US court case shines light on ‘child exploitation’ on Facebook, Instagram

An ongoing court case in the US has put the spotlight back on Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram – for allegedly failing to protect children from sexual predators on the social media platforms.

The case is ongoing in New Mexico, United States, concerning child abuse on Meta’s Facebook and Instagram apps.

Though the case dates back to December 2023, Meta’s rival X’s billionaire owner Elon Musk flagged the issue recently by resharing a post that showed a screenshot of a news item, ‘Meta documents show 100,000 kids sexually harassed daily on Facebook, Instagram’.

The case filed with the First Judicial District Court of the County of Santa Fe by New Mexico’s attorney general, Raul Torrez, against Meta as well as its founder Mark Zuckerberg calls the company’s social media platforms a “breeding ground” for predators who target children for human trafficking.

It claims Meta platforms enable the distribution of sexual images, grooming, and solicitation. “Teens and preteens can easily register for unrestricted accounts because of a lack of age verification. When they do, Meta directs harmful and inappropriate material at them. It allows unconnected adults to have unfettered access to them, which those adults use for grooming and solicitation,” it says.

Referring to unsealed legal filings, The Guardian reported in January Meta estimated about 100,000 children using Facebook and Instagram received online sexual harassment each day.

Zuckerberg’s social media platforms have repeatedly faced criticism for weak oversight of the content that may impact youth mental health and threaten child safety.

A former employee of Facebook, Arturo Bejar, told a US Senate subcommittee in November 2023 that Meta’s top executives, including Zuckerberg, ignored warnings for years about potential harm to teens on its platforms.

Separately, attorneys general from 33 US states filed a lawsuit against Meta in 2023, accusing the company of refusing to shut down the majority of accounts belonging to children under the age of 13 while collecting their personal information without their parents’ consent.

The latest case accuses Meta of failing to curb the sexual exploitation of children on its platforms while targeting the “age-based vulnerabilities” of children by adopting algorithms that are addictive to young users.

“Meta’s platforms are the social media equivalent of an addictive drug from which young users cannot break free. Meta knew that these design features fostered addiction, anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide among teens and preteens,” it said.

A Meta spokesperson denied in a statement that its platforms put children’s well-being at risk.

“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,” said Nkechi Nneji, adding that Meta removed hundreds of thousands of accounts, groups and devices for violating its child safety policies.