US state New Mexico’s Attorney General’s office has filed a civil lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, levelling serious accusations of creating a ‘marketplace for predators’ on its platforms. This legal action, the latest in a series of allegations against Meta, contends that these social media giants have become a breeding ground for predators, particularly targeting children.
The lawsuit, filed recently, raises concerns about Meta’s treatment of younger users and alleges that the company has inadequately protected children under 13 on its platforms. Moreover, it accuses Meta of deliberately aiming to increase advertising revenue by targeting vulnerable youngsters.
Notably, the legal action directly implicates Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, in exacerbating the risks faced by children on Instagram and Facebook. Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 31, alongside other tech executives, to address growing concerns about their platforms’ failure to safeguard children online.
The lawsuit follows an investigation led by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, revealing disturbing details. Undercover investigators posing as fictional children on Instagram and Facebook discovered that Meta’s algorithms allegedly immediately recommended adult sexual content to one of the test accounts, despite indicating they were underage. The lawsuit further contends that Meta failed to appropriately address inappropriate content flagged by the state’s test accounts.
This legal action from New Mexico adds to the mounting pressure on Meta over its platform’s safety protocols, especially concerning the protection of younger users against harmful content and predatory behaviour. It aligns with a previous complaint filed by 33 states in October, accusing Meta of developing technologies to attract and engage youth to drive profits. Additionally, it resonates with earlier reports by the Wall Street Journal in June, suggesting that Instagram had facilitated a network of accounts associated with paedophilia.
The lawsuit underscores the intensifying scrutiny faced by Meta, prompting a re-evaluation of its safety protocols and measures to protect younger users from potential harm on their platforms.
In a separate development, a Kenyan judge on Thursday found Meta was not in contempt of court for failing to pay dozens of content moderators that a contractor laid off.
Labour judge Mathews Nduma Nderi said Meta did not ‘deliberately and contemptuously’ breach a court order requiring it to pay the wages of hundreds of Facebook content moderators.
‘They did various things which they thought were lawful in trying to deal with their situation but we did not find that what they did amounted to contempt,’ Nderi said.
Earlier this year, 184 moderators sued Meta and two contractors after they said they lost their jobs with one of the firms, Sama, for organising a union.
The plaintiffs alleged they were then blacklisted from applying for the same roles at the second firm, Majorel, after Facebook changed contractors. Out-of-court settlement talks collapsed in October.
A Meta spokesman declined to comment. Sama and Majorel did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
Meta has previously responded to allegations of a poor working environment in Kenya by saying it requires partners to provide industry-leading conditions.
Sama has said it has always followed Kenyan law and provided mental health services to its employees. Majorel has said it does not comment on pending or active litigation.
Nderi accepted a request by the plaintiffs’ lawyer Merci Mutemi to be given 45 days to amend the contempt of court petition, and said that unless the matter was resolved out of court, the case would be given priority for the court to determine its merits.
British tech rights group Foxglove, which is supporting the plaintiffs, said it was eager to bring the case to trial.
‘We remain confident of our case overall, as we have prevailed on every substantive point so far,’ Foxglove director Martha Dark said in a statement to Reuters. ‘The most important ruling remains the one we won in June: Meta can no longer hide behind outsourcers to excuse the exploitation and abuse of its content moderators.’