Several days ago I was flicking through my Instagram story feed and saw that some people that I follow had said to report an account that posts child pornography. I searched the account and was absolutely sickened to see that it was true. The bio confirmed that the account was ran by a paedophile. Although there were no longer any actual posts on the account, the account's icon clearly depicted three naked children.

Upon looking at who the account was following, without clicking on anymore accounts, it was clear that they were following very young children and other child paedophilia accounts. This was very distressing as only Instagram can know the people that the account has interacted with.

I reported the account (@foryou7871) and about an hour later I received a message from Instagram that read: "while we reviewed the account you reported for nudity or pornography and found it does not violate our Community Guidelines, reports like yours are an important part of making Instagram a safe and welcoming place for everyone."

This is absolutely sickening. Instagram checked the account and did not flag up the child pornography and the account was not investigated. Countless people also reported the account on Instagram and were given the exact same response. Since then the account has been reported to the IWF and NSPCC amongst many other organisations, and I believe that it has been reported to the police.

Myself and many others have tried getting through to Instagram more directly throughout the weekend, and have heard nothing at all from them. I believe the account still has not been taken down or investigated by Instagram, although the icon has been changed.

Over the weekend, I tweeted about this and my tweet garnered a lot of attention. It called out Instagram for not taking down content that clearly violates its guidelines despite numerous response. This is also more shocking in the wake of the impact of self harm images not being monitored by Instagram. I received many responses from people who have had very similar experiences with Instagram as of late, and it has become apparent that Instagram are not doing enough to tackle these vile accounts.

I am calling for Instagram to be held more accountable for the content that is allowed on its platform, and am hoping for a proper investigation regarding that disgusting account.