"The man noticed that posts encouraging him to get Threads, Mark Zuckerberg's rival to Elon Musk's X, were being dropped into his Instagram feed featuring embedded posts of uniformed girls as young as 13 with their faces visible and, in most cases, their names. The children's images were used by Meta after their parents had posted them on Instagram to mark their return to school. The parents were unaware that Meta's settings permitted it to do this."
"The father of a 13-year-old who appeared in one of the posts said it was absolutely outrageous. The images were all of schoolgirls in short skirts with either bare legs or stockings. When I found out an image of her has been exploited in what felt like a sexualised way by a massive company like that to market their product it left me feeling quite disgusted, he said."
"Meta, the $2tn (1.5tn) company based in Menlo Park, California, said the images did not violate its policies. It said it recommended people to visit Threads by showing them publicly shared photos that comply with its community standards and recommendation guidelines. Its systems do not recommend Threads shared by teenagers, but these were posts made from adults' accounts."
Meta used back-to-school photos posted by parents on Instagram to promote Threads to a 37-year-old man. Images included uniformed schoolgirls as young as 13 with visible faces and, in most cases, their names. Some parents had private Instagram accounts but posts cross-posted to Threads or were publicly shared without parents' understanding of settings. Recipients received suggested Threads featuring these images, which parents and recipients described as provocative, exploitative and sexualized. Meta said the images did not violate policies and that recommendation systems surface publicly shared photos that comply with community standards, noting the posts were from adult accounts.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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