100,000 children sexually harassed on Meta every day. Here’s what you need to know  

Social media platforms continue to be a cesspool. Around 100,000 children are being sexually harassed every day on Meta according to the company’s own internal documents. The allegations come as Meta and Mark Zuckerberg face a lawsuit from the New Mexico attorney-general’s office. “Our investigation into Meta’s social media platforms demonstrates that they are not safe spaces for children but rather prime locations for predators to trade child pornography and solicit minors for sex,” Attorney-General Raul Torrez said last month. But what do we know about the case? And what is Meta doing to stop the harassment? Let’s take a closer look: What do we know about the case? As per CNBC, the legal filing alleges that the company in 2021 estimated that around 100,000 children were being sexually harassed including  receiving pictures of adult genitalia every day on Facebook and Instagram. The civil lawsuit was filed in December 2023 by the New Mexico attorney-general after an undercover online investigation by The Guardian. Investigators in New Mexico created decoy accounts of children 14 years and younger that Torrez’s office said were served sexually explicit images even when the child expressed no interest in them. State prosecutors claim that Meta let dozens of adults find, contact and encourage children to provide sexually explicit and pornographic images. The accounts also received recommendations to join unmoderated Facebook groups devoted to facilitating commercial sex, investigators said, adding that Meta also let its users find, share, and sell “an enormous volume of child pornography.” The suit alleges Meta “harms children and teenagers through the addictive design of its platform, degrading users’ mental health, their sense of self-worth, and their physical safety.” As per The Guardian, the plaint is based on internal communication between Meta staff and presentations by company employees. C_NBC_ reported that this includes a 2020 internal company chat wherein an employee asked: What specifically are we doing for child grooming (something I just heard about that is happening a lot on TikTok)?”

“Somewhere between zero and negligible,” the colleague responded. “Child safety is an explicit non-goal this half.”

As per The Guardian, the documents showed how the 12-year-old daughter of an Apple executive was solicited on Instagram. “This is the kind of thing that pisses Apple off to the extent of threatening to remove us from the App store,” another employee told colleagues as per CNBC. The same employee enquired when “we’ll stop adults from messaging minors on (Instagram) Direct.” [caption id=“attachment_13233402” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] The suit alleges Meta “harms children and teenagers through the addictive design of its platform, degrading users’ mental health, their sense of self-worth, and their physical safety.”[/caption] As per The Guardian, a senior Meta employee told Congress that his daughter was solicited via Instagram. He claimed his efforts to solve the issue were ignored. The newspaper quoted an internal presentation on child safety referenced in the complaint as saying that Meta is “underinvested in minor sexualization on IG, notable on sexualised comments on content posted by minors. Not only is this a terrible experience for creators and bystanders, it’s also a vector for bad actors to identify and connect with one another.” The Wall Street Journal noted that one document showed Meta employees flagging a recommendation algorithm named “People You May Know.” According to employees, the programme, internally called PYMK, would connect children with potential predators. A Facebook employee wrote that the programme had “contributed up to 75 per cent of all inappropriate adult-minor contact." “How on earth have we not just turned off PYMK between adults and children?" another employee asked in response. “It’s really, really upsetting." Employees claimed to have alerted executives to the issue and recommended changing the algorithm – which was rejected. The newspaper claimed a November 2020 presentation entitled “Child Safety: State of Play" noted that Instagram had “minimal child safety protections." It described policies regarding “minor sexualisation" as “immature." It also noted a “minimal focus" on trafficking. The lawsuit claims Meta leadership didn’t take steps to stop adults from soliciting children until the end of 2022 – and did not put into action restrictions of messaging that the safety team had advised.

The company only tried to block suggestions to only those adults who previously demonstrated ‘suspicious behaviour’ toward kids.

“Mr Zuckerberg and other Meta executives are aware of the serious harm their products can pose to young users, and yet they have failed to make sufficient changes to their platforms that would prevent the sexual exploitation of children,” Torrez said, accusing Meta’s executives of prioritizing “engagement and ad revenue over the safety of the most vulnerable members of our society.” The claims echo a lawsuit filed in late October by the attorneys general of 33 states, including California and New York, against Meta that alleges Instagram and Facebook include features deliberately designed to hook children, contributing to the youth mental health crisis and leading to depression, anxiety and eating disorders. New Mexico was not a party to that lawsuit. Children have long been an appealing demographic for brands that advertise on Facebook and Instagram, which hope to attract them as consumers at ages when they may be more impressionable and solidify brand loyalty. Meta has been locked in a fierce competition with TikTok for young users in the past few years, as their usage of Facebook - an app once dominant among teens - steadily shrinks. [caption id=“attachment_13290662” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] The documents showed that the 12-year-old daughter of an Apple executive was solicited on Instagram.[/caption] According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2023, 63 per cent and 59 per cent of US teens reported using TikTok and Instagram respectively, while just 33 per cent said they used Facebook. What is Meta saying? Meta has claimed the complaint mischaracterises its internal documents. CNBC quoted Meta as saying, “We want teens to have safe, age-appropriate experiences online, and we have over 30 tools to support them and their parents. We’ve spent a decade working on these issues and hiring people who have dedicated their careers to keeping young people safe and supported online. The complaint mischaracterises our work using selective quotes and cherry-picked documents.”

Meta also said it had taken “significant steps to prevent teens from experiencing unwanted contact, especially from adults,” as per The Guardian.

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The company in January said it would hide more content from teens on Instagram and Facebook after regulators around the globe pressed the social media giant to protect children from harmful content on its apps. All teens will now be placed into the most restrictive content control settings on the apps and additional search terms will be limited on Instagram, Meta said in a blogpost. The move will make it more difficult for teens to come across sensitive content such as suicide, self-harm and eating disorders when they use features like Search and Explore on Instagram, according to Meta. The company said the measures, expected to roll out over the coming weeks, would help deliver a more “age-appropriate” experience. Meta earlier said that it works hard to protect young users with a serious commitment of resources. “We use sophisticated technology, hire child safety experts, report content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and share information and tools with other companies and law enforcement, including state attorneys general, to help root out predators,” the company said. “In one month alone, we disabled more than half a million accounts for violating our child safety policies.” Company spokesman Andy Stone pointed to a company report detailing the millions of tips Facebook and Instagram sent to the National Center in the third quarter of 2023 — including 48,000 involving inappropriate interactions that could include an adult soliciting child sexual abuse material directly from a minor or attempting to meet with one in person. Critics including former employees have long complained that Meta’s largely automated content moderation systems are ill-equipped to identify and adequately eliminate abusive behavior on its platforms. In Europe, the European Commission has sought information on how Meta protects children from illegal and harmful content. With inputs from agencies