New Mexico has filed a civil lawsuit against Meta, accusing the company of creating a “marketplace for predators” on its platforms, Instagram and Facebook.
The lawsuit, filed by the state’s Attorney General’s office, alleges that Meta has allowed its platforms to become a breeding ground for predators targeting children.
According to the Wall Street Journal, this is the latest in a series of allegations against Meta regarding the treatment of younger users.
The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, asserts that Meta failed to implement adequate protections against children under the age of 13 using Facebook and Instagram.
Additionally, it claims that Meta deliberately targeted vulnerable children to boost advertising revenue.
The lawsuit directly implicates Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, for exacerbating risks to children on the company’s platforms.
Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 31, alongside other tech executives, addressing concerns about their platforms’ failure to protect children online.
The testimony is part of a broader examination of online safety, involving executives from X, formerly known as Google X, and TikTok.
The legal action stems from an investigation conducted by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, wherein investigators posed as fictional children on Instagram and Facebook with adult birth dates.
Despite the accounts indicating they were younger, Meta’s algorithms allegedly immediately recommended adult sexual content to one of the accounts posing as a 13-year-old girl named “Issa Bee.”
The lawsuit further claims that Meta failed to address inappropriate content flagged by the state’s test accounts.
This lawsuit follows a previous complaint filed by 33 states in October, alleging that Meta developed technologies to attract and engage youth to generate profits.
The Wall Street Journal’s previous reports in June suggested that Instagram facilitated a network of pedophilic accounts.
