Meta researcher warns 500K kids ‘A DAY’ targeted by stalkers on Instagram, Facebook
A senior researcher at Meta has warned the company’s management that there could be up to 500,000 cases of online sexual exploitation a day on Facebook and Instagram, according to explosive documents that were sealed before the landmark trial.
Opening arguments begin Monday in New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez’s lawsuit in state court, accusing social media giant Mark Zuckerberg of exposing children to the “twin dangers of sexual exploitation and psychological harm” through threatening messages, “fraud” schemes and human trafficking.
The result, says the government, is a communication problem among young people that has led to anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide.
Before the trial, prosecutors cited an internal email in which Malia Andrus, who held a role related to the safety of children at Meta from August 2017 to October 2024, wrote that the events targeted “500k victims a DAY in the English market alone” with sexually inappropriate messages.
“We expect the reality to be much worse,” Andrus said in a June 2020 email, according to court records.
In another sad message, Andrus noted that the large user bases of Facebook and Instagram have effectively given attackers a tool to target children on a scale that was previously unimaginable.
“I just think, nowhere in human history can you have a private conversation with 1000 people,” he wrote. “I’m actually afraid of the consequences here.”
The New Mexico case is one of several legal battles Meta is facing this year – and will seek to shine a light on security irregularities that have drawn the attention of US lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Last week, a bellwether trial accusing Meta and Google-owned YouTube of fueling social media addiction among young users began in California, with hundreds of victims’ families and school districts as plaintiffs. Elsewhere, the FTC last month appealed its loss in a major antitrust lawsuit seeking Meta’s breakup.
Many of the trials accusing Meta of exposing children to harm are “a split screen version of Mark Zuckerberg’s nightmare,” according to Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, a watchdog group.
“These are the crimes of a generation; just as the world watches the courts hold Big Tobacco and Big Pharma accountable, we will see for the first time Big Tech executives like Zuck take action,” said Haworth. “The world is watching, the Meta reckoning is here, and the results are just beginning.”
The New Mexico case has received much attention in part because of the detailed information that emerged during the investigation into Meta’s practices.
Test accounts set up by federal investigators allegedly contained adult sex and communications from alleged child molesters, including “photos and videos of genitalia” and offers of six-figure payments to be included in the sex video, the lawsuit said.
In other emails detailed in pre-trial filings, Andrus allegedly ripped off age verification tools meant to block younger users on Instagram, warning they were easily duped.
“Our investigators gave feedback that almost every time they encountered an age liar in the IG (child safety case) the age prediction was incorrect (corresponding to the age they claimed to be),” Andrus wrote, according to court documents.
A Meta spokesperson said the internal discussions identified in the files took place as part of the company’s efforts to protect children.
“While New Mexico engages in sensational, unnecessary and disruptive conflicts, we are focused on demonstrating our commitment to supporting young people,” the statement said in a statement. “For more than a decade we have been listening to parents, working with experts and law enforcement, and doing extensive research to understand the most important issues.”
Andrus, who left Meta in 2024 and now works in OpenAI’s cybersecurity role, did not return a request for comment.
The state said Andrus has intimate knowledge of Meta’s handling of the online sexual harassment problem because he has worked extensively on internal investigations, including serving as a member of the “Groomers Taskforce, investigating adult child solicitors.”
“Ms. Andrus also commented on Meta’s failure to properly invest in child safety, the misleading nature of some of its publicly reported child safety metrics, and the immaturity (undisclosed) of Instagram’s child safety measures,” the state report said.
Before the trial, Meta’s lawyers tried to prevent any mention of several sensitive topics – including the company’s AI chatbots, research surveys detailing the harmful effects of its products on mental health and details of the undercover work carried out by New Mexico investigators to uncover cases of online sexual harassment.
Judge Biedscheid ultimately denied the requests during the trial.
Elsewhere, internal documents showed that Zuckerberg signed permission to allow children to use Meta’s AI chatbot friends even after security staff warned that they could not be used for romantic or sexual conversations. Reuters was the first to report on these documents.
Torrez criticized Zuckerberg before the trial. As The Post reported in December, he called Instagram’s implementation of a PG-13 rating system to protect children from illegal content “a dangerous promotional campaign that lulls parents into a false sense of security.”
Meta retaliated, accusing Torrez of making claims “full of errors and facts” and ignoring the company’s progress in improving childcare facilities.
