Tag: facebook

Ads Featuring Real Children’s Faces in Sexual AI Videos Persist on Meta’s Platforms

Researchers say more than 250 ads containing AI-generated child sexual abuse material have appeared on Meta’s platforms including Facebook and Instagram since early August, weeks after the company removed dozens of similar ads following reporting from Wired.

Wired reports that the nonprofit Tech Transparency Project says that in early August, Meta deleted roughly 53 ads across Facebook, Instagram and Threads that contained child sexual abuse material, telling the outlet at the time that most of the abusive ads predated the rollout of new AI tools designed to “better detect and block” harmful content. Now, the same watchdog group says ads containing sexual imagery of children are back, some of which are identical to those previously removed.

The problem didn’t stop there. Researchers say Meta has published more than 350 abusive video ads since the end of last year. Many link to so-called “nudification” apps tied to Chinese developers. Unlike the initial batch of 53 ads, the new ones used images of real children, not stock or generic photos.

One ad used an official photograph of a minor from a European royal family, transformed into a video depicting a graphic sex act. Researchers declined to name the royal in order to protect the victim.

“Researchers identified the real-world identities of four minors used in the ads,” according to TTP, whose director is Katie Paul. Three of the four are from the United States. One is a teenager who runs a social media influencer account on a Meta platform. Another is a teen influencer with a public account. The third is a stock photo model, a real person, labeled as “pre-teen” on stock photo websites.

The ads typically open with an innocuous photo of a preteen or teen girl (only one involved a boy), paired with text claiming the image is “not just a photo” and that “there are no restriction” on how it can be used. The videos morph the children’s faces into explicit sexual content, often depicting sex acts. Clicking the ads sends users to download AI face-swapping or video apps from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Many carry the tagline: “This is the AI that men actually use.”

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Meta Settlement Ignites Global “Child Safety” Digital ID Push

The ink on the multi-billion dollar settlement agreement that Meta struck with 47 US states, the District of Columbia and a number of US territories has barely had time to dry – and already, officials and campaigners in the US, the EU, the UK, and at the UN are using it to press for similar rules to be imposed elsewhere.

In the UK, Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said that Meta should apply the new rules in that country as well, while the government there has its own plans to ban social media for under-16s and impose nighttime curfews.

“We don’t want a situation where young people in America have got a higher rate of protection than young people in the UK,” he said.

The British plan is to ban social media for those under 16 by spring 2027, and impose nighttime curfews on older teenagers, the Independent is reporting. To enforce this, platforms will have to know whether a user is a child or an adult, stepping up the pressure on companies to introduce age checks.

In the EU, the Commission is also piling on the pressure on Meta to “export” the US deal.

“We expect adequate management of screen time, appropriate parental controls on these platforms,” said digital spokesperson Thomas Regnier. “It is now up to the company to propose these commitments within the European Union in order to also protect our children here.”

The official revealed that the Commission has already been in talks with Meta since the US agreement was announced, and that the goal is to give children in the EU “at least” the same protections as those in the US.

Meanwhile, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk is using the settlement to call for global protections for children from what he says is the harm caused by excessive social media use.

In the US, District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb, one of those behind the lawsuit that led to the settlement, said that Meta “will not be the last” company to be forced to agree to such terms.

His California counterpart, Rob Bonta, said that Meta is “not the only player in the industry” to have “visited enormous mental health harms on kids through their products and their designs,” and added, “others rightfully must be held accountable.”

The settlement contains financial incentives for states to bring similar cases against other companies. Snap, TikTok, and YouTube are mentioned by name in this context.

Not everyone is happy with the deal, however. Arturo Béjar, a former Meta employee who was a witness in the trial, said the protections are insufficient and that the product remains harmful.

“The limitations that are in the agreement are the equivalent of saying: ‘Well, you can smoke as many cigarettes as you can in two hours a day,'” he said. “It doesn’t make the cigarettes any safer.”

Meta responded by saying that Béjar is ignoring some of the other provisions of the settlement, such as non-algorithmic feed defaults and stronger parental controls.

“We have a huge raft of built-in protections,” a spokesperson said, and argued that teenagers also derive “substantial” benefits from using social media.

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Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Calls on YouTube and TikTok to Match Its Teen Safeguards

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta will pay $18 billion to settle a federal lawsuit accusing it of fueling a teen mental health crisis, but nearly a third of that sum depends on whether TikTok and YouTube agree to adopt the same safeguards. The social media giant is now directly calling on its largest competitors to follow Zuckerberg’s lead.

The settlement announced just days into a trial brought by a coalition of state attorneys general, resolves claims that Meta hooked children on its platforms and ignored the resulting harms, including anxiety, depression and suicide, to protect its profits. Meta will pay 70 percent of the total, about $12.7 billion, upfront. The remaining $5.3 billion only gets released if TikTok and Google’s YouTube together pay a matching $5.3 billion and adopt the same restrictions Meta is imposing on itself.

Those required changes include a one-hour daily usage limit for teens, a “night mode” that blocks access during bedtime hours, and age verification measures. Meta agreed to a two-hour daily limit for teens on Facebook and Instagram, which would drop to one hour if TikTok and YouTube fall in line. The night mode default would block teen access from midnight to 6:00 a.m. Most provisions in the settlement are set to last 10 years.

Meta is also banning filters for “cosmetic surgery and extreme makeup,” removing “Likes” and other reactions from teen posts by default, and strengthening parental oversight tools. The settlement leaves Meta’s recommendation algorithm, the system that decides what content teens see, untouched.

Meta published an open letter calling out its rivals directly, writing that “these protections will only be truly effective if we work with our peers — TikTok and YouTube — to put the same measures in place.” As of Wednesday afternoon, neither company had responded, despite multiple requests for comment. TikTok recently settled a separate, unrelated case with the DOJ for $400 million over children’s privacy.

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Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Agrees to $18 Billion Settlement with 29 States to End Teen Social Media Addiction Lawsuit

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta agreed to pay roughly $18 billion to settle a lawsuit brought by 29 states over allegations that Facebook and Instagram harmed children through addictive design.

NBC News reports that the settlement, which still needs a judge’s approval, came one day after Instagram chief Adam Mosseri testified in a California courtroom. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had also been expected to take the stand before the deal was reached.

In a statement, Meta said “the agreement includes a payment of approximately $18 billion, which can be used to fund youth online safety initiatives, among other state priorities.” The company said the deal is part of a broader agreement with 52 attorneys general nationwide, extending well beyond the 29 states that sued in California.

Meta did not concede wrongdoing. A court filing states the company “denies the allegations against it and that it has any liability to the Plaintiffs.”

Attorneys general from California, Colorado, Kentucky, New Jersey and other states had accused Meta of designing addictive products that harmed children and of violating federal privacy and consumer protection laws. Meta pushed back, arguing the states were cherry-picking features while ignoring safety tools it already offers, including teen accounts that default to private, time-limit reminders, parental supervision options, and restrictions on who can contact minors and what content they see.

Under the settlement, Meta will build in daily limits and nighttime blocks for teenage users. The court filing says the company “commits to establishing daily limits and blocks on nighttime use for teenage users.” Teen accounts on Facebook and Instagram will default to a combined two-hour daily use limit, and teens will need parental permission to turn that limit off.

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Meta Whistleblower Testifies Meta Took ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Approach to Child Safety

A former Meta safety engineer told a federal jury this week that company leaders repeatedly received warnings about harm to children on Facebook and Instagram and largely failed to act.

Quartz reports that Arturo Béjar, who worked as a safety engineer at Meta, testified that the company operated under what he described as a “don’t ask, don’t tell” philosophy toward child safety. He said internal studies showed children encountering harmful material at elevated rates, including recommendations that surfaced content from sexual predators and graphic violent images. Béjar said he brought these findings to Facebook and Instagram executives multiple times, and those conversations produced little meaningful change.

Béjar also testified that during his second stint at Meta, from 2019 to 2021, the company replaced the term “addiction” with “problematic use,” a framing he said did not meet the thresholds academic researchers use to define addiction. He said the metrics Meta made public gave a false picture of safety because they measured violations of content policies rather than actual harm experienced by users.

Béjar told the jury that in 2021 he emailed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg after Zuckerberg publicly stated that the company does not prioritize profit over safety. “I felt that he created a false and misleading impression of Facebook’s commitment to young people,” Béjar testified. He said he briefed Zuckerberg on product issues at least 100 times during his tenure at the company.

Béjar was the first witness called in the trial, which opened Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California, before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. The case was brought by 29 state attorneys general who allege Meta intentionally designed Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to minors, collected data on children under 13 without parental consent in violation of the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, and misled the public about platform safety. Opening arguments were delivered by lawyers representing California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey.

Meta attorney Paul Schmidt argued that the states had selectively quoted internal documents to build a misleading narrative. He pointed to the company’s safety measures, including parental controls, privacy defaults for teenage users, and reminders encouraging users to limit time on the app.

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Meta Faces Unprecedented Legal Reckoning Over Youth Mental Health As Massive Multistate Trial Begins

Meta Platforms is facing a critical juncture in its battle over youth online safety. Just weeks after suffering a massive legal defeat in New Mexico, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram is now defending itself in a California federal court against a bipartisan coalition of 29 states. The states say Meta deliberately designed its platforms to addict children and harvested their data in violation of federal law.

The California Showdown

A sweeping multistate trial opens Tuesday in Oakland, California, overseen by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. Attorneys for Colorado, California, New Jersey and Kentucky – leading a bipartisan group of 29 states – will deliver opening statements. Those four states’ claims about addictive design and deceptive marketing are what this trial tests, while all 29 states are involved over data-harvesting claims. 

Interestingly – the eight-person jury hearing the case won’t actually decide it. Rogers empaneled it in a purely advisory capacity, which is rare. The jurors will answer specific questions she selects, and she is free to disregard their findings entirely when she issues her ruling after the trial concludes in October, Reuters reports.

The states argue that features like infinite scroll were purposely engineered to keep young users hooked, that Meta misled the public about the safety of its platforms for adolescents, and that the company improperly collected and monetized children’s personal data in violation of federal law.

The financial exposure is the largest of any case Meta has faced. The company has warned that maximum statutory penalties could theoretically reach $1.4 trillion, while the attorneys general have indicated they may seek around $200 billion.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week found that 85 percent of Americans believe social media can be addictive for children.

Beyond money, the coalition wants nationwide structural changes: age restrictions, deletion of algorithms and AI models built with children’s data, elimination of infinite scroll and notifications, strict time limits for young users, and an algorithm retuned to prioritize well-being over engagement. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri are both expected to testify, alongside former employees and outside experts.

What Happened In New Mexico

The multistate trial arrives on the heels of a devastating legal blow in New Mexico. On Aug. 6, State Judge Bryan Biedscheid ruled that Meta had created a public nuisance and ordered the company to pay $567 million into a youth mental health fund, allocating $420 million to treatment, $90 million to screening and assessment, $33 million to prevention and awareness, and $15 million to referrals and care coordination over five years. The award followed a $375 million penalty a New Mexico jury imposed in March for violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act.

The award fell well short of New Mexico’s request. The state had sought $1 billion toward a $3.7 billion plan to expand children’s mental health services.

“The Court finds that the weight of the evidence presented demonstrates that Meta’s platforms are a cause of and substantial contributing factor to the youth mental health crisis in New Mexico.”

Biedscheid compared the platforms to a polluting factory, writing that the harms “do not stay contained” but migrate “to the real world” and burden families, schools, hospitals and law enforcement.

The order, a win for New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, also imposes five years of operational changes: monthly limits on teen use of Facebook and Instagram, restrictions on notifications, tighter controls on adult contact with minors, safeguards for AI chatbots, and enhanced review of child sexual abuse reports. Meta must file written progress reports twice a year. The template is now sitting in front of the 29-state coalition.

Meta’s Defense

Meta plans to appeal the New Mexico ruling and maintains that the attorneys general in the California trial are chasing an “outlandish payout” without proof of actual harm. “We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts,” the company said after the New Mexico decision.

The company argues it has invested heavily in creating a safe environment for teens, employing child safety experts and deploying technology to root out predators and harmful content. Company spokespeople have characterized the state lawsuits as an attempt to penalize Meta for industry-wide problems, such as the complexities of age verification.

The litigation traces back to 2021, when whistleblower Frances Haugen testified before the U.S. Senate and provided internal documents indicating Meta knew its platforms could harm young users but prioritized engagement over safety.

Meta is not alone. Alongside Snap, TikTok parent ByteDance and YouTube parent Alphabet, it faces more than 3,000 federal lawsuits consolidated before Rogers and another 3,300 pending in Los Angeles state court. Eight states, including Tennessee and Arkansas, opted out of the federal case and filed in their own courts. Tennessee’s trial is already underway.

Meta has told investors that legal and regulatory blowback over youth safety “could significantly impact our business and financial results.”

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States take Meta to trial in California in the biggest fight yet over social media harms to children

Of the thousands of lawsuits Meta faces over child safety on its platforms, none may be more consequential than one going to trial this week in California.

States are seeking extensive financial damages that could, in theory, total as much as $1.4 trillion, plus changes to how the company operates Facebook and Instagram.

The lawsuit accuses the social media giant of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features that get children addicted to its platforms. It also claims that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent, in violation of federal law.

“Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens. Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximize its financial gains,” the lawsuit says.

Dozens of states filed the lawsuit three years ago. The trial set to begin Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California, features four of the states as plaintiffs — California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey. The other 25 states are expected to have trials later.

Meta said it disputes the allegations, and the trial evidence will show its commitment to supporting young people. “We’ve listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most,” the company said in a statement.

States seek to land a major blow against Meta
For Meta, which already lost two pivotal cases over harms to children and teens this year, the stakes are high. The company reported a rare profit decline last month, in part due to $2.4 billion in legal expenses.

The $1.4 trillion figure, which Meta disclosed in a legal filing, is almost as high as the Menlo Park, California, company’s entire market capitalization — that is, the value of all its outstanding shares on the stock market. Paying it would inevitably put Meta Platforms in bankruptcy and perhaps put the company under state ownership.

“The state attorneys general are going for the gusto,” said Eric Goldman, a professor and co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law. “They are trying to set the definitive precedent in this case and they have asked for extraordinary damages and they are going to seek extraordinary structural remedies if they succeed.”

Meta calls the possible penalty “untethered to any claimed violation” by the states.

“A sanction of that size has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement,” Meta said in a July 6 filing with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

If Meta loses the trial, the court would have wide discretion over the size of any financial penalty, and legal experts say anything close to $1.4 trillion would be unlikely.

“It’s not plausible in the sense that Meta doesn’t have that much money and could not get it,” said James Grimmelmann, a law professor at Cornell Law School and Cornell Tech. “An award that large would put Meta into bankruptcy, wipe out its owners, and effectively result in the states owning Meta.”

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Meta Faces Criminal Complaint in Germany for Its AI-Glasses, Accused of Violating Privacy Laws

Who wants to be filmed all the time?

The struggle between new, useful tech gadgets and the objections that these new capabilities raise is a field expected to grow in the next few years, and make many lawyers very wealthy.

One such example is the Meta AI-Glasses.

In principle, it seems a great idea to pack so much computing power in a pair of glasses for our benefit.

But once you start to compute the legal and ethical objections that this gadget raises, it becomes a much less clear question.

Today (12), a German advocacy group took matters into their own hands, and filed a criminal complaint against Meta and other companies, ‘arguing the devices violate privacy laws’.

Reuters reported:

“Digital rights group HateAid said in a statement on Wednesday that the launch of the devices, the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer in particular, broke German digital privacy laws, in the latest sign of legal scrutiny in a nation where the right to privacy is highly valued.

‘There’s no place to escape from smart glasses. You have to expect at any moment to be filmed and then exposed on the internet’, said HateAid managing director Josephine Ballon.

The organization reported the management of Meta, units of spectacles maker EssilorLuxottica including Ray-Ban, as well as retailers Fielmann, Apollo-Optik, Mister Spex and MediaMarkt to the Frankfurt-based digital crime prosecution unit ZIT.”

The complaint is based on Germany’s federal digital data protection law, which prohibits the sale of communication devices designed to film people without them noticing.

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Zuckerberg manifesto sketches out Meta’s ambitions for world-changing AI technology

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out a vision Monday of what he said artificial intelligence can do for the world, imagining a future where everyone has their own, all-knowing AI agent that strives to improve all aspects of their lives.

Zuckerberg detailed his ambitions for the technology in a 6,500-word essay published online where he also outlined why he favors open-source AI technology, in which developers make key components accessible for anyone to examine, modify and build upon.

In a document derided by critics as fantastical, Zuckerberg said his company is working toward an era where everyone will have the tools to create new businesses, receive Ph.D.-level tutoring and provide personalized lifestyle tips. His 8-year-old daughter, he wrote, can already code her ideas and quickly produce videos.

“Everyone will soon have invention superpowers,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Zuckerberg warned of risks if control of advanced AI is concentrated with a select few companies, institutions or governments. On Monday, Meta also announced the release a new open-source AI model, Muse Glimmer, which can run on a personal computer, and Zuckerberg said the company would also would provide a way for developers to access a more powerful AI model, Muse Spark 1.2.

Meta makes AI models, like several other tech companies, and uses them to power platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. The Menlo Park, California, company also makes them available to developers who can create their own apps and features.

Skeptics urge a slower pace of AI development
Critics said Zuckerberg was not reckoning fully with the risks inherent in AI’s rapid development.

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Appeals Court Allows Thousands of Social Media Addiction Lawsuits Against Meta, TikTok, Google to Continue

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that more than 3,000 lawsuits accusing Meta, TikTok, Google, Snap and other tech companies of deliberately designing addictive platforms for young users can proceed.

Time reports that the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the thousands of lawsuits, filed by states, municipalities, school districts and individuals, can move forward in district court. The plaintiffs allege that addictive algorithms and insufficient safeguards against harmful content have contributed to rising rates of depression, anxiety and body image issues among young people.

The cases had been consolidated before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, who ruled in 2023 and 2024 that most of the litigation could proceed. Meta and TikTok appealed those orders, arguing they were shielded from liability under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996, a federal law that generally protects companies from being sued over content posted by users.

In a 24-page opinion, Judge Jacqueline Nguyen wrote that Section 230 provides a “defense to liability,” not blanket immunity from lawsuits. During oral arguments in January, Nguyen had signaled skepticism toward the companies’ position, saying, “When Congress wants to give immunity from suit, it knows how to say that.” Plaintiffs have argued that the law does not shield claims focused on how companies intentionally designed and operated their products.

The appeals court did not decide whether Section 230 bars those product-design claims, ruling instead that the appeal was premature because the trial court’s decision was not final. That question, which could shape other litigation against tech companies, remains unresolved. The lawsuits will continue in district court, where plaintiffs are seeking damages, civil penalties and restitution.

Separately, roughly 3,300 similar cases are being coordinated in California state court. In the first bellwether trial in March, a Los Angeles jury awarded $6 million to a 20-year-old woman who said she developed depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia after becoming addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child. The jury found Meta and Google negligent in designing their platforms and failing to warn of the risks. TikTok and Snap had settled with the plaintiff before trial. All companies have denied the allegations and filed appeals.

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