WhatsApp Is Rampantly Used To Spread Child Pornography, Report Shows

Indians seem to prefer WhatsApp more than any other messaging app, but it has been continuously used to spread pornography and child abuse content.

According to The Economic Times, Cyber Peace Foundation, an award-winning civil society organization, conducted research lasing for two weeks and they found out that there is a large number of groups on WhatsApp where child porn is actually promoted. Each of these groups has hundreds of members, and they can be found easily by using a basic app, which has been banned by Google but can still be found on some websites providing APK.

Nitish Chandan, Cyber Security and Cyber Law Specialist of CPF said that some members on these groups have even asked for physical contact with children and adults and are also willing to pay for it.

In answer to the report published by Cyber Peace Foundation, WhatsApp’s representative said that they banned accounts that participated in spreading child porn and child abusive content based on the information they can have their hands on. The company had looked through the report and act accordingly.

WhatsApp announced on its website that each month, it bans over 2,50,000 accounts for the same reason. However, with the number the report showed, it seems like the company has a lot to do in the future.

The reports also found out that inappropriate groups usually have icons featuring children posing in sexually explicit postures. This information might come at a suggestion for WhatsApp as it can develop a tool for scanning groups by their icons and then the shortlist can be sent to a specific team to be further investigated.

What CPF found out can strengthen the demand from the Indian government which asked the platform to provide aid in fighting fake news, pornography, and hate speech. The company has been opposing this idea and said that even the company could not read messages because the whole thing is encrypted.