Meta engineering manager caught sexting teen
Suspect helped build “digital experiences for kids” at Meta.
Image by Cybernews
- A Meta engineer was arrested after a vigilante group accused him of sexting someone posing as a 13-year-old girl.
- Josh Felker, 44, pleaded not guilty to charges involving indecent material to minors and child endangerment.
- Predator Poachers Long Island said Felker sent explicit content and tried to arrange meetings during an almost two-month exchange.
- Meta put Felker on leave; his reported role on children’s digital experiences raises concerns about child safety oversight.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
A Meta engineer was arrested and charged after a vigilante group caught him trying to sext a 13-year-old girl.
The group, called Predator Poachers Long Island (PPLI), confronted Josh Felker, a 44-year-old Meta employee, near his Manhattan apartment last week, according to the New York Post.
One of the group members, Mike Villani, challenged Felker about alleged interactions between the Meta employee and the teen.
The poaching group, which isn’t a legal entity, created decoy accounts for the teen and one posing as the teen’s grandma to trap Felker.
While Felker was reluctant to talk at first, he ended up sitting down with Villani to discuss his crimes.
Villani told the New York Post that the Meta employee sent sexually explicit images and videos to someone he thought was a child, encouraging her to do the same.
While casually chatting about his crimes, Felker said that he doesn’t want this situation to “blow up his marriage” despite acknowledging that he sent the teen videos of himself masturbating.
Felker is married with a young child.
During the almost 2-month “relationship,” Felker sent the teen sexual messages and attempted to arrange meet-ups.
The engineer said he didn’t know how to get out of the situation once he allegedly learned that the child wasn’t 18, said Felker, while being secretly filmed for Predator Poachers Long Island YouTube video.
After finding out the person he was speaking to was a child, Felker blamed his own loneliness and his sexless marriage for continuing the conversation despite not wanting to.
The 44-year-old man claims he “felt bad for this person” after he started receiving messages from her saying things like “don’t ever disappear on me.”
Felker framed these conversations as parental care rather than grooming for sexual gain.
“I just almost wish I could be her dad,” he told one of the predator catchers pretending to be the teen’s grandma.
He did say he’d messaged people online previously, but claimed it was predominantly people of a certain age. However, Felker did admit that he had exchanged messages with a different underage user before.
Meta engineer helped build safer platforms for kids
The police were eventually called, and Felker was arrested and charged with disseminating indecent material to minors and endangering the welfare of a child.
He pleaded not guilty and is expected to appear in court early September, according to The New York Post.
Felker was put on leave from Meta, and little is known about his job after he deleted his LinkedIn account.
What we do know is that Felker worked for Mark Zuckerberg’s tech company and was an engineering manager who helped build “digital experiences for kids.”
While this encompasses a broad range of tasks, digital experiences tailored to children could range from safeguarding platforms like Instagram and Facebook to helping develop family accounts.
As a manager, Felker would lead a team that was responsible for child safety.
