Meta estimates that roughly 100,000 children who use Facebook and Instagram are sexually harassed online every day, including through “images of adult genitalia,” according to internal company documents released Wednesday night, The Guardian reported.

The released court documents include several charges against the company based on information obtained by the New Mexico Attorney General’s office from presentations by Meta employees and communications between employees, News.ro writes.

The documents describe an incident in 2020 in which the 12-year-old daughter of an Apple executive was approached via IG Direct (Instagram direct Messenger), Instagram’s messaging product.

“These are things that annoy Apple to the point where they’re threatening to pull us from the App Store,” fumed one Meta employee, according to the documents.

A senior Meta employee revealed how his own daughter was approached via Instagram to testify before the US Congress late last year. His attempts to resolve the issue were ignored, he said.

The statement is the latest in a lawsuit filed by the New Mexico attorney general’s office on Dec. 5 alleging that the Meta social media network has become a marketplace for child predators.

Raul Torrez, the state’s attorney general, accused Meta of allowing adults to find, message and sexually groom children.

Meta denies the allegations

The company denied the claims in the lawsuit, saying, “They mischaracterize our work using selective quotes and cherry-picked documents.”

Meta released a statement in response: “We want teens to have a safe, age-appropriate experience online, and we have over 30 tools to support them and their parents. We’ve worked on these issues for ten years and hired people who have dedicated their careers to keeping young people safe and supported online.”

The lawsuit also cited a 2021 internal presentation on child safety. One slide stated that Meta “underestimates the sexualization of minors on Instagram, as seen in sexualized comments on content posted by minors.”

The complaint also highlights Meta staff’s concerns about children’s safety. In an internal Meta chat in July 2020, one employee asked, “What exactly do we do about sexual grooming (which I just heard happens a lot on TikTok)?” According to the complaint, I received the answer: “Somewhere zero and insignificant.”

Meta’s statement also noted that the company has taken “significant steps to prevent unwanted contact by teenagers, especially with adults.”

Child traffickers use Facebook Messenger, The Guardian reports

The New Mexico lawsuit follows a Guardian investigation in April that revealed why Meta failed to report or identify the use of its platforms for child trafficking.

The investigation also revealed how Messenger, Facebook’s private messaging service, is being used as a platform for traffickers to communicate in order to buy and sell children.

Meta employees discussed using Messenger “to coordinate traffic” and facilitate “every stage of human exploitation (recruitment, coordination, exploitation) represented on our platform,” according to documents included in the filing.

However, an internal email from 2017 described management’s opposition to scanning Facebook Messenger for “harmful content” because it would put the service “at a competitive disadvantage compared to other apps that may offer greater privacy,” according to In procces.

In December, Meta was widely criticized for implementing end-to-end encryption for messages sent on Facebook and Messenger. (photo source Dreamstime)