• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

U.S. companies have finally gotten $71 billion in tariff refunds, but they’re using it to offset inflation caused by the Iran war

2

FedEx CEO says we are in the middle of the biggest supply chain shift he’s seen in 35 years: ‘We are the referendum’

3

Kevin O’Leary claimed opposition to his Utah data center was fueled by Chinese money. Now he and Fox News are being sued for defamation

1

U.S. companies have finally gotten $71 billion in tariff refunds, but they’re using it to offset inflation caused by the Iran war

2

FedEx CEO says we are in the middle of the biggest supply chain shift he’s seen in 35 years: ‘We are the referendum’

3

Kevin O’Leary claimed opposition to his Utah data center was fueled by Chinese money. Now he and Fox News are being sued for defamation
Tech

Facebook Removed Nearly 750,000 Instagram Posts Showing Child Exploitation

By
Danielle Abril
Danielle Abril
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Danielle Abril
Danielle Abril
Down Arrow Button Icon
November 13, 2019, 4:32 PM ET
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Facebook removed nearly 750,000 posts on Instagram containing images of nude and sexually exploited children during the third quarter, highlighting how the online photo service has become a popular destination for pedophiles.

The company, which released the data on Wednesday, said the number of such posts removed from Instagram was up 50% from the 512,000 in the previous quarter. It explained the sharp rise by partially blaming a technology glitch earlier this year that affected its ability to detect new posts containing content already deemed harmful.

“It’s worth remembering that this is a tiny fraction of the content on Facebook and Instagram, and we remove much of it before anyone ever sees it,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. But “when people are sharing a billion things a day, even a tiny fraction is too much.”

The data came from the Facebook’s latest quarterly report highlighting its efforts to police its services. For the first time, the company provided information about content violations on Instagram, the photo-centric service that has more than a billion users.

Facebook minimized how widely viewed banned content is on its service. The company said that only four people saw the Instagram posts containing images of sexually exploited children for every 10,000 viewed.

In recent years, Facebook has been trying to clean up its service, which is rife with hate speech, pornographic images, and violence. The company said it spends billions of dollars on safety and has more than 35,000 employees, both contract and full-time, working on the problem.

Inappropriate content related to children is still vexing the service. On its core app, Facebook removed 11.6 million posts during the latest quarter that contained child nudity or exploitation—more than any quarter during the past year and up nearly 70% from the previous quarter. 

Still, Facebook said it’s getting better at using technology to proactively find posts that contain inappropriate content related to children. The company is hoping that technology will be a huge help in the future for finding objectionable posts of all kinds, considering the huge volume.

During the third quarter, Facebook identified almost 95% of posts on Instagram showing child exploitation before users reported them, up slightly from the 93% during the previous quarter.

On Facebook, the company said it’s doing a better job of being proactive. It removed 99.5% of those posts without users having to flag them.

Meanwhile, Facebook also said it removed more than 7 million pieces of content between July and September that contained hate speech policy. That’s more than double the 2.9 million it deleted during the same period last year.

Facebook said it has become better at identifying hate speech, now proactively catching hateful posts 80% of the time. A year ago, it was only able to identify 53% of posts without users flagging them.

The company also removed 1.7 billion fake accounts in the third quarter, which often post misinformation, spammy or harmful content. During the first three quarters of this year, the company removed 5.4 billion fake accounts, more than double the amount of total users on its service.

Facebook is still struggling to proactively police bullying and harassment. It said its systems were only able to detect 16.1% of the 3.2 million posts removed in that category, down slightly from 17.9% during the previous quarter.

Additionally, Facebook reported posts removed in a new category—suicide and self-injury. It said it removed 2.5 million posts on Facebook during the third quarter, up from 2 million the previous quarter. Of those, 97% were identified by technology. Meanwhile, Instagram proactively removed almost 80% of 845,000 posts containing content related to suicide and self-injury. 

During the call on Wednesday, Zuckerberg also pressured other companies to provide more transparency about problematic content on their services, even going as far as to say that regulation should require companies to do so. He advised people against assuming that Facebook has a bigger problem than other similar services.

“I don’t think that that’s actually what this says at all,” Zuckerberg said about the latest numbers. “What this says is we’re working harder to identify this and take action on it.”

More must-read stories from Fortune:

—Hideo Kojima on Death Stranding and more
—Review: Apple Watch Series 5 is insanely great
—Workers are worried robots will steal their jobs
—Apple tackles California’s housing crisis amid Apple TV Plus questions
—New bank offers 3% interest rate for “good behavior”
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.

About the Author
By Danielle Abril
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

A massive margin call and ‘push-button liquidity’ have torched stocks, but they’re now poised to rebound, top Wall Street forecaster says
Investingtech stocks
A massive margin call and ‘push-button liquidity’ have torched stocks, but they’re now poised to rebound, top Wall Street forecaster says
By Jason MaJuly 18, 2026
4 hours ago
xi
AIChina
A Chinese Pink Floyd fan is giving Claude and Chat their own DeepSeek moment — an AI model just as good and half the price
By Matt O'Brien and The Associated PressJuly 18, 2026
7 hours ago
ives
BankingMarkets
‘I’m an example of what I’ve preached’: Dan Ives knows AI has a ‘PR problem’ but it led to his massive career change after 25 years on Wall Street
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 18, 2026
10 hours ago
pt
PoliticsReligion
Peter Thiel just gave the public its closest look yet at his ‘Antichrist’ theory—and it’s a tech and climate regulator
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 18, 2026
11 hours ago
Svenja Gudell, Chief Economist, Indeed
Commentaryaging
Indeed chief economist: Aging Baby Boomers are America’s real labor problem, not AI
By Svenja GudellJuly 18, 2026
12 hours ago
SpaceX stock falls back to earth shortly after Wall Street analysts release florid targets: ‘Paving the superhighway to the stars’
Investinginvesting strategy
SpaceX stock falls back to earth shortly after Wall Street analysts release florid targets: ‘Paving the superhighway to the stars’
By Shawn TullyJuly 18, 2026
13 hours ago

Most Popular

U.S. companies have finally gotten $71 billion in tariff refunds, but they’re using it to offset inflation caused by the Iran war
Economy
U.S. companies have finally gotten $71 billion in tariff refunds, but they’re using it to offset inflation caused by the Iran war
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 17, 2026
2 days ago
FedEx CEO says we are in the middle of the biggest supply chain shift he’s seen in 35 years: ‘We are the referendum’
C-Suite
FedEx CEO says we are in the middle of the biggest supply chain shift he’s seen in 35 years: ‘We are the referendum’
By Fortune EditorsJuly 15, 2026
3 days ago
Kevin O’Leary claimed opposition to his Utah data center was fueled by Chinese money. Now he and Fox News are being sued for defamation
Law
Kevin O’Leary claimed opposition to his Utah data center was fueled by Chinese money. Now he and Fox News are being sued for defamation
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezJuly 17, 2026
2 days ago
Trump may have to choose between an endless quagmire and ceding the Strait of Hormuz to Iran
Energy
Trump may have to choose between an endless quagmire and ceding the Strait of Hormuz to Iran
By Jordan BlumJuly 18, 2026
13 hours ago
Indeed chief economist: Aging Baby Boomers are America's real labor problem, not AI
Commentary
Indeed chief economist: Aging Baby Boomers are America's real labor problem, not AI
By Svenja GudellJuly 18, 2026
12 hours ago
Peter Thiel just gave the public its closest look yet at his 'Antichrist' theory—and it's a tech and climate regulator
Politics
Peter Thiel just gave the public its closest look yet at his 'Antichrist' theory—and it's a tech and climate regulator
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 18, 2026
11 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.