Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody called for Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to speak before the Statewide Council on Human Trafficking regarding Meta platforms being used most frequently to “assist, facilitate or support human trafficking.”
“We surveyed Florida law enforcement agencies and requested documented instances since 2019 in which social media may have been used to facilitate human trafficking, including recruitment, trafficking operations or control over the victim. We also asked those agencies to identify which social media platforms were used,” a letter from Moody to Zuckerberg states.
“According to the survey, 146 of the 271 reported instances of social media platform use in human trafficking were attributable to Meta platforms (Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger), more than 53% of the reported instances involved,” the letter continues.
“According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s 2022 CyberTipline Reports by Electronic Service Providers, more than 27 million, or 85%, of the incidents reported were from Meta platforms,” the letter reads.
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Florida’s Attorney General is calling for Mark Zuckerberg to speak to the Statewide Council on Human Trafficking regarding Meta platforms being used most frequently to “assist, facilitate or support human trafficking.”
According to their survey “146 of the 271 reported… pic.twitter.com/cCr3nGw0cv
— Ashley St. Clair (@stclairashley) July 10, 2023
“Before launching new products or wasting time preparing for a cage match that will likely never happen, Zuckerberg should be working to make Meta’s existing platforms safer for users and to prevent vulnerable people from being forced into illicit sex work,” Moody said in a press release.
Florida’s Voice reports:
Moody said the findings of the statewide survey and other reports “make it clear that Meta platforms are the preferred social media applications for human traffickers looking to prey on vulnerable people.”
“Zuckerberg needs to immediately turn his attention to this public safety threat and testify to our council about what Meta is doing to prevent its platforms from being used to assist, facilitate or support human trafficking,” Moody said.
Moody and the council conducted a statewide study with law enforcement agencies on documented instances since 2019 in which social media is used to facilitate human trafficking, trafficking operations or control victims.
The survey went out to 80 law enforcement agencies, going to all 67 sheriffs’ offices and police departments in major cities.
According to the 2022 Federal Human Trafficking Report, Facebook was the top platform used in recruitment of human trafficking victims from 2019-2022. Facebook and Instagram combined to make up 60% of the top ten platforms included in the study.
The Wall Street Journal last month released an investigative report saying Instagram helps “connect and promote a vast network of accounts” that commission and purchase underage sex content.
The Wall Street Journal and researchers at Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst determined that Instagram “connects pedophiles and guides them to content sellers via recommendation systems that excel at linking those who share niche interests.”
The researchers found that the social media platform, owned by Meta, “enabled people to search explicit hashtags such as #pedowhore and #preteensex and connected them to accounts that used the terms to advertise child-sex material for sale.”
The accounts often claim to be run by the children themselves and use “overtly sexual handles,” according to the report.
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