Meta Covered Up Potential Child Harms, Whistleblowers Claim

WORLDWIDE – Two former Meta safety researchers told a U.S. Senate Committee that the social media giant covered up potential harms to children stemming from its virtual reality products.

The hearing comes a day after the Washington Post reported the whistleblowers’ allegations that Meta lawyers intervened to shape internal research that could have flagged risks.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp, denies the allegations and in a statement referred to the “claims at the heart” of the hearing as “nonsense.”

The whistleblowers, who once lead research on the youth user experience for Meta’s VR platforms, told senators that the company demanded researchers erase evidence of sexual abuse risk on those products.

They also alleged the company told in-house researchers to avoid work that could produce evidence of harm from its VR products to children.