Whistleblowers allege Meta has suppressed research on risks for young children involving virtual reality devices and apps, including information about child predators, according to a new report from the Washington Post.
The newspaper reports that Congress has received thousands of pages of documents related to Meta’s virtual reality programs, with four researchers coming forward to discuss their experiences with the company. Two of the researchers currently work for Meta, and two are former employees.
In one of the most shocking claims, a researcher at Meta was allegedly told to delete information gathered from an interview with a family in Germany. A child in the family “frequently encountered strangers,” and a teenage boy reportedly told researchers that “adults had sexually propositioned his little brother.” His little brother was under the age of 10, according to the Post.
The Washington Post reports that an internal Meta report on the research noted that German parents and teens were worried about grooming via VR in Horizon Worlds, but the report didn’t include anything about the teen who said that his young brother had actually been targeted. But Meta denies the characterization that anything improper happened while it conducted research.
“These few examples are being stitched together to fit a predetermined and false narrative; in reality since the start of 2022, Meta has approved nearly 180 Reality Labs-related studies on social issues, including youth safety and well-being,” a Meta spokesperson told Gizmodo over email. Reality Labs is Meta’s VR division.
“This research has contributed to significant product updates such as new supervision tools for parents to see who their teens are connected with in VR, how much time they spend, and the apps they access. We have also introduced automatic protections for teens to limit unwanted contact, like default voice channel settings in Horizon Worlds so individuals can hear or be heard only from people they know as well as personal boundaries,” the statement continued.
“We stand by our research team’s excellent work and are dismayed by these mischaracterizations of the team’s efforts.”
The allegations come as the tech giant is getting heat about a series of articles by Reuters reporter Jeff Horwitz detailing a set of policies that appear tremendously lax when it comes to how AI chatbots interact with children.
An internal document from Meta gave the green light for its generative AI chatbots to engage in “sensual” conversations with children, according to Reuters. The report prompted outrage on Capitol Hill, where Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, said last month he had launched an investigation into Meta’s AI policies and how the technology may be interacting with kids.
“Is there anything – ANYTHING – Big Tech won’t do for a quick buck?” Hawley tweeted on Aug. 15. “Now we learn Meta’s chatbots were programmed to carry on explicit and ‘sensual’ talk with 8-year-olds. It’s sick. I’m launching a full investigation to get answers. Big Tech: Leave our kids alone.”
Meta, which changed the name of its parent company from Facebook in 2021, has spent billions of dollars over recent years in an effort to make the metaverse a mainstream reality. Facebook first made a big investment in VR in 2014, buying Oculus. But it’s still an incredibly niche offering that most people ignore. Reality Labs has reportedly lost $60 billion, according to the Post.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Tuesday afternoon that will explore the allegations made by the whistleblowers. The title of the hearing: “Hidden Harms: Examining Whistleblower Allegations that Meta Buried Child Safety Research.”
News also broke Monday that the former head of security for WhatsApp, which is also owned by Meta, had filed a lawsuit in California that employees at the company “could gain access to sensitive user data including profile pictures, location, group memberships and contact lists.” Big companies get sued all the time. But, needless to say, Meta is getting it from all angles right now when it comes to whistleblowers who are concerned about privacy and security.
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