Child Porn Video Goes Viral On Facebook, Took Eight Hours To Be Deleted From The Site

A child porn video managed to circulate on Facebook for nearly eight hours before it was removed from the site. The video was shared 16,000 times and received 4,000 likes as Twitter users tweeted their outrage over the video.

BuzzFeed was able to create a rough timeline of when the video first appeared on Facebook, beginning around 5 p.m. on Thursday. The first tweet was a remark describing the child porn video and disgust that such a video could appear on the social media site. The video continued to be shared by people who were outraged that it was on Facebook, which led to even more outrage and comments on Twitter.

The video’s activity was at its peak around 9 p.m. as even more Twitter users commented on seeing the video on their Facebook timelines, Buzzfeed reports.

“Theres a legitimate child porn video circulating Facebook!! nearly 4k liked & over 16k shares in under 7 hours…this world is sick fk,” a Twitter user commented.

It appears as though the child porn video was first posted on a Facebook page that had a large audience, which prompted the quick spread of the video throughout Facebook based on the Twitter comments, Buzzfeed notes. Later tweets even included screenshots of the video.

The Independent reports that Facebook responded to the situation and said in a statement, “We have zero tolerance for child pornography being uploaded onto Facebook and are extremely aggressive in preventing and removing child-exploitive content. ... We are pleased that this material was reported to us quickly enabling its swift removal.”

Gawker notes that despite the safeguards used by Facebook to monitor such activity, including firewalls and Microsoft’s PhotoDNA, an early warning system, the video was allowed to circulate for several hours despite the attention and numerous comments regarding the video’s illegal content.