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Facebook’s silent child porn problem: 2 leaks in 1 week

If you see one of your Facebook friends sharing an innocuous link with the caption "Watch this if you're curious," for the love of God do not click through.

 

Kevin Morris

Internet Culture

Posted on Mar 26, 2013   Updated on Jun 1, 2021, 8:31 pm CDT

If you see one of your Facebook friends sharing an innocuous link with the caption “Watch this if you’re curious,” for the love of God do not click through. It leads to a child porn video—and a virus, which takes over your account and starts peppering all your friends with the same treacherous link.

Even worse, the epicenter of the viral outbreak is a cluster of high schools in Connecticut, meaning kids are the ones accidentally stumbling on the disturbing video and then sharing it with their networks. The FBI is investigating the case after authorities from three Connecticut cities—Farmington, Cromwell and Hartford—contacted the bureau about it. 

Farmington police issed a warning on—where else?—their Facebook page:

The video is quite graphic and it will be very disturbing.  If your child has a Facebook account, please tell your son or daughter to refrain from clicking on any shared videos.  If the shared video can be deleted, please delete the shared video immediately.

According to a local NBC News affiliate, Facebook issued a statement “saying it has a zero tolerance for child pornography and is aggressively trying to remove it.” What’s so hard about blocking one specific link to child pornography?

Child abuse spreading on Facebook happened just last week. It might very well happen again.

Photo by mkhmarketing/Flickr

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*First Published: Mar 26, 2013, 11:53 am CDT