Sens. Blackburn, Blumenthal say Meta failing to protect minors from explicit content

Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., are calling out Meta following a newspaper investigation that concluded the tech company is not doing enough to protect minors on its social media platforms.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal published last week, Meta’s AI-powered chatbots on Facebook and Instagram engaged in sexually-explicit conversations with social media users, including minors.

"Despite repeated warnings and apparent internal concerns, Meta has once again prioritized profit over the safety and well-being of children," the senators wrote in a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "Your company’s decision to loosen content guidelines to allow ‘romantic role-play,’ even for user-generated bots portraying minors, is deeply troubling.”

The artificial intelligence software could use the personas of celebrities such as John Cena, Kristen Bell and Judi Dench to have inappropriate conversations with users, no matter the age, the Journal also reported. Reporters, posing as teenage users across Meta’s platforms, interacted with various AI personas in their investigative reporting.

The programming also purportedly could cause the chatbots to also act out fantasies with underage children on Facebook and Instagram.

“This pattern of behavior underscores a disturbing trend: Meta consistently chooses growth and engagement metrics over the protection of its most vulnerable users," the senators wrote in their letter. "As the Senate sponsors of the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act, we have consistently advocated for stronger safeguards to protect children online."

Blumenthal and Blackburn requested that Meta cease the deployment of AI chatbots that have had sexual conversations with minors.

"Further, we request that you provide documentation … demonstrating the decision-making processes related to the development and oversight of these AI systems," Blumenthal and Blackburn wrote. "

In a statement responding to the allegations, Meta said its AI systems are “not designed” to engage in such conversations and that the WSJ’s testing involved “edge-case prompting” not reflective of typical user engagement. The company also stated it is currently undertaking a review of its moderation systems and implementing updated safeguards, according to ETEdgeInsights.com

Blackburn has previously urged Meta to take down black market groups on Facebook that have been used by illegal migrants to fraudulently sell access to delivery service accounts such as DoorDash and Grubhub.

“I write to express my concern at the reports that Meta has failed to remove black-market groups operating on Facebook wherein individuals buy and sell access to rideshare and delivery service accounts," Blackburn wrote in her letter.

She said on a recent John Solomon Reports podcast that these alleged actions by Meta undermine some of President Donald Trump's successes. 

"They are trying to thwart some of the good work that President Trump is doing on the illegal immigrant front, and they have allowed these pages to take place where you can have illegal aliens going in and renting the accounts of Uber Eats and DoorDash and home delivery services," she said. "We are trying to get Facebook to take these pages down."