Ammon News - Meta executives proceeded with a plan to encrypt the messaging services connected to its Facebook and Instagram apps despite internal warnings that it would hinder the social media giant’s ability to flag child-exploitation cases to law enforcement, according to internal company documents filed in a New Mexico state court case.

“We are about to do a bad thing as a company. This is so irresponsible,” wrote Monika Bickert, Meta’s head of content policy, in one internal chat exchange dated March 2019 as CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s public announcement of the plan was being prepared.
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The filing, which was made public on Friday but not previously reported, contains emails, messages and briefing documents obtained in discovery for a lawsuit brought by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez that shed new light on what the company assessed the impact of the plan would be and how senior policy and safety executives viewed it at the time.

Torrez alleges Meta allowed predators unfettered access to underage users and connected them with victims, often leading to real-world abuse and human trafficking. A trial began this month and is the first case of its kind against Meta to reach a jury.

The information comes as Meta is facing a wave of litigation and regulatory threats globally linked to the welfare of young users on its platforms.

In addition to New Mexico’s lawsuit – which focuses on the company’s alleged failure to address child predation – a coalition of more than 40 attorneys general are pursuing claims that the company’s products broadly harm youth mental health.

Some school districts are also suing the company, while Zuckerberg testified last week in yet another case brought by attorneys representing a teenager allegedly harmed by its products in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

The latest filing in the New Mexico case specifically accuses Meta of misrepresenting the safety of its plan to implement default end-to-end encryption on its Facebook-connected Messenger service, which it first announced in 2019 and later expanded to include Instagram direct messages.

Reuters