Meta whistleblower Dr. Jason Sattizahn, along with grieving parents and online safety advocate group the Heat Initiative, held a press conference on Wednesday, calling out Mark Zuckerberg and Meta Platforms for gross failures in protecting children and teens.
“Today, while Mark Zuckerberg and Meta executives unveil their new products in Menlo Park (California), we are here to remind everyone that Meta has failed our children, and they don't even care,” said Sarah Gardner, CEO and Founder of Heat Initiative, kicking off the event.
The morning rally, held at the steps of Meta’s headquarters in New York City, was scheduled to coincide not only with the company’s annual Meta Connect event, which began on Wednesday – but also to honor the children fatally impacted by what advocates call non-existent safety measures on the Zuckerberg-owned Facebook and Instagram platforms.
September also happens to be National Suicide Prevention Month, with September 10th marking World Suicide Prevention Day.
Today was a reckoning for #BigTech. The call for accountability extends beyond the 5 CEOs who testified. That includes you, @tim_cook.
undefined heatinitiative (@heatinitiative) January 31, 2024
As @leahjuliett said, undefinedSurvivors everywhere are watching your next move.undefined https://t.co/EqsqLEZ9BF
Accusing Meta of a “callous disregard of the lives of children,” Gardener reminded the public that exactly one year ago today, Meta introduced its allegedly child-safety-friendly “Instagram Teens.”
“And yet we continue to see more and more evidence that kids are still being served violent, dangerous, and harmful content and being susceptible to sextortion," she said.
“We asked for incredibly reasonable changes, and you have done nothing, Mark Zuckerberg!” Gardner decalred, also singling out Instagram Chief, Adam Mosseri, in the same breath.
As part of the rally, the attendees, led by the grieving mother-turned-advocate Brandy Roberts, placed 245 roses in front of the doors at Meta’s Greenwich Village offices, representing the 245 children who have been “lost to social media harms” and memorialized on Social Media Victims Remembrance Day, held on June 23rd at the nation's capital.
Roberts’ daughter, 14-year-old Englyn Madison Roberts, died by suicide in September 2020 after watching a hanging video on Instagram, and then copying what she saw, the advocates share.
“My daughter is one of the tragedies that so many children are experiencing due to Meta's platforms. They know the dangers exist, and they still do nothing,” the mother told the crowd.
“It wasn't until after she passed that we discovered Meta's platform was sending her increasingly troubled suicide content that is still on their platforms today as we speak,” Roberts said.
Whistblower speaks out yet again
Dr. Jason Sattizahn, a former Meta Reality Labs researcher and now whistleblower, came forward to tell rally-goers of what he witnessed during his tenure at the company, from 2018 to 2024, until he was fired for raising concerns about Meta's alleged violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.
On September 9th, Sattizahn joined five other Meta whistleblowers to testify on Capitol Hill in front of a US Senate Judiciary Privacy, Technology, and the Law Subcommittee hearing, held to examine the whistleblowers’ claims.
“I witnessed data scandals, multiple disclosures about Meta’s disregard for user safety and children’s mental health, amid mounting public pressure,” Sattizahn said in his testimony, accusing the Zuckerberg empire of “deliberately compromising internal processes, policies, and research to protect company profits over users.”
The whistleblowers say they were specifically instructed by Meta not to investigate potential harms to children using the company’s virtual reality technology, the Meta Quest VR headsets, also featured during the Connect event.
“I'm going to cut right to the point,” the protected whistleblower began. “We're here because inside and out, we know that Meta's products target children, that they harm children, and they harm people across the world.”
Sattizahn, who noted he used to work out of the Manhattan offices behind him, told the crowd that during his time at Meta, upper brass knowingly disregarded their research on child safety.
He accused the company of "ignoring the problems they created and burying evidence of users’ negative experiences, rather than building safer experiences."
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"Meta has systematically covered this up, manipulating and erasing data to make their company look better,” Sattizahn said.
“I can't overstate how much the Meta researchers, the research team, internally, is fighting against the systems that Meta has created for children. And I know they can't come out here and say it, but I can,” he continued.
Unphased by suicide
Sattizahn then proceeded to tell a damning story about how Meta executives did not seem phased by the 2019 suicide of one of its employees, who had jumped to his death from Meta's California headquarters, barely an hour earlier, just feet from Sattizahn's parked car.
“Within just a few minutes, leadership starts talking about their condolences and the mental health resources they share. And then, immediately, leadership starts talking about the champagne and the snacks they're going to have to celebrate our third-year anniversary party,” Sattizahn explained.
“My point is, if that's the lack of humanity they have for someone who is dead across the parking lot, how little do you think they care about your children and the people who are here with me today?” he said.
Last month, leaked internal documents additionally revealed that Meta’s AI chatbots were programmed to “engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,” according to a bombshell investigation by Reuters.
In an attempt to appease advocates, this July, Meta announced it was expanding its safety features to protect children on Instagram. These features include blocking direct messages from unknown accounts and automatic safety notices for explicit content.
And last October, the company said it was collaborating with Instagram on new initiatives to combat teen sextortion scams, helping kids to better recognize and avoid the scams.
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