Adult Content Spreads On Social Media, How & Why

When the founders created social media platforms, they had a purpose in mind. It was for connecting people, family and friends, spread out remotely. Of course, on the commercial side, they were meant to connect businesses with people.

This is a sound model and was much-needed for making the world a global village. But with every development, comes a bad side. Today, that problem is the wanton spread of adult content on social media.

All social media platforms have filters and algorithms to flag adult content, especially content involving violent sexual abuse and child abuse. But those spreading the content have turned smarter. They are circumventing the filters and algorithms by using confusing language and ensuring that the content reaches users’ feed.

The Indian government had to warn X to take up security measures to stop such content. It even threatened that it will do away with yhe ‘safe harbour’ status of X. Following this, in January, X blocked 600 accounts and deleted 3500 adult content posts. But there is a tweak here. X has recently announced something called as consensual adult content. The platform gets heavy traffic from such content apart from subscriptions. Since the revenues are high, they have started ‘age gating’ to ensure the content reaches those who are above the age of 18, as per the age mentioned in the profile.

Facebook and Instagram, both belonging to the same parent company, have stricter guidelines. But in reality, the situation is totally different. If one account is blocked, then 10 more accounts in the same name or different names are popping up.

The solution – public awareness. It is the onus of users to set privacy walls to stop such content. As for the platforms, they must rework on their algorithms and increase human-machine coordination. They must think of social good which was their primary objective and stop chasing revenues from such content. More importantly, the users have to block and flag such content.