Child pornography video shared 16,000 times on Facebook

A video of a young child being sexually abused was shared 16,000 times on Facebook and “liked” 4,000 times before it was removed, it emerged yesterday.

The child pornography made it on to thousands of people’s personal news feeds across the world late on Thursday night and in the early hours of Friday without explanation.

Facebook immediately removed the material once it became aware of the issue, but by that stage it was already circulating on other networks as people had taken screengrabs from the footage and posted censored versions to warn others of its existence.