Experts say Amazon's encrypted messaging app Wickr Me is full of child sex abuse images and the company is not taking basic safety measures to prevent sharing
This NBC News report extends a decade-long pattern of anonymous and lightly moderated messaging apps becoming distribution channels for child sexual abuse material: Forbes flagged the same failure at Kik back in 2017, and Wired later mapped how predators organize across mainstream platforms in a global grooming network spanning Discord and Telegram.
Wickr carries a second, distinct liability: US record keepers and watchdogs had already warned months earlier that its auto-deletion feature lets agencies like CBP sidestep transparency rules, so the CSAM findings land on a product already under scrutiny for how little of what happens on it can be audited.
First-order effects
Amazon now owns a consumer messaging brand publicly branded by safety experts as lacking even basic anti-CSAM measures, putting its trust-and-safety operation under the same spotlight Meta faced when Instagram was found hosting an accused child-photo seller's accounts.
Second-order effects
Rival platforms and app-store gatekeepers get pulled into the same argument: the NYT livestreaming-app investigation already showed Apple and Google hosting apps advertising abuse, so pressure for pre-listing safety vetting spreads from individual apps to the storefronts that distribute them.
Third-order effects
If the Kik-to-Wickr arc repeats, the likely endpoint is regulatory mandates for safety-by-design in encrypted and ephemeral messaging — forcing providers to choose between client-side detection, age assurance, or legal exposure, with real consequences for how much privacy these products can promise.
The trend: Consumer messaging platforms built on anonymity, encryption, or auto-deletion are repeatedly becoming child-exploitation channels faster than their owners deploy safeguards, shifting the burden toward regulators and app stores.
NEW: Amazon has a major child porn problem on its encrypted chat app Wickr, and the tech giant isn't doing much to stop it. I combed through 72 child porn prosecutions involving Wickr from the last 5 years to understand the issue. https://www.nbcnews.com/...
So Amazon is willing and able to instantly start total surveillance of its internal messaging app for union activity but not of its external one for paedophilia, I see https://twitter.com/...
The problem is clear on other social platforms. On Reddit, daily posts appear in subreddits devoted to Wickr, soliciting child sex abuse material alongside Wickr handles. The problem is so bad, one community devoted to meth use banned Wickr screen names. https://www.nbcnews.com/.…
On Twitter, I found Wickr handles next to posts that appeared to be selling child porn. In this post “map” refers to ‘minor attracted person.’ “Aam” stands for ‘adult attracted minor.’ https://www.nbcnews.com/... https://twitter.com/...
NBC News reviewed court documents from 72 state and federal child sexual abuse or child pornography prosecutions where the defendant allegedly used Amazon's messenger app Wickr. Almost none of the criminal complaints reviewed note cooperation from Amazon https://www.nbcnews.com/.…
“Wickr ... self-reported only 15 instances of child sexual abuse imagery, despite experts and law enforcement saying there's clear use of the app by people trading such material online.” https://www.nbcnews.com/...
Child sexual abuse material is a problem on a lot of platforms. But as @BenjaminGoggin found, Wickr, a messaing app owned by Amazon, looks to be a destination for CSAM. And the app has not taken some of the steps that other encrypted apps have. https://www.nbcnews.com/...