Obscene content disguised as animated films

The page interface appears in the top search for “anime” on Facebook with hundreds of thousands of likes and followers (Screenshot).
“I thought my child was just watching Japanese cartoons like usual, but suddenly a sound rang out that shocked me,” Ms. Huong (Cau Giay, Hanoi ) recounted the incident that happened on her daughter’s first day of summer vacation.
Panicking, she checked and found that her child was watching a video recommended by Facebook, which contained seemingly harmless cartoon images but contained offensive content at the end. Even her daughter was confused, not expecting the movie to turn out like that.
Previously, Ms. Huong taught her children how to identify toxic fanpages through the page name or description. However, this time, both mother and child did not expect that a page with a name "innocent", not mentioning 18+, contained many deviant images and content.
“That page looked healthy, but when I looked at it, I realized it was full of toxic stuff. My child and I were too subjective,” she shared in dismay.

Pornographic content mixed into posts updating information about other anime series on a fanpage (Screenshot).
In fact, many fanpages do not post purely pornographic content but instead interweave offensive excerpts between information and images introducing regular cartoons, making it difficult for viewers – especially children – to recognize and be alert from the start.
When searching for the keyword “anime” on TikTok or Facebook, many suggested fanpages have eye-catching interfaces, fast-updating content, and a large number of interactions. At first, the posts seem healthy, posting information about popular anime series.
However, when scrolling deeper, viewers can easily come across videos cut from pornographic cartoons, with obscene dialogue and vulgar images hidden behind the entertaining anime shell.
Not only Ms. Huong, when parents are away from home and lack direct supervision, it is very difficult to control the amount of toxic content that is silently reaching children through social networks every day.
One click, hundreds of cool pictures revealed
Just typing the keyword “anime” on Facebook, users can receive a series of results that make many people frown and blush: images of cartoon characters dressed in revealing clothes, vulgar dialogue, ambiguous gestures, hidden behind the guise of entertainment for teenagers.
Duc Minh (17 years old, Hanoi), a Japanese animation lover, shared that he regularly follows anime fanpages to update new content.
“I usually watch short clips first to decide whether to watch the whole movie or not. But recently, I keep encountering ‘blind bags’ – videos that seem healthy but are actually cut from pornographic cartoons,” Minh said in frustration.

A cut from an erotic anime (Screenshot).
Each clip usually lasts less than 5 minutes, but offensive content is often cleverly inserted at the end of the video, to stimulate curiosity and keep viewers engaged for as long as possible.
Not stopping at videos, many fanpages also post vulgar images with provocative captions, mixed in with articles introducing popular anime. Worryingly, a large number of followers of these pages are minors, not yet capable of identifying and filtering harmful content.

Comments section under an article about porn anime on the Anime Sauce fanpage (Screenshot).
Under each video, a series of comments such as “ask for link”, “ask for source” appear densely, accompanied by obscene and offensive words no less than the main content. Each article and video like that becomes a toxic nest that spreads openly, easily reaching the eyes of children with just an unconscious swipe.
Sophisticated disguise, easy content scanning
The proliferation of offensive animated images and videos on users' news feeds is not only a result of search habits, but also a result of Facebook's content suggestion algorithm.
The platform continuously analyzes user behavior, from searches, view times, to post interactions, to determine interests and recommend similar content.
For example, when users follow an anime fanpage and interact regularly, Facebook will prioritize displaying more articles and videos related to anime, regardless of whether the content is healthy or offensive.
This mechanism becomes a double-edged sword: it helps users access their favorite content faster, but also unintentionally opens the way for harmful content to sneak in, mix in, and passively attack users, especially children and minors.

The image of a scantily clad character mixed in with a seemingly harmless fanpage makes it difficult for viewers to detect vulgar content early on (Photo: Minh Nhat).
Many fanpages intentionally mix regular anime content with pornographic hentai excerpts to attract interactions from followers. These pages are often named neutrally, without any 18+ signs, creating the perfect cover that makes it difficult for children to recognize and avoid at first.
As a result, children can be passively exposed to pornographic content without even knowing it, while parents cannot easily detect it by just glancing at the site's interface.
In principle, users can report violations of community standards for Facebook to review and handle. However, many fanpages have cleverly circumvented the law, not posting explicit sexual images but only inserting ambiguous excerpts and half-revealed images to bypass the platform's automatic censorship system.

Many fanpages use semi-covered images to avoid the platform "scanning" content that does not comply with community standards (Photo: Screenshot).
To lure viewers to access full pornographic content, many fanpages also include links to movie and story pages containing full offensive content. More dangerously, many of these are malicious links that can lead users to scam sites, online betting sites, and data-stealing software.
The most worrying thing is that children, who are not yet capable of awareness and self-protection, can accidentally or passively access obscene images, thereby causing cognitive deviation, behavioral disorders and leaving long-term, difficult-to-control psychological consequences.
Source: https://dantri.com.vn/cong-nghe/fanpage-hoat-hinh-tran-ngap-18-me-giat-minh-thay-thu-con-tre-xem-20250608173946882.htm
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