At least 20,000 Facebook users found a child porn video in their news feeds this week, with one copy of the clip possibly originating from Oak Cliff, authorities said.
The FBI says the video is at least 7 years old and has been spread around the Internet off and on for years. The viral video has been posted on social media sites before this week, but the latest resurfacing led to new local law enforcement investigations across the world, including in Dallas, according to authorities.
The clip of an older man sexually abusing a young girl received at least 4,000 Facebook likes. Federal authorities have been searching for the abuser’s identity for years.
“This is a global issue,” said Michelle Collins with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “We’re getting inquiries from this all over the world.”
Sgt. Byron Fassett of the Dallas police child exploitation unit said they opened their investigation Wednesday morning when they received a call from Nevada. Someone in Las Vegas logged into Facebook and saw the video in the news feed. They reported it to Dallas police because the post’s location was listed as Oak Cliff, Texas, Fassett said.
The child exploitation unit found that the video was not documentation of recent abuse, but a “known video or image,” Fassett said, something police have seen before.
“It took the crisis out of the situation,” he said. “Our concern then was that people are trading child pornography. But we got calls overnight of more people seeing it on their news feeds.”
It seemed that each time a social media user commented on the clip, the video appeared in more places.
Authorities said they have received several complaints from social media users, asking what they can do to help.
“Don’t comment on it,” Fassett said. “That’s like adding gasoline to the fire.”
And don’t watch the video, Collins said. Instead, view the FBI’s Endangered Child Alert Program wanted list, where this particular video perpetrator’s description is listed.
h/t Dallas News
