The lawsuit alleges Meta had a 17-strikes policy for sex trafficking posts.
By Catholics for Catholics
Meta, the mammoth company that owns social media giants like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Threads has allegedly had problems in taking swift action in suspending accounts engaged in “trafficking of humans for sex.”
According to USA Today, Vaishnavi Jayakumar, former head of safety and well-being for Instagram, testified that Meta did not have a concrete way for people to report child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on Instagram, according to federal court documents filed Friday, Nov. 21, in the Northern District of California.
“It was very surprising to me,” Jayakumar said, adding that she tried to raise this issue “multiple times,” but was told it would require too much work to build.
According to USA Today, Jayakumar’s apprehensions intensified when she learned of what she called the “17x” policy at Meta.
“That means that you could incur 16 violations for prostitution and sexual solicitation, and upon the 17th violation, your account would be suspended,” she said, according to the court documents. This “by any measure across the industry, is a very, very high strike threshold.”
According to Time Magazine, filed by plaintiffs in the Northern District of California, the brief contends that Meta was cognizant of grave harms on its platform and took part in a broad pattern of deceit to give a lower profile of risks to young users. According to the brief, Meta was mindful that millions of adult strangers were getting in touch with minors on its sites; that its products aggravated mental health issues in teens; and that content related to eating disorders, suicide, and child sexual abuse was regularly noticed, yet rarely removed.
According to the brief, the company did not disclose these troubles to the public or to Congress, and refused to implement safety fixes that could have protected young users.
“Meta has designed social media products and platforms that it is aware are addictive to kids, and they’re aware that those addictions lead to a whole host of serious mental health issues,” says Previn Warren, the co-lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case. “Like tobacco, this is a situation where there are dangerous products that were marketed to kids,” Warren adds. “They did it anyway, because more usage meant more profits for the company.”
Meta told USA TODAY on Saturday, Nov. 22, that the company now has a “one strike” policy and removes accounts at once if the company concludes a user violated its most severe policies against human exploitation and trafficking. The strike policy was launched in 2019, and over time, the number of violations required for discipline lowered, the company said.
The allegations against Meta come from the brief filed in an unprecedented multidistrict litigation. More than 1,800 plaintiffs—including children and parents, school districts, and state attorneys general—have banded together in a suit contending that the parent companies behind Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube “relentlessly pursued a strategy of growth at all costs, recklessly ignoring the impact of their products on children’s mental and physical health,” according to their master complaint. The newly unsealed allegations about Meta are just one small part of the sprawling suit.
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