This week’s court battle to force tech giant Meta to act against hackers has highlighted the toxic cocktail of corporate intransigence and porn peddlers who have perverted AI for evil purposes.
“It’s a wake-up call. While the court case is a good result, it shows how complex the problem is and how little power people have to fight against it,” said Prof Herman Wasserman, head of the centre for information integrity at Stellenbosch University.
William Bird, director of Media Monitoring Africa, agrees.
“How do you act against a global corporation if you are a 15-year-old who has been exploited by someone who took your content and turned it into abuse?” he asked.
“If someone shares images of you naked, what can you do to get it removed in a booming industry where people are catfishing kids to make money? We need improved reporting mechanisms and fast action.”
“Catfishing” is when a con artist uses a fake identity to trick someone into believing they are in a real online friendship or romance.
Wasserman described the circulation of child pornography as a multifaceted social, tech and legal problem that had to be addressed on multiple fronts.
“Platform accountability is the biggest factor, followed by support for the kids involved, rather than blaming.”
Experts agree that in the AI era, easily accessible child pornography has gone through the roof.
Luke Lamprecht, a consultant specialising in child protection and development, said: “Everything depicting offences against children — be it photos, videos, pictures, cartoons, sound recordings, words — it’s all a crime.”
One of the most alarming discoveries, Lamprecht said, is that children who are exposed to a lot of digital porn experience the same symptoms as children who are directly and physically harmed.
Bird said the circulation of child pornography was increasing and schools needed to tighten their social media policies in the face of cyberbullying and nudify apps that can remove a person’s clothes in a photograph.
The best solution, he believes, is for parents to equip children with skills, control their online access until age eight or nine, and accept that from then on a child will find ways to go online no matter what.
It’s about opening communications with kids, explaining the risks, and telling them what to do if things go wrong. Kids need to be supported, not blamed
— William Bird, director of Media Monitoring Africa
“It’s about opening communications with kids, explaining the risks, and telling them what to do if things go wrong,” Bird said. “Kids need to be supported, not blamed.”
He advises parents to talk to their children about sexual content, defining what is healthy, normal and acceptable, and explaining why they should limit online contact to trusted friends and colleagues.
“[Tech platforms] only act when they are made aware of the offence, which is surprising and shows how hard it is to police,” he said.
Prof Julie Reid, a digital media expert at Unisa, said the case this week raised a critical question. “If Meta was capable of these actions all along, why did it require a full week of sustained legal pressure to secure them?” she said.
“Their capitulation demonstrates that their legal arguments were strategic rather than substantive — designed to delay accountability rather than address genuine technical or jurisdictional constraints.
“What makes this particularly egregious is the nature of the harm to vulnerable children. The ethical response should have been immediate and comprehensive action, regardless of legal obligations. Instead, Meta chose to prioritise corporate risk management over child welfare until faced with sustained legal and public pressure.”
Reid said the case exposed the inadequacies of corporate self-regulation in the face of child protection.
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