Earlier tonight a fellow ChicagoNow blogger and friend of mine linked a video on Facebook and commented “(For the second time today) Jesus take the wheel.” I looked at the screen shot of the video and saw two girls dancing. Knowing my friend, I figured the video would be some sort of spoof or parody and would be hilarious, so I clicked on the 2:51 minute video that she shared from someone else’s Facebook page.

Let me be clear: The video I am about to describe does not belong to either my friend or to me. My friend linked it from her niece who received it from someone else. When I went back to the original source (not my friend or her niece), the video shows that it was uploaded on January 8, 2014, almost 5 months ago.

The video features loud music and two pre-pubescent girls dressed in matching shorts that would make Daisy Duke blush and what I think are the skimpiest “training bras” I’ve ever seen.

It starts out innocently enough with the girls strutting around and mugging for the camera, but by 0:27, the music features grunting noises and one of the girls is simulating male masturbation and then by 0:30 that girl is simulating oral sex while the second girl is simulating male masturbation.

At 0:43, the camera is giving the viewer a close-up of the first girl who licks her fingers and slides her hand from her mouth down to her crotch where she rubs herself and gyrates. The second girl then comes back into the shot, as the first girl moves to the back, and does the same thing the first girl has just done. There are also at least two adult sounding voices, separate from the one in the music, laughing and encouraging the girls to dance more.

By 0:56 the first girl is featured again and she’s now down on the ground humping the floor and simulating being penetrated from behind.

You get the idea. I’m not going to describe the rest of the 2:51 minute video to you. I don’t think you need me to do so. Just trust me, it gets worse.

Based on those 56 seconds, I quickly determined that this video is child pornography and should absolutely not be on Facebook. Even if the people featured in the video were over the age of 18, I would still find it offensive and consider it pornography.

I did what any rational person would do. I clicked “options” at the bottom of the video and chose “report video.” I reported that the video was sexually explicit and chose to report it to Facebook.

Meanwhile, a lively discussion was happening over on my friend’s Facebook wall about the video. All of her friends were outraged at what we all agreed was kiddie porn and couldn’t believe that it hadn’t been removed in the last 5 months. I can’t even repeat the four-letter words that were used to describe the person who would take and post such a video. We were all certain that Facebook would recognize it as inappropriate and remove the video and, hopefully, ban the user who posted the original video.

Boy were we naive. About an hour later, I received this message from Facebook.

What? Facebook says the video I describe above isn’t “nudity or pornography.” Although that’s not the category I chose because it wasn’t one of my options, I’m pretty sure it fits. I chose “sexually explicit content.” Even though I didn’t choose “nudity or pornography,” I would definitely say that what these children are doing qualifies as pornography, even if they are (more or less) clothed. Furthermore, I don’t know of any requirement stating that videos or pictures must be of naked people engaged in sexual acts to be considered pornographic.

I wondered what Facebook’s Community Standards allow. I was sure they would explain that although I think I’ve just seen child pornography that would make any pedophile the happiest person alive, it’s possible I was mistaken. I’ve never seen kiddie porn before, so I could have been wrong.

There it is. In black and white. Facebook is quite clear.

“Facebook has a strict policy against the sharing of pornographic content and any explicitly sexual content where a minor is involved.” (emphasis mine).

That is pretty straightforward. What I witnessed was absolutely 100% “explicitly sexual content where a minor is involved.” So why the fuck won’t Facebook remove the video?

In case you were wondering, the original video has 3 “likes,” 13 comments, and 44,344 shares. That’s right. These children simulating sex are being shared all over Facebook by more than 44,000 users. What. The. Fuck.

Interestingly, while all of this was happening, another friend of mine posted a note on Facebook stating that some very tasteful head shots she had taken earlier this week had been removed from Facebook tonight. I’ve seen the two pictures of her in question and neither one of them were sexually explicit in any way. One was just of her face and the second was of her face and you could see some of her cleavage, but she was fully covered and not doing anything that was in any way suggestive of sex or simulating sex. My friend looked awesome in the pictures. I’d go so far as to say that she looked sexy. But she absolutely did not look sexual, nor was she in any way pornographic.

So my question is this: Why does Facebook have a double standard when it comes to removing pictures and videos? What is it about seeing a little cleavage on a grown woman that is offensive while two pre-pubescent girls who should have no idea about sex are humping the ground while simulating anal penetration while being encouraged by adult voices is acceptable?

Does Facebook condone child pornography? Why won’t it remove this sexually exploitative video of two clearly underage children? I’d love to hear what Facebook has to say about this decision.

UPDATE 6/1 12:00 noon: It’s more than 13 hours after I first reported the video to Facebook and 9 hours since I first published this post. I’ve shared the post on my personal Facebook page, Little Merry Sunshine Facebook page, Pinterest, and Twitter multiple times and tagging Facebook each time. Other people I know and even people I don’t know have reported to me that they’ve shared my blog post (thank you!!!) and reported the video to Facebook, as well. What have we heard from Facebook? NOTHING and the video remains on Facebook.

A friend of a friend pointed out that the comments on the original post are in Portuguese and that he believes the video is from Brazil. I don’t think that has any bearing on whether or not it is child pornography and illegal. Facebook is clear that sexually explicit material involving children is a violation of their Community Standards. If they are staying silent and not removing the video because it’s from Brazil or some other country, then the answer to my original question is yes. Facebook condones child pornography.

I’m not optimistic about getting Facebook to take action because people have been reporting it as sexually explicit since January with no success.

I’ll keep you posted.

If you or a child you know is being exploited sexually, please immediately contact the National Child Abuse Hotline 24/7 at 800-422-4453.

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