"Sex trafficking on Meta platforms was both difficult to report and widely tolerated, according to a court filing unsealed Friday. In a plaintiffs’ brief filed as part of a major lawsuit against four social media companies, Instagram’s former head of safety and well-being Vaishnavi Jayakumar testified that when she joined Meta in 2020 she was shocked to learn that the company had a “17x” strike policy for accounts that reportedly engaged in the “trafficking of humans for sex.”
“You could incur 16 violations for prostitution and sexual solicitation, and upon the 17th violation, your account would be suspended,” Jayakumar reportedly testified, adding that “by any measure across the industry, [it was] a very, very high strike threshold.” The plaintiffs claim that this testimony is corroborated by internal company documentation.
The brief, filed by plaintiffs in the Northern District of California, alleges that Meta was aware of serious harms on its platform and engaged in a broad pattern of deceit to downplay risks to young users. According to the brief, Meta was aware that millions of adult strangers were contacting minors on its sites; that its products exacerbated mental health issues in teens; and that content related to eating disorders, suicide, and child sexual abuse was frequently detected, yet rarely removed. According to the brief, the company failed to disclose these harms 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."
https://time.com/7336204/meta-lawsuit-files-child-safety/
#SocialMedia #Meta #Instagram #Facebook #ChildSafety #SexTrafficking #BigTech
![LEFT HOOK 11/18/25
TRUMP PARDONS THE WORST
When he [Trump] isn't fawning over authoritarians, Trump spends his time
covering for sex traffickers and pedophiles. ProPublica revealed the Trump
White House intervened in the federal investigation of alleged sex
trafficker and misogynist Andrew Tate, who was also welcomed with open
arms by MAGA when he visited America with his brother. Ghislaine Maxwell
still sits comfortably in a minimum security camp where she's being
pampered and allegedly looking for a commutation of her sentence. Trump
refuses to rule out a pardon for the woman who trafficked and abused
children with Epstein, who said he was Trump's closest friends.
Speaking of pardons, Trump has already released 1,600 insurrectionists,
some of them who have since committed heinous crimes. He also
pardoned his business partner, CZ, who helped him and his family amass
$5 billion, and he's pardoned George Santos, a serial con man who
defrauded his own supporters. Birds of a corrupt feather, fraud and crime
together.](https://files.mastodon.social/cache/media_attachments/files/115/576/777/837/819/967/original/e2c2393e839d6296.jpeg)
