have documented. (Our response to Facebook’s official statement here.)

Instagram connects predators to children

Instagram is catering to the fantasy and fetishises of child predators. Through its ‘explore’ feature it directly connects predators with more underage girls. This appears to go directly against your own policies prohibiting content which endangers or exploits children . Regardless of the intended purposes of this feature, the reality is that it results in pointing predators directly to the girls they are preying on (virtually or in real life). Instagram should stop its ‘explore’ feature from promoting minors’ pages and connecting predators with children.

Parasite accounts

We have documented several Instagram pages devoted to republishing images of girls and young women in bikinis or in various modeling, gymnastics or dance poses. Posts on these pages frequently tag the child’s account with captions instructing others to follow the child. Some pages mix images of very young girls with porn-themed and pin-up style images of older teens and young women. These accounts serve as magnets for predators pointing them directly to more children. Instagram has responded to our reports of these accounts that they do not go against ‘community standards’. Instagram should properly investigate these parasite pages. Your company should also prohibit the republishing of images of children on pages that also feature pornified images of adults. 

Instagram serves as supplier for pedophile forums

We have documented the names of hundreds of underage models, gymnasts and dancers on pedophile forums. We’ve reviewed a selection of the profile pages and found that every one contains direct links to the child’s Instagram account/s. We’ve also reviewed several forum pages and have evidence that Instagram is the primary source of images shared to the forums where men write explicitly about sex-abuse acts they’d like to carry out on individual girls. We have evidence of an individual commenting on an underage girl’s Instagram post to direct others to the forums. 

Instagram accounts used to promote sale of images/videos of children

Some underage girls’ accounts are used to advertise monetised website subscriptions where men purchase exclusive photos and videos of children. Other accounts promote links to personal web pages where fans can purchase posters, calendars and photo/video packages. Underage girls also use Instagram to promote accounts on other social media platforms where sexualised content is under even less scrutiny, placing minors in further danger of being targeted by predators.  We believe that Instagram must cease acting as an advertising service for individuals selling images/videos of minors.

Conclusion

The evidence we have gathered demonstrates the sexual exploitation of underage girls on Instagram. Your company is allowing predators almost unfettered access to them.  Content hosted on your platform violates their right to grow up free from activity that harms them (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 36). Because of how common predatory behaviour has now become on Instagram, girls learn to think of it as normal which sets them up for even more harm.

We urge Instagram to prioritise this issue and act in a way that places the wellbeing of vulnerable young people above the interests of predators and reflects accepted standards of corporate social responsibility and ethical behaviour.

Recommendations

• Revise ‘Community Standards’ so that all sexualised, predatory and grooming-style comments (text, slang, short-hand, hashtags, emojis and graphics) qualify as violations.
• Add ‘sexualised/predatory/grooming comment directed at a minor’ as a reporting category. 
• Prohibit adults from using ‘live’ posts to contact minors.
• Update Instagram’s system used to detect and remove sexualised, predatory comments.
• Recognising that Instagram serves as a supply source of images of children for web-based pedophile forums, update all relevant policies, guidelines and help documents (including ‘A Parent’s Guide to Instagram’) so that users are properly informed of the risks of sharing images of children to the platform.
• Stop the ‘explore’ feature from promoting minors’ pages and connecting predators with children.
• Investigate parasite pages that are exclusively devoted to republishing photos of minors, deleting pages where children are sexualised, harassed, groomed or where any type of predatory comments/behaviour is displayed.  
• Prohibit the republishing of images of minors on Instagram pages that also feature porn-style images of adults. 

See also:

No Facebook, you're not doing enough to protect children.

Why is Instagram letting men share sexual fantasies about 7 year old girls?

Predators Paradise: girls are sexually exploited on Instagram

I was so concerned about porn-themed portrayals of young girls on Instagram I reported to police

eSafety commissioner backs Collective Shout's call for Instagram overhaul

A day of the girl on Instagram: posed, exposed and at risk

‘Sexy girl’: How Instagram allows the offering of young girls as fetishised flesh

The sexual exploitation of young girls on Instagram must stop now

Collective Shout's Caitlin Roper quoted in 10 Daily

[UPDATED] WIN!

We call on Instagram to stop providing a platform for normalising the eroticisation of children