A group of six whistleblowers have come forward with allegations of a cover-up of harm to children on Meta’s virtual reality devices and apps. They say the social media company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and offers a line of VR headsets and games, deleted or doctored internal safety research that showed children being exposed to grooming, sexual harassment and violence in its 3D realms.
“Meta knew that underage children were using its products, but figured, ‘Hey, kids drive engagement,’ and it was making them cash,” Jason Sattizahn, one of the whistleblowers who worked on the company’s VR research, said in a statement. “Meta has compromised their internal teams to manipulate research and straight-up erase data that they don’t like.”
Sattizahn and the other whistleblowers, all current or former Meta employees, have disclosed these findings and a trove of documents to Congress, according to the Washington Post, which first reported the allegations. Sattizahn and Cayce Savage, who was Meta’s lead researcher on youth user experience for VR, will appear before the US Senate judiciary subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law on Tuesday.
Dani Lever, a Meta spokesperson, said the company has approved 180 studies related to its VR Reality Labs since 2022, which include research on youth safety and wellbeing.
“These few examples are being stitched together to fit a predetermined and false narrative,” she said, adding that Meta has introduced features to its VR products to limit unwanted contact and supervision tools for parents.
The whistleblower allegations made public on Monday claim that on Meta’s VR products, the company could have done more to ensure children’s safety. The whistleblowers say company managers instructed staff to avoid research that might show evidence of child harm in virtual reality.
In one instance, a researcher was reportedly told to “swallow that ick”.
In another instance, a researcher was allegedly told to delete information from an interview they had conducted with a German family, according to the Washington Post. During that interview, a teenage boy told the researcher that his brother, who was under the age of 10, had “frequently encountered strangers” in Meta’s VR and that “adults had sexually propositioned his little brother”.
The allegations arise as a steady procession of former Meta employees have come forward to criticize the company for not doing enough to protect children from harm on its social media products. Lawmakers have also repeatedly grilled Meta executives for pushing content to youth that promotes bullying, drug abuse and self-harm.
At one congressional hearing in January 2024, Republican senator Josh Hawley prodded Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, into publicly apologizing.
“I’m sorry for everything you have all been through,” Zuckerberg said at the time. “No one should go through the things that your families have suffered, and this is why we invest so much and we are going to continue doing industry-wide efforts to make sure no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer.”
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Marsha Blackburn, a Republican senator from Tennessee, said the revelations about Meta’s VR products show Congress needs to pass legislation putting guardrails on social media companies.
“Instead of heeding serious concerns about widespread child harm on their platforms, Meta silenced employees who dared to come forward, buried egregious evidence, and shamelessly used innocent kids as pawns to line their pockets,” Blackburn said. “These whistleblowers should be commended for having the courage to expose Meta’s disgusting web of lies.”
The six whistleblowers are represented by the legal non-profit Whistleblower Aid. They are scheduled to testify before the subcommittee on Tuesday.
The current and former Meta employees have also filed a detailed disclosure to Congress, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.
