Meta suppressed children’s safety research, four whistleblowers claim | TechCrunch

According to a family Report From The Washington Post.

According to them, the Yuan six weeks are six weeks after the whistleblower Frances Haugen Leaked internal documents show that Meta’s own research has found how Instagram harms the mental health of teenagers. These revelations were made public in 2021, and held many years of hearings on the safety of children on the Internet, and the question is Still a hot topic In today’s global government.

As part of these policy changes, Meta proposes two approaches where researchers can limit the risk of conducting sensitive research, the report said. One suggestion is to gradually incorporate lawyers into their research to protect their communication from “adverse parties” of lawyer-client privileges. Researchers can also write their findings more vaguely, avoiding terms such as “non-compliant” or “illegal.”

Jason Sattizahn, a former Monsoon researcher specializing in virtual reality, told The Washington Post that his boss deleted a recording of his interview in which a teenager claimed his 10-year-old brother had sex propositions on Meta’s VR platform, Horizon World.

A Metal spokesman told TechCrunch: “Global privacy regulations clearly show that information collected by minors under 13 years of age must be deleted without the consent of a verifiable parent or guardian.”

But the whistleblower claims that the documents they submitted to Congress show a pattern that discourages employees from discussing and studying their concerns about how children under the age of 13 use Meta social virtual reality apps.

“These examples are stitched together to fit reservations and false narratives; in fact, since early 2022, Meta has approved nearly 180 social issues related to reality labs, including youth safety and well-being,” Meta told TechCrunch.

Kelly Stonelake, a former employee of a fifteen-year-old former employee, raised similar concerns about the four whistleblowers in the lawsuit filed in February. she Tell TechCrunch Earlier this year, she led the “Going Market” strategy to bring the Horizon World to teenagers, international markets and mobile users, but she doesn’t think the app has enough ways to exclude users from under 13 years of age; she also marked the app’s lasting problems with racism.

“The leadership team knew that in one test it took an average of 34 seconds to enter the platform, and then included “N-word” and “monkey” before the black avatar user was called racial slander,” the lawsuit said.

Stonelake sued Monkey for alleged sexual harassment and gender discrimination respectively.

While the allegations from these whistleblowers focus on Meta’s VR products, the company also faces criticism of how other products, such as AI chatbots, can affect minors. Reuters Report Last month, Meta’s AI rules previously allowed chatbots to have “romantic or emotional” conversations with children.