{"id":138,"date":"2018-12-27T19:00:03","date_gmt":"2018-12-27T19:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/surfshields.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/27\/google-facebook-fed-ad-dollars-to-child-porn-discovery-apps-9\/"},"modified":"2018-12-27T19:00:03","modified_gmt":"2018-12-27T19:00:03","slug":"google-facebook-fed-ad-dollars-to-child-porn-discovery-apps-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surfshields.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/27\/google-facebook-fed-ad-dollars-to-child-porn-discovery-apps-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Google & Facebook fed ad dollars to child porn discovery apps"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Google <\/span><\/a> has scrambled to remove third-party apps that led users to child porn sharing groups on WhatsApp in the wake of TechCrunch\u2019s report about the problem<\/a> last week. We contacted Google with the name of one these apps and evidence that it and others offered links to WhatsApp groups for sharing child exploitation imagery. Following publication of our article, Google removed that app and at least five like it from the Google Play store. Several of these apps had over 100,000 downloads, and they\u2019re still functional on devices that already downloaded them.<\/p>\n

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A screenshot from earlier this month of now-banned child exploitation groups on WhatsApp <\/span><\/a>. Phone numbers and photos redacted<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

WhatsApp failed to adequately police its platform, confirming to TechCrunch that it\u2019s only moderated by its own 300 employees and not Facebook\u2019s <\/span><\/a> 20,000 dedicated security and moderation staffers. It\u2019s clear that scalable and efficient artificial intelligence systems are not up to the task of protecting the 1.5 billion user WhatsApp community, and companies like Facebook must invest more in unscalable human investigators.<\/p>\n

But now, new research provided exclusively to TechCrunch by anti-harassment algorithm startup AntiToxin<\/a> shows that these removed apps that hosted links to child porn sharing rings on WhatsApp were supported with ads run by Google and Facebook\u2019s ad networks. AntiToxin found 6 of these apps ran Google AdMob, 1 ran Google Firebase, 2 ran Facebook Audience Network, and 1 ran StartApp. These ad networks earned a cut of brands\u2019 marketing spend while allowing the apps to monetize and sustain their operations by hosting ads for Amazon, Microsoft, Motorola, Sprint, Sprite, Western Union, Dyson, DJI, Gett, Yandex Music, Q Link Wireless, Tik Tok, and more.<\/p>\n

The situation reveals that tech giants aren\u2019t just failing to spot offensive content in their own apps, but also in third-party apps that host their ads and that earn them money. While these apps like\u00a0\u201cGroup Links For Whats\u201d by Lisa Studio<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>let people discover benign links to WhatsApp groups for sharing legal content and discussing topics like business or sports, TechCrunch found they also hosted links with titles such as\u00a0\u201cchild porn only no adv\u201d and \u201cchild porn xvideos\u201d that led to\u00a0WhatsApp groups with names like \u201cChildren\u00a0<\/span>💋👙👙<\/span>\u201d or \u201cvideos cp\u201d \u2014 a known abbreviation for \u2018child pornography\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a video provided by AntiToxin seen below, the app \u201cGroup Links For Whats by Lisa Studio\u201d that ran Google AdMob is shown displaying an interstitial ad for Q Link Wireless before providing WhatsApp group search results for \u201cchild\u201d. A group described as \u201cChild nude FBI POLICE\u201d is surfaced, and when the invite link is clicked, it opens within WhatsApp to a group used for sharing child exploitation imagery.\u00a0 (No illegal imagery is shown in this video or article. TechCrunch has omitted the end of the video that showed a URL for an illegal group and the phone numbers of its members.)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Another video shows the app \u201cGroup Link For whatsapp by Video Status Zone\u201d that ran Google AdMob <\/span><\/a> and Facebook Audience Network displaying a link to a WhatsApp group described as \u201conly cp video\u201d. When tapped, the app first surfaces an interstitial ad for Amazon Photos before revealing a button for opening the group within WhatsApp. These videos show how alarmingly easy it was for people to find illegal content sharing groups on WhatsApp, even without WhatsApp\u2019s help.<\/p>\n