00:00Sextortion, human trafficking, and the exploitation of children.
00:04Those were the accusations leveled against Mark Zuckerberg's meta by prosecutors in New Mexico on Monday.
00:10The parent company of Facebook and Instagram is being sued by New Mexico's AG
00:15after allegedly knowingly exposing minors to harmful content while failing to fix obvious safety gaps.
00:22The jury trial got underway yesterday, and along with it, a trove of disturbing documents were unsealed.
00:28According to a top researcher from Meta, 500,000 children per day were reportedly being exploited on Facebook and Instagram,
00:38and prosecutors said that staggering number there, half a million, may only scratch the surface.
00:43Investigators deployed test accounts posing as young users,
00:47which they said were quickly bombarded with explicit material and disturbing images,
00:52while internal emails allegedly show age checks were easy to bypass.
00:56Now, with this landmark trial underway, Meta faces mounting pressure as lawmakers and parents demand accountability from big tech,
01:05and this case could set a precedent for how social media companies are held responsible for protecting minors,
01:10and whether internal red flags can be ignored without consequences.
01:15A statement from a Meta spokesperson said in part,
01:17For over a decade, we've listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement,
01:22and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most.
Comments