Dozens of Instagram profiles have been displaying explicit sex videos and other pornographic content for at least three months. The publications bypass the social network’s security systems and have already accumulated millions of views.
The material is recommended in the Reels short video tab, whose reach is expanded by default by the algorithm, even if accounts with adult content are not followed by users. The posts also suggest links to suspicious websites that could result in device hacking and personal data theft.
In some cases, publications are accessible to minors under 18, which goes against laws protecting children and adolescents on the internet.
When contacted, Meta says it “proactively” removed 96% of publications that violated its policies against child sexual exploitation and 92% of publications with nudity between October 2025 and December 2025 (the most recent reporting period). In other words, it was taken offline before receiving complaints from users.
The publications indicated by the report were sent for analysis by the company’s moderation team and subsequently removed, according to the big tech’s advisory team.
“Meta has no interest in maintaining content that violates its policies, such as sexually explicit content or content involving nudity. On the contrary. Meta makes extensive efforts, including investment in technology, to mitigate the risks of such content circulating on its platforms,” the company said in a statement.
According to legislation known as ECA Digital (Law nº 15,211/2025), approved last year, platforms must “offer systems and processes designed to prevent children and adolescents from encountering, through the product or service, illegal and pornographic content”.
“The infraction would be characterized if reasonable measures are not being taken. If it is proven that there was a failure to comply with this duty, the conduct would be punishable”, said the ANPD (National Data Protection Authority) in a note.
In addition to videos with explicit sex, dozens of profiles show nude scenes that can also be classified as inappropriate for people under 18 years of age.
Although there is no clear definition of what pornography is in Brazilian legislation, the courts have understood that content with sexual connotations, such as images of genitals in contexts to promote arousal, can also be included in the category.
It is Meta’s recommendation algorithm, whose objective is to increase the time spent on screen, which leads the public to explicit sex videos. The path begins in the Instagram timeline (feed), where the material arrives without the originating accounts being followed by users.
The feed offers videos of women dressed in tight, low-cut clothes. After clicking on this content, users are directed to the short video tool Reels and, when scrolling the screen, they start to view excerpts with explicit sex and other types of pornography, such as the display of genitals in sexualized contexts.
The publications also violate Instagram’s rules against nudity and sexual activity by adults, known for adopting a restrictive policy on the subject.
The platform, for example, removes images of indigenous women with exposed breasts, as shown by a recent decision by the Oversight Board, an independent committee that reviews Meta’s moderating decisions.
The social network identifies violations of its standards through automated tools, which are subject to errors. Meta’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has already stated that the system has greater accuracy in identifying serious infractions, such as explicit images and disclosure of crimes.
The accounts verified by the report are able to bypass detection tools. The images are circulated in black and white and use a collage pattern, superimposing pornographic excerpts on mosaics of common photos. There are cases where the material has been in the air for more than three months. Explicit material does not have stripes or pixelation of sensitive parts.
One of the profiles with a typical Turkish female name uses explicit material collage over mosaics of everyday black and white photos. The account, which directs Internet users to a malicious link through stories, has accumulated more than 1.4 million views since the beginning of June.
According to Arlindo Galvão, professor of artificial intelligence at UFG (Federal University of Goiás), the superimposition of several layers of video is one of the keys to disorienting Meta’s mechanisms. “Explicit content is easy to detect if there is only one medium, but when there are multiple mediums it creates confusion”, he states.
The AI models used in content moderation do not see the image as a person, but rather decode the pixels into various numerical codes and then look for patterns. Overlaying videos breaks the usual patterns, says Galvão.
In another example, a fake account posted explicit videos under a layer of mazes that flashed across the screen.
The time track (timeline) of a video, which is a sequence of images, also allows manipulations to disorient the filter. One of the posts showed a young woman drinking coffee before showing a single painting of another nude woman.
“In these cases, there is also an incentive for the user to pause the video or review it to look for the explicit excerpt, in a strategy to increase engagement”, says Galvão.
There are also accounts that overload the algorithm with the number of posts. A fake profile, for example, made 14 explicit posts in a span of 37 minutes to promote a page on the OnlyFans platform. If the account is banned, it is easy to create another one with leaked data from third parties.
Despite the blocks, pornographic scenes remain accessible even on simulated accounts of minors, serving as bait to direct the public to fake adult pages – a stratum of the population vulnerable to visual appeals and protected as a matter of priority by law.
In tests carried out by Folha with ten profiles that disseminate the material, seven displayed explicit content for an account whose registered age was 16 years old – even with all protection tools active. Another three profiles showed a warning stating that the account was restricted to minors and required parental authorization to be viewed.
Regarding the exposure of teenagers, Meta stated in a note that, since last March, it has automatically limited the access of users aged 13 to 17 to sensitive content. “Recent research conducted by a third party in the United States indicated that Instagram teen accounts on the default setting saw 68% less ‘content for more mature users’ than a competitor’s teen experience,” the company stated.
Information technology professionals consulted by the report identified computer viruses (malware) in the links associated with the publications.
“It’s always a cat and mouse race: the detector improves, and whoever wants to cheat adapts to escape”, says computer science professor at UFRGS (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) Anderson Tavares.
Source: www.noticiasaominuto.com.br
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