N.M. AG: Meta Facilitated Crimes Against Children

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed a civil lawsuit on Wednesday against Meta and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, alleging that Facebook and Instagram created "prime locations" for enabling child sexual abuse, solicitation, and trafficking.

The lawsuit results from an "undercover investigation" from the New Mexico Attorney General's Office. According to a press release from Torrez's office, the investigation gathered evidence that the platforms:

• "Proactively served and directed the underage users a stream of egregious, sexually explicit images — even when the child has expressed no interest in this content."
• "Enabled dozens of adults to find, contact, and press children into providing sexually explicit pictures of themselves or participate in pornographic videos."
• "Recommended that the children join unmoderated Facebook groups devoted to facilitating commercial sex."
• "Allowed Facebook and Instagram users to find, share, and sell an enormous volume of child pornography."
• "Allowed a fictitious mother to offer her 13-year-old daughter for sale to sex traffickers and to create a professional page to allow her daughter to share revenue from advertising."

Torrez's press release maintains that "certain child exploitative content" is 10 times "more prevalent" on Facebook and Instagram than on PornHub or OnlyFans.

In a statement obtained by CNBC, Meta said: "Child exploitation is a horrific crime and online predators are determined criminals."

A Meta spokesperson said the company has deployed "sophisticated technology," has hired "child safety experts," reported "content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children," and has shared "information and tools with other companies and law enforcement, including state attorneys general, to help root out predators."

This suit against Meta follows the collective legal action taken in October by 42 attorneys general. Those actions charged Facebook and Instagram with tailoring their platforms to target and addict children and teenagers.

In contrast, the New Mexico lawsuit accuses Meta and Zuckerberg of breaching the state's Unfair Practices Act. The lawsuit, comprising of four counts, asserts that Meta and Zuckerberg committed "unfair trade practices" by enabling the distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and facilitating minor trafficking, which compromised the welfare and safety of children in New Mexico.

Additionally, the lawsuit argues that Meta's algorithms purportedly encouraged the dissemination of sexual and exploitative content to users and that Facebook and Instagram lack "effective" age verification.

The lawsuit further contends that Meta did not effectively identify "networks" engaged in child sexual exploitation and failed to permanently exclude users previously suspended for such offenses from re-registering on the platforms.

But according to a Meta spokesperson, they state that "in one month alone, we disabled more than half a million accounts for violating our child safety policies."

Torrez, however, said "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."

New Mexico is pursuing civil penalties against Meta, demanding that the company introduce robust age-verifying measures, enhance its systems for detecting and eliminating CSAM, and address the supposed features that "amplify" CSAM.

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