Ex-Meta exec says Instagram exposed his teenage daughter to dangerous predators in emotional testimony
The ex-Meta safety researcher has spoken out at a landmark trial in New Mexico
A former Meta executive has said that Instagram exposed his teenage daughter to dangerous predators in an emotional testimony.
The ex-Meta safety researcher has spoken out at a landmark trial in New Mexico where he revealed the harassment his teenage daughter faced.
Arturo Béjar shared that his 14-year-old daughter was sent sexually explicit images and messages propositioning her within days of first creating her Instagram account.
Béjar, who worked at Meta for over a decade, said: “I was with her when she created the account. I didn’t know that was going to bring predators to her door, people who attacked her to her door, people who would ask her to sell nude photos of herself when she was a teenager to her door.”
Advert
The former employee of Mark Zuckerberg has since been a witness for state attorneys in New Mexico who are arguing that Meta is not doing enough to combat predators targeting minors.
Béjar continued: “When my daughter got a message saying ‘do you want to have sex tonight?’. First message she gets from a stranger, there was no option [to report it].”
As reported by the New York Post, a spokesperson for Meta said: “We’ve spent years doing research to better understand teens’ experiences on Instagram - both good and bad.
“We do this research to help us improve, and it’s informed many new features designed to provide safer, more positive experiences for teens.
“These range from Teen Accounts, which automatically place teens into private accounts and the strictest message settings, the development of parental supervision tools, and easier ways for teens to report and block.”
The trial is expected to continue for several weeks in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after it was brought forward by Attorney General Raúl Torrez and accuses Meta of violating New Mexico’s consumer protection laws.
While one survey conducted internally at Meta reported that 16.3% of users shared seeing nudity of sexual activity on the social media app over the course of a week, Meta published findings from its Community Standards Enforcement Report which detailed that just 0.02% to 0.03% of total views on the app reported nudity or sexual activity.
Speaking on the report, Meta claimed that the data outlines ‘the content we don’t allow on the platform and has been informed by experts over many years. These policies need to be precise to help us enforce them accurately and consistently at scale’.