Meta & Children's Online SafetyA New Mexico AG investigation found that Meta proactively served sexually explicit content to children and enabled CSAM trafficking networks
Specifically, with accounts clearly belonging to children, Meta has: • Proactively served and directed them to a stream of egregious, sexually explicit images through recommended users and posts – even where the child has expressed no interest in this content; • Enabled adults to find, message, and groom minors, soliciting them to sell pictures or participate in pornographic videos; • Fostered unmoderated user groups devoted to or facilitating CSEC; • Allowed users to search for, like, share, and sell a crushing volume of CSAM; and • Allowed, and failed to detect, a fictional mother offering her 13-year old for trafficking, and solicited the 13-year old to create her own professional page and sell advertising. "Investigators, for example, found and were recommended numerous CSAM or CSEC images and links on Meta's platforms, including Threads, Meta's version of Twitter." "Numerous Instagram accounts offering links to purchase or trade CSAM or CSEC, with directions to connect offline, typically through WhatsApp or Telegram (both platforms that are entirely encrypted and therefore cannot be monitored), for the transactions. A search for 'All New Kids Links Available' on Instagram, for example, yielded dozens of options for CSAM. Notably, 'cheese pizza,' with its shared initials, is known to be a proxy for child pornography." "The State's investigation was able to quickly identify and mapMAPMonthly Active PeopleCore Meta engagement metric counting distinct people active on a platform in a month. Paired with DAP in internal goal-setting; the MAP/DAP ratio is used as a measure of how frequently a monthly user returns.Full entry ↗ hundreds of Instagram users currently advertising the sale of CSAM, with roughly 450,000 followers between them. One of the largest accounts was subsequently removed from Instagram but, in response to a search for it, Instagram recommended an alternative account, which also sells CSAM." "Meta's platforms contain account after account with images and associated text depicting pornography, nudity, pedophilia, sexual assault, incest, and sexual fetishes. These accounts often consisted of immense social networks of individuals following and commenting on pornographic videos and images posted on the platforms." "Investigators found numerous posts and accounts on Instagram that depicted or promoted choking, slapping, tying up, engaging in sex with, and otherwise abusing little girls." "After viewing accounts that showed sexually suggestive pictures of girls, Instagram's algorithms directed investigators to other accounts with images of sexual intercourse and sexualized images of minors."
Unnamed employee, as quoted by plaintiffs