The Wall Street Journal teamed up with researchers from Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst and released the findings of a shocking study this week. Instagram, which is owned by Meta Platforms (also Facebook’s owner) has had a massive, global pedophile network hiding in plain sight for years. Meta’s stock went up .57 cents after the news broke, because we live in a truly sick and fallen world.

The researchers report that Instagram actually helps to connect and PROMOTE this network of pedophiles who are sharing child-sex related content. Instagram’s algorithms actively promote the pedophilia content to people sharing that interest. From the Wall Street Journal:

“Instagram connects pedophiles and guides them to content sellers via recommendation systems that excel at linking those who share niche interests, the Journal and the academic researchers found.”

While this network of pedophiles is not right out in the open, Instagram does not make it difficult for people to find. The site allows people to search for hashtags like #pedowhore and #preteensex. When they search for those terms, Instagram connects them to accounts that are selling child pornography. Perverts can even pay for “meet-ups” with trafficked children.

Meta/Facebook/Instagram says it’s going to get right on fixing this problem immediately, because they take it so seriously. After all, it’s a violation of federal law to be posting child porn ads and selling child sex slaves on the internet. Someone could get in trouble for that. Fortunately for Instagram, the entire federal law enforcement apparatus is currently working on a much more serious problem. Namely, viciously hunting down and jailing peaceful Trump supporters for things like administering first aid to January 6 protesters.

Alex Stamos, the head of the Stanford Internet Observatory, notes, “That a team of three academics with limited access could find such a huge network should set off alarms at Meta.”

Ya think?

The researchers are not even sure how big this network is. They think maybe they’ve scratched the surface of it, and they already use words like ‘huge’ and ‘massive’ to describe it. When the researchers look up just one pedophile hashtag on the site, Instagram returns with tons of “Suggested for You” content videos and services. The Wall Street Journal report describes the findings as some of the ugliest stuff imaginable.

Instagram is lying, obviously. The report notes that when researchers conducted searches for pedophile material, Instagram pops up this helpful warning before showing it to them:

“These results may contain images of child sexual abuse.”

And you can visit their Help Center if you have any questions or want to speak to someone confidentially.

The pedophiles using Instagram don’t even have to try to hide what they’re doing. There’s no encryption that they can enable on the site. It’s all out in the open—if someone is the type of person who would look for this filth.

“The pedophilic accounts on Instagram mix brazenness with superficial efforts to veil their activity, researchers found. Certain emojis function as a kind of code, such as an image of a map—shorthand for ‘minor-attracted person’—or one of ‘cheese pizza,’ which shares its initials with ‘child pornography.’”

So, was the QAnon stuff all true? It’s really starting to look that way. Between the Jim Caviezel movie on child trafficking (“Sound of Freedom,” releasing on July 4) and the viral rumors that Mel Gibson is releasing a four-part documentary on child sex trafficking in Ukraine, it’s looking like this problem is far more vast than any of us imagined. Most reasonable people understand that Jeffrey Epstein didn’t really kill himself.

Do you know what’s so obnoxious about Instagram claiming that they’re going to get right on it when it comes to removing all the child porn on their site? It’s the fact that when they want to take down something that they don’t like, such as truthful evidence on the dangers of the COVID vaccines or the stolen 2020 election, they take it down swiftly and with ruthless efficiency. They can shut things down so quickly that it makes your head spin—but only if they want to take it down.

What does that tell you about Instagram?

You can read the full Wall Street Journal article for yourself, but be warned: It’s not as family-friendly as the version of the story published here.