{"id":311222,"date":"2025-11-24T18:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T18:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/311222\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T18:00:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T18:00:08","slug":"meta-had-a-17-strike-policy-for-sex-trafficking-former-safety-leader-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/311222\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta had a 17-strike policy for sex trafficking, former safety leader claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meta allegedly gave accounts engaged in the \u201ctrafficking of humans for sex\u201d 16 chances before suspending them, according to testimony from the company\u2019s former head of safety and well-being, Vaishnavi Jayakumar. The testimony \u2014 along with several other claims that Meta ignored problems if they increased engagement \u2014 surfaced in an unredacted court filing<\/a> related to a social media child safety lawsuit filed by school districts across the country<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means that you could incur 16 violations for prostitution and sexual solicitation, and upon the 17th violation, your account would be suspended,\u201d Jayakumar said during her deposition. She added that this \u201cis a very high strike threshold\u201d by \u201cany measure across the industry,\u201d according to the lawsuit. Internal documentation also \u201cconfirms\u201d this policy, lawyers claim.<\/p>\n

As reported by Time<\/a>, the unredacted filing reveals other disturbing accusations, including that Meta \u201cdid not have a specific way\u201d for Instagram users to report child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on the platform. When Jayakumar learned about this, she reportedly \u201craised this issue \u2018multiple times,\u2019 but was told that it would be too much work to build\u201d and to review reports.<\/p>\n

The filing reveals multiple instances in which Meta is accused of downplaying the harms of its platforms in favor of boosting engagement. In 2019, Meta considered making all teen accounts private by default in order to prevent them from receiving unwanted messages; however, the company allegedly rejected the idea after the growth team found it would \u201clikely smash engagement.\u201d Meta started putting teens on Instagram<\/a> into private accounts last year.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit also claims that while Meta researchers found that hiding likes on posts would make users \u201csignificantly less likely to feel worse about themselves,\u201d the company walked back these plans after finding it was \u201cpretty negative to FB metrics.\u201d Meta is similarly accused of reinstating beauty filters<\/a> in 2020, even after finding that they were \u201cactively encouraging young girls into body dysmorphia.\u201d Taking away the filters could have \u201cnegative growth impact, simply because any restriction is likely to reduce engagement if people go elsewhere,\u201d Meta said, the lawsuit alleges.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe strongly disagree with these allegations, which rely on cherry-picked quotes and misinformed opinions in an attempt to present a deliberately misleading picture,\u201d Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in an emailed statement to The Verge. \u201cThe full record will show that for over a decade, we have listened to parents, researched issues that matter most, and made real changes to protect teens \u2014 like introducing Teen Accounts with built-in protections and providing parents with controls to manage their teens\u2019 experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meta allegedly gave accounts engaged in the \u201ctrafficking of humans for sex\u201d 16 chances before suspending them, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,9746,1282,3,1343,108,172],"class_list":["post-311222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-law","tag-meta","tag-news","tag-policy","tag-social-media","tag-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}