Meta is now disregarding the fact that child predators are utilizing their social media platforms to endanger children with inappropriate material. A state court lawsuit claims, “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,” (Theverge.com). Patterns have been reoccurring over Facebook and Instagram, proving to promote materials of child and sexual abuse. Raúl Torrez, a New Mexico Attorney General claims that Meta is not promoting a safe environment for children with access to Instagram and Facebook. As well as continuing to “prioritize engagement and ad revenue over the safety of the most vulnerable members of our society,” (Theverge.com). Mr. Gaccione, a teacher at Ramapo High School states, “I think all social media companies need to do their absolute best to protect children in any way they can.” Considering that Meta is one of the highest-grossing companies in the world, this could be a potential detriment to the kids of our future.
“By their own reckoning, nearly 100,000 children a day receive sexually explicit material or are targeted for sexual harassment,” claims Torrez (Cnbc.com). Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta and Facebook was highly aware of the danger child predators could bring to the table when children are logged into social media. Chloe Moros, a student at Ramapo High School states, “Mark Zuckerberg should’ve taken immediate action once he found out, instead of pushing the problem off to the side.” Meta has easy accessibility (technology and resources) to prevent predators from engaging with children. However, the company chose not to intervene.
On top of the lawsuits regarding child predators, Meta is currently facing countless amounts of lawsuits regarding its harm to the mental health of children. Mark Zuckerberg and other CEOs of major social media platforms stand before the US in court to testify about their “failure to protect children online,” (Theverge.com). With social media being so easily accessible to all ages, all accounts are readily available for human traffickers to target minors. Meta is now taking action and has so far deleted over 500,000 accounts for violating community guidelines to protect children. Once Meta has gone under multiple lawsuits they decided to take action on the problems that have occurred across many types of social media (Myfloridalegal.com).
