Young girls ‘selling self-made abuse pics’ on Insta, lawyers target Meta amid AI deep-faked photo scandal

Young teenage girls are using Instagram as a tool to advertise ‘their bodies for sex’, an investigation has revealed.

Police have discovered a disturbing new trend on Instagram where schoolgirls as young as 15 are allegedly selling ‘self-generated child sexual abuse material’ to paedophiles.

A six-month undercover police investigation revealed that teenage users were misusing Instagram bios and stories to advertise sexualised selfies and explicit images of themselves for purchase on private websites.

Officers were unable to verify the ages of the account holders, but they estimated that “young teenage girls” under the age of 16 were offering to carry out degrading sexual acts for a fee in profiles resembling the adult content subscription service platform, OnlyFans.

The details emerged today in a legal challenge being brought by a children’s charity alleging that Instagram is “complicit in the exploitation of children online”.

Baroness Beeban Kidron, founder of the 5Rights Foundation has hired law firm Schillings to launch a “groundbreaking legal challenge” arguing that Instagram is “facilitating the sharing of and profiting from illegal child sexual abuse material”.

It comes after a six-month police probe found “accounts acting as a pseudo-OnlyFans page were easy to locate both on and off the Instagram platform” which appeared to belong to “young teenage girls”.

Schillings has written to Meta demanding an independent investigation into the alarming findings saying “evidence obtained by specialist officers in May 2024 illustrates a growing trend amongst predominantly young teenage girls (or those who claim to be) using Instagram as a tool for distributing and profiting from self-generated child sexual abuse material… namely that users misuse Instagram bios and stories to advertise child sexual abuse material for purchase.”

“Many of these users advertise the fact that they are ‘selling’ in the Instagram bio or account name, or both.”

“A simple search for the word ‘selling’ on the platform provides many results.”

Baroness Kidron said “these are schoolchildren, girls who are not yet 16, imitating the OnlyFans model of selling pornography and using Instagram to market this.‘This isn’t a victimless crime, it is children selling their bodies for sex.”

“Police believe it is a phenomenon which will grow exponentially.”

Yesterday the Mail revealed how police uncovered evidence that the social media platform owned by Meta is also being used by paedophiles to advertise AI- generated child abuse material.

Lady Kidron has vowed to explore “every possible route for legal and regulatory action” to force Meta to tackle the issue.

Jenny Afia, Partner at Schillings said “we are proud to support 5Rights’ groundbreaking legal challenge against Meta. As AI continues to permeate our lives, it is crucial that tech companies comply with their ethical and legal responsibilities towards children. Every day, the need for urgent action grows.”

A Meta spokesperson said “child sexual exploitation is horrific and we have clear rules against it.”

“We prohibit people from requesting, sharing or selling child exploitation content, including self-generated images, and we use technology to proactively find it, report it to NCMEC in line with applicable law, and support law enforcement in its investigations.”

“While we haven’t yet received any examples from Schillings, we will investigate and take swift action on anything that breaks our rules.”