RICHMOND, Va. (WAVY) — Attorney General Jason Miyares along with 26 other state attorneys general sent a letter to Meta demanding that Instagram prohibit child-modeling accounts.
“Meta’s negligence and lack of proper safeguards only aids and abets child exploitation,” said Attorney General Miyares. “Even after Meta employees alerted leadership that its algorithms promoted images of minors to users who had demonstrated pedophilic or predatory interests on its platforms, the company failed to take any real action or ban the monetization of underage accounts.”
The letter cited a recent Wall Street Journal article that reported Meta’s own staff alerted leadership that new paid subscription features on Facebook and Instagram were being misused by ‘parent-managed minor accounts’ to profit by providing ‘pin-up style photos of children’ to male subscribers who were ‘often overt about sexual interest’ in children.
Attorneys general of the following states also signed on to the letter: Arkansas, Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
To read the full letter click here.
