The witness told the Senate subcommittee that the company demanded researchers erase evidence of the product’s dangers.
A whistleblower who worked as a researcher for Meta recently testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, saying that the mega company attempted to bury his research that found Meta’s virtual reality (VR) technology exposes children to sexual harassment and exploitation.
“When our research uncovered that underage children using Meta VR in Germany were subject to demands for sex acts, nude photos, and other acts that no child should ever be exposed to,” Jason Sattizahn said, “Meta demanded that we erase any evidence of such dangers that we saw.”
“My research still revealed emotional and psychological damage, particularly to women who were sexually solicited, molested, or worse. In response, Meta demanded I change my research in the future to not gather this data,” he continued in his testimony.
These are other revelations have caused Senate legislators to again consider the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Subcommittee Chair Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee called the researchers’ allegations “shocking” and thanked them for coming forward.
“They were hired to purportedly make the platform safer for children, and what they found was a company that knew their products were unsafe. And they just did not care,” Senator Blackburn said. “There is truly bipartisan anger, not only with Meta, but with these other social media platforms and virtual reality platforms, and chatbots that are intentionally, knowingly harming our children, and this has got to stop. Enough is enough.”
As the Lord Leads, Pray with Us…
- For Senator Blackburn and members of the upper congressional chamber to be discerning in their attempts to shield children from online abuse and exploitation.
- For U.S. legislators as they receive and investigate whistleblowers’ allegations and hear testimony.
Sources: Roll Call, The Hill
