‘It started with a tip-off’: how a Guardian investigation exposed child sex trafficking on Facebook and Instagram

I was able to pull transcripts of sale negotiations for teen girls that traffickers were engaging in on Facebook Messenger, the private messaging function. In exhibit documents, there were pictures of trafficking victims being advertised for sale in Instagram’s Stories function. Money and logistics had been discussed. In the cases we found, none of these crimes had been detected or flagged by Meta. McNamara and I contacted former contract workers who had been employed to moderate Facebook and Instagram, tasked with reporting and removing harmful content. Many were traumatised by the content they had had to review each day. All said their efforts to flag and escalate possible child trafficking on Meta platforms often went nowhere, and harmful content was rarely taken down by the company. They felt helpless, and believed Meta’s criteria for escalating possible crimes to law enforcement was too narrow.

I wonder who made the original tip. Probably one of those traumatized moderators whose reports had gone nowhere.

It started with a tipoff. I was reporting on the trafficking and exploitation of migrant workers in the Gulf when a source I had known for more than a decade reached out.

The first sentence is wrong. It started because of the second sentence.

Katie McQue, the author, spent over a decade fighting for human rights. A "tipoff" should not take credit away from her work.

An article from the guardian patting itself on the back. Pass.