"On These Apps, the Dark Promise of Mothers Sexually Abusing Children", 7 December 2024

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Since last year, The Times has been investigating the world of parents who run accounts on Instagram and elsewhere for their underage daughters and who post or sell racy photos of the girls, in some cases earning large sums of money. The Times reported in February that many of the so-called mom-run social media accounts with the biggest reach were overwhelmingly followed by adult men, including pedophiles.

The livestream apps downloaded from Apple and Google illustrate an even darker aspect of the social media technology boom, particularly for children living in poverty in developing countries. There, with the ease of a smartphone, parents and other adults can connect with pedophiles in the United States and elsewhere who pay to watch — and direct — criminal behavior.

After confirming the authenticity of the Bigo livestreamer with the authorities, The Times searched the Apple and Google app stores for other video chat apps. Reporters identified a sample of more than 80 apps that advertised children before stopping the search. They later contacted Homeland Security Investigations, the government’s main law enforcement group for international exploitation, for comment.

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The livestream apps follow different models. Some, like Bigo, are designed for a mainstream audience to watch dancers, gamers or other content creators. Viewers can reward streamers with in-app currency.

Others are geared toward men looking for sexual encounters, and users can pay by the minute for private video chats. Although Apple and Google ban pornography from their stores, The Times found apps that showed nude adults in sexual poses. Some apps had names like “18+ Live & Video Chat,” “Adult Live Chat” and “Adult Calls, Love Chat.”

Streamers of all kinds collect money from their broadcasts, and the owners of the apps also take a cut, as do Apple and Google. The two big tech companies typically collect between 15 and 30 percent as a fee for in-app purchases.

In statements to The Times, neither Apple nor Google addressed the issue of in-app purchases for illegal streaming. Both companies said they had zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material and had removed or suspended the flagged apps. Both companies said they required app developers to police user-generated content on their platforms.

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Asked about The Times’s sample of offending apps, Mr. Sainz said a majority had been detected during the company’s standard review process, with an additional 20 taken down after an internal investigation in response to The Times’s findings.

Karl Ryan, a Google spokesman, said the company “did not immediately uncover” child sexual abuse material in the apps The Times had flagged, but it suspended them “out of an abundance of caution” while the apps’ developers were contacted. “We take this issue extremely seriously,” he said.

Many of the apps on both platforms advertised sex shows or bestiality. The Apple App Store’s search recommendations also helped The Times surface some of the apps advertising children by suggesting sexual terms such as “x.x.x live.”

In response, the company changed its search recommendations to no longer suggest adult content, Mr. Sainz said.

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The livestreaming of child sexual abuse is thought to be most common in the Philippines, though the data is limited. International Justice Mission, a global human rights organization with a program to protect minors in that country, commissioned a study last year that estimated nearly 500,000 Filipino children were being abused in the creation of illegal imagery.

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...In the United States, The Times found nearly 100 federal criminal cases over the past decade involving men paying to watch the livestreaming of child sexual abuse.

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By some measures, online child sexual abuse has increased in recent years. The distribution of such material surged during the pandemic, according to a study by Europol, the European law enforcement agency. An investigator for the organization said rates had been elevated ever since.

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Sarah Gardner, who leads a child safety advocacy group, the Heat Initiative, said The Times’s findings were particularly shocking given that Apple and Google both claim to hold apps on their marketplaces to the highest safety and content standards.

She faulted the two companies for allowing the livestreaming, and for facilitating and profiting from the payments.

“The most powerful companies in the world are enabling the sexual abuse of a child to be livestreamed on the internet,” she said. ...Ms. Gardner and others protested at Apple’s store in New York’s Grand Central Terminal, calling on the company to improve child safety.

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A PayPal spokeswoman said the company worked with law enforcement around the world to help stop child exploitation.

Bigo Live said that when it received the report from the Utah man, “we took appropriate action against the creators involved, including account suspension and content removal.” In its statement, the company said it was “deeply committed to protecting user safety” and was “continuously improving our technology and procedures.”

When The Times searched for other smartphone apps with similar content, many were hiding in plain sight. In reviews posted to Apple’s and Google’s app stores, users warned of child exploitation on some apps.

Reviews for the apps Bigo Live, Gaze, Superlive and Tango mentioned parents sexually exploiting their children, according to an analysis by The Times and Brian Levine, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who has created a database of app reviews with Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. (Some apps were also identified with help from Primal Wijesekera, a research scientist at the International Computer Science Institute, where he maintains searchable records of the app stores.)

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BuzzCast and Superlive did not respond to requests for comment. Representatives for Gaze and Tango said their companies had no tolerance for child sexual abuse material and pointed to multiple moderation systems they used to enforce their standards. They said that they took user reviews seriously, and also that the negative reviews were unrepresentative and may have been written by competitors.

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Quantifying the illegal activity is difficult, but it has become prevalent enough that Homeland Security last year added “crimes of exploitation,” which includes child sexual abuse, to its list of priorities, putting it on par with terrorism and border security.

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