Meta has been running dozens of paid advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads that contained AI-generated child sexual abuse material and sexually suggestive images of minors, according to research shared with WIRED. The adverts, active over the past nine months, were found by the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) and had been reviewed and approved by Meta before running, meaning the company profited from them. This marks the second time in recent weeks that paid ads linked to child sexual abuse material have surfaced on Meta's platforms, raising fresh questions about the effectiveness of its ad-vetting processes.

Researchers identified more than 50 image and video ads, some linking to "nudify" apps, published between November and early August and targeted at users in the US, UK and over a dozen European countries; some ads were aimed specifically at men. Examples included a video that used a child's photo before morphing it into explicit sexual content, and a static image of a young girl in a sexualised pose. While most ads reached only small numbers of accounts, one reportedly reached over 2,500 accounts across several European countries. TTP reported its findings to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Meta removed the ads after WIRED made contact, saying such exploitation is "horrific" and that it works to keep it off its platforms.