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

Trendingnow

1

After forcing workers back to the office, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are now letting their staff work remotely—but only for the World Cup

2

The Pentagon said Iran War costs $29 billion, but the real cost is closer to $200 billion—and counting

3

Current price of oil as of June 23, 2026

1

After forcing workers back to the office, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are now letting their staff work remotely—but only for the World Cup

2

The Pentagon said Iran War costs $29 billion, but the real cost is closer to $200 billion—and counting

3

Current price of oil as of June 23, 2026
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

Institute's Global Conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel,on May 6, 2024 in Beverly Hills, California.
RetailSpaceX
Elon Musk was the world’s first trillionaire for 12 days
By Eva RoytburgJune 24, 2026
30 minutes ago
President Donald Trump pictured in September 2025 signing an executive order that overhauled the H-1B visa program.
EconomyImmigration
Trump’s international student crackdown kicked off a domino effect that could shave nearly $500 billion off the economy
By Tristan BoveJune 24, 2026
2 hours ago
How Home Depot is rebuilding retailing with AI
NewslettersCIO Intelligence
How Home Depot is rebuilding retailing with AI
By John KellJune 24, 2026
3 hours ago
bob
AIbooks
Robert Wright sees an ‘earthquake’ coming from AI that goes far beyond jobs: ‘cultural, political, personal, family, psychological’
By Nick LichtenbergJune 24, 2026
4 hours ago
A man wearing a red and black jacket and a red hat walks down a hallway lined with servers.
InnovationChina
For the first time since 2017, it’s China, not the U.S., that has the world’s most powerful supercomputer
By The Associated PressJune 24, 2026
4 hours ago
Jack Schlossberg, Kennedy scion and sardonic social media star, loses in bid for New York state assembly
PoliticsPolitics
Jack Schlossberg, Kennedy scion and sardonic social media star, loses in bid for New York state assembly
By The Associated Press, Danny Peltz and Anthony IzaguirreJune 24, 2026
5 hours ago

Most Popular

After forcing workers back to the office, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are now letting their staff work remotely—but only for the World Cup
Success
After forcing workers back to the office, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are now letting their staff work remotely—but only for the World Cup
By Orianna Rosa RoyleJune 23, 2026
1 day ago
The Pentagon said Iran War costs $29 billion, but the real cost is closer to $200 billion—and counting
Economy
The Pentagon said Iran War costs $29 billion, but the real cost is closer to $200 billion—and counting
By Jacqueline MunisJune 24, 2026
13 hours ago
Current price of oil as of June 23, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of June 23, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJune 23, 2026
1 day ago
Current price of gold as of June 23, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of gold as of June 23, 2026
By Danny BakstJune 23, 2026
1 day ago
Texas and Charlotte used to build huge McMansions—now they're copying the California design tricks they once mocked
Real Estate
Texas and Charlotte used to build huge McMansions—now they're copying the California design tricks they once mocked
By Sydney LakeJune 22, 2026
2 days ago
Markets tumble worldwide as Fed resets expectations: $400 billion wiped off SpaceX stock
Banking
Markets tumble worldwide as Fed resets expectations: $400 billion wiped off SpaceX stock
By Jim EdwardsJune 23, 2026
1 day 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.