Shocking report shows how child porn is openly traded on Facebook despite censorship efforts

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 19:16 EST, 6 May 2012 | UPDATED: 23:04 EST, 6 May 2012

It is the world's largest photo-sharing website, boasting 901million monthly users as of March, 2012.

But Facebook, despite its effort to censor illegal images, has become a den for pedophiles trading graphic images, according to a new report.

An exposé published by WND.com has revealed a disturbing amount of child pornography being shared by predators on the social network.

Disturbing: A screenshot of a Facebook user who calls themselves 'Kidsex Young' appeared to facilitate the trading of illegal images and videos

Graphic photos of children, including infants and toddlers, were uncovered by reporter Chelsea Schilling.

A screenshot of a Facebook user page called 'Kidsex Young' shows a timeline of approved friend requests between users allegedly trading photos and videos of abuse.

On the page, one user asks others, 'Care to trade vids?' Another posts a clip of a naked man fondling a baby, Ms Schilling reports.

Some censored screenshots published on the website were taken from entire albums of children forced into acts by pedophiles.

Others too graphic to publish included photographs of children forced to have sex with each other, being raped by adults, and forced to expose their genitals to the camera. 

Social network: All illegal photographs and illicit Facebook pages were reported to the FBI

All illegal photographs and illicit Facebook pages were reported to the FBI.

But this disturbing underbelly of the popular social networking website is not a new revelation to the company, which until last year relied heavily on reports from its users about illegal activity.

Last May, the inclusion of Microsoft's PhotoDNA program helped to cull through images and data quickly in a bid to police the website and rid it of abuse.

Facebook said at the time the program was used to search for several thousand illegal images among the 200million uploaded each day, focusing on children under 12 as part of an initiative to battle 'the worst of the worst'.

The program is able to search for some of the thousands of photographs collected by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which helps to identify and aide victims and cooperates with authorities on investigations into their origins.

However, a disturbing amount of exploitative content remains, according to the WND report.

Groups available to Facebook users uncovered by the network included: Kidsex Young, Preteen Lesbians, 10-17 Teen Bisexual, PTHC (or preteen hard-core pornography), 12 to 13 Boy Sex, Young Gay Pics and Movie Trade, Gangbanging, Teen Sex, Love Little Kids, Incest Forever, Menfor Babygirls, Sex Little Girls and Nude Teens.

Facebook did not respond to MailOnline's request for comment at press time.

However, Michelle Collins, vice president for the exploited children division at NCMEC, said the organisation receives reports from all social networking companies as required by law.

'With the global nature of this – and companies the size of Google and Facebook and others – they have individuals using their systems from every part of the globe. So, in many cases, we have received reports from the companies that actually indicate child pornography images were uploaded from [locations around the world]...' she said.

'The average last year was about three days for the content to be removed.'