New Mexico Sues Meta and Zuckerberg Over Child Sexual Abuse Content

Lawsuit alleges Facebook and Instagram are 'prime locations' for sexual predators, seeks implementation of effective age verification and improved detection systems.

New Mexico's Attorney General Raúl Torrez has filed a civil lawsuit against Meta Platforms and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, alleging that Facebook and Instagram have become 'prime locations' for sexual predators to share child sexual abuse, solicitation, and trafficking content.
The lawsuit follows an undercover investigation that revealed multiple instances of sexually explicit content being served to minors, child sexual coercion, and the sale of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
The suit alleges that 'certain child exploitative content' is ten times 'more prevalent' on Facebook and Instagram than on pornography site PornHub and the adult content platform OnlyFans.
Meta's algorithms allegedly promote sex and exploitation content to users and lack 'effective' age verification. The company is also accused of failing to identify child sexual exploitation 'networks' and to fully prevent users it had suspended for those violations from rejoining the platform using new accounts.
New Mexico is seeking civil penalties and is asking Meta to implement an effective age verification system, as well as improve its detection and removal system for CSAM.