Meta researcher warned 500K kids per DAY targeted by creeps on Instagram, Facebook | Latest Tech News
A top Meta researcher warned the company’s executives that there may very well be as many as 500,000 circumstances of online inappropriate exploitation per day on Facebook and Instagram, according to explosive paperwork that have been unsealed on the eve of a landmark jury trial.
Opening arguments start Monday in New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez’s case in state court, which accuses Mark Zuckerberg’s social media giant of exposing kids to the “twin dangers of inappropriate exploitation and mental health harm” through creepy messages, “sextortion” schemes and human trafficking.
The end result, the state claims, is a teen social media disaster that has led to anxiety, depression, self-harm and growing suicides.
Mark Zuckerberg, chief government officer of Meta Platforms Inc., during the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, Calif., on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. Bloomberg via Getty Images
Ahead of the trial, the state’s attorneys cited an inner e mail in which Malia Andrus, who held youngster safety-related roles at Meta from August 2017 to October 2024, wrote that creeps targeted “~500k victims per DAY in English markets only” with inappropriately inappropriate messages.
“We expect the true situation is worse,” Andrus said in a June 2020 e mail, according to court data.
In another chilling message, Andrus famous that the large consumer bases of Facebook and Instagram have successfully handed predators a instrument to goal kids on a scale that was beforehand unimaginable.
“I just think, nowhere in the history of humanity could you have a secret conversation with 1000 people,” she wrote. “I’m actually scared of the ramifications here.”
New Mexico’s lawsuit is one of a number of legal battles that Meta faces this 12 months – and will search to shine a mild on security lapses that have caught the eye of US lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Last week, a bellwether trial accusing Meta and Google-owned YouTube of fueling social media habit in younger customers started in California, with a whole lot of victims’ households and college districts as plaintiffs. Elsewhere, the FTC last month appealed its loss in the major antitrust lawsuit looking for a breakup of Meta.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez discusses the nexus of public security, mental health and hostile youngster experiences during a news convention following a summit in Albuquerque, N.M., Nov. 3, 2023. AP
The a number of trials accusing Meta of exposing kids to hurt are a “split screen of Mark Zuckerberg nightmares,” according to Sacha Haworth, government director of the Tech Oversight Project, a watchdog group.
“These are the trials of a generation; just as the world watched courtrooms hold Big Tobacco and Big Pharma accountable, we will for the first time see Big Tech CEOs like Zuck take the stand,” said Haworth. “The world is watching, Meta’s reckoning has arrived, and the consequences have just begun.”
New Mexico’s case has been intently watched in half because of the garish particulars that arose during its probe of Meta’s practices.
Test accounts set up by state investigators have been allegedly bombarded with grownup intercourse content and outreach from alleged youngster predators, including “pictures and videos of genitalia” and an offer of a six-figure cost to star in a porn video, the lawsuit claims.
New Mexico’s Torrez has been essential of Instagram’s Teen Accounts function. Ascannio – stock.adobe.com
In other emails detailed in pretrial filings, Andrus allegedly ripped the age-verification instruments meant to keep underage customers off Instagram, warning that they have been simply fooled.
“Our investigators have given feedback that almost every time they encounter an age liar on IG (in a child safety context) the age prediction is incorrect (aligns with the age they falsely claim to be),” Andrus wrote, according to court paperwork.
A Meta spokesperson said the interior discussions cited in the filings came about as half of an lively effort by the company to defend kids.
“While New Mexico makes sensationalist, irrelevant and distracting arguments, we’re focused on demonstrating our longstanding commitment to supporting young people,” the spokesperson said in a assertion. “For over a decade, we’ve listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most.”
Andrus, who left Meta in 2024 and now works in an online security position for an OpenAI, didn’t return a request for remark.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during an event at the Biohub Imaging Institute in Redwood City, Calif., Nov. 5, 2025. AP
The state argued Andrus has deep data of Meta’s handling of the online intercourse abuse downside because she labored extensively on the interior research, including serving as a member a “Groomers Taskforce, which examined adult predators who solicited minors.”
“Ms. Andrus also commented on Meta’s failure to adequately invest in child safety, the misleading nature of some of its publicly reported child safety metrics, and the (undisclosed) immaturity of Instagram’s child safety measures,” the state’s submitting said.
Ahead of the trial, Meta’s attorneys tried to block any point out of a number of delicate topics – including the company’s AI chatbots, research surveys detailing the dangerous results of its merchandise on mental health and particulars of the bombshell undercover operation that New Mexico investigators carried out to reveal cases of online intercourse abuse.
Judge Biedscheid finally rejected the requests during pretrial hearings.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, arrives to testify before the US Senate Judiciary Committee listening to, “Big Tech and the Online Child intimacyual Exploitation Crisis,” in Washington, DC, on Jan. 31, 2024. AFP via Getty Images
Elsewhere, inner paperwork confirmed that Zuckerberg signed off on permitting minors to use Meta’s AI chatbot companions even after security staffers warned that they may very well be used for romantic or inappropriateized conversations. GWN was first to report on the paperwork.
Torrez has aggressively criticized Zuckerberg forward of the trial. As The Post reported in December, he called Instagram’s implementation of a PG-13 score system to protect kids from illicit content as a “dangerous promotional stunt that lulls parents into a false sense of security.”
Meta has fired back, accusing Torrez of making claims that are “littered with factual errors and misrepresentations” and ignoring the company’s progress in bettering guardrails for kids.
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