When future historians look back at all the reasons why the American empire failed in such a spectacular fashion, they’ll probably have to devote several chapters to the rise of social media in the early 21st century. A total of 34 states have now sued Facebook/Meta and Instagram for grooming children. New Mexico was the latest state to file suit last week. The New Mexico Attorney General is alleging that Facebook and Instagram steered children under 14 to explore careers in prostitution. And that’s not even the worst accusation that the state is leveling against the company.
New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez has accused Meta Platforms Inc., which owns Instagram and Facebook/Meta, of promoting sexual content to minors. The state also accuses the platforms of promoting children’s accounts on the platform to pedophiles, so they can send private instant messages to kids.
The suit states that Meta is in violation of the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act, which bans “unfair or deceptive trade practices and unconscionable trade practices.” AG Torres wants Meta to reimburse New Mexico for the costs of its investigation and to pay a fine for each instance in which it has broken state law.
“Our investigation into Meta’s social media platforms demonstrates that they are not safe spaces for children but rather prime locations for predators to trade child pornography and solicit minors for sex,” said Torres when he announced the suit.
These are just a few of the things that the New Mexico Attorney General’s office found that Facebook and Instagram are doing during its investigation.
The sites proactively direct children to accounts that contain egregious hardcore pornography, even when the child has never expressed any interest in such content. Facebook and Instagram are also accused of allowing dozens of pedophiles to locate, directly contact, and pressure children into making pornographic videos or images of themselves to provide to the perverts.
The investigation found that Facebook encourages children to join unmoderated Facebook groups that are dedicated solely to prostitution and other sex work. The investigation also found that Facebook and Instagram make it easy to find, share, and distribute child pornography. This aligns with what a major New York Times investigation found earlier this year and is a big part of the reason why 33 other states are suing Facebook and Instagram.
Torrez’s team of investigators also created a fictitious mother of a 13-year-old girl and then had no trouble pretending to sell the child to sex traffickers. The mother was also able to create a commercial page on Facebook, in which the fictional 13-year-old offered to share revenue from advertising her videos.
In response to the lawsuit, Meta stated that it takes child sex abuse very seriously. Of course, it does. This is why New Mexico was able to uncover all this with a cursory investigation, despite the fact that the New York Times first reported on it back in April. Meta will fix the problems any day now!
Here are two words that should prove to everyone that Facebook and Instagram are lying to the public:
Hunter Biden.
When social media companies actually want to suppress information and content in order for no one to be able to find it, they are able to do so swiftly and with a vengeance. When the Hunter Biden laptop became international news right before the 2020 election, you couldn’t learn anything about it on Facebook or Instagram. They took that seriously.
Child sex abuse and directing kids to join prostitution groups… well, that’s just too tough for them to crack down on, and it’s going to take some time.
