Editor's note: This article contains descriptions of imagery depicting child sexual abuse. Reader discretion is advised.
Meta has run dozens of paid advertisements that contained AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and images of minors alongside sexually suggestive statements over the past nine months, according to details shared with WIRED by researchers at the Tech Transparency Project (TTP).
The ads were targeted at people in the United States, the United Kingdom and more than a dozen European countries, according to data in Meta's ad library, and some reached several thousand accounts. The ads were removed only after WIRED contacted Meta about the findings, the researchers said.
Researchers Detail Ads in Meta's Ad Library
More than 50 image and video ads containing abusive content were discovered in Meta's ad library by TTP researchers, according to the report, with some listings linking to so-called nudify or undressing apps. Meta's ad library, a transparency tool that catalogs ads displayed on the company's platforms, showed the ads running across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads, the researchers said. Most of the ads were not actively being shown to users when they were found, but they remained available in the ad library for months, according to the report.
"These ads
