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The Sting That Exposed How Meta Endangers Kids · Question Everything

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Right now, the Attorney General of New Mexico, Raul Torres,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: is in the middle of probably the biggest legal fight
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: of his career against one of the biggest companies in
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the world. In February, he took Meta to court.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: This is going to sound bad, but I didn't have
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: any uncertainty, really, about the jury.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Torres alleged that Meta designed its platforms, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: in a way that has enabled sexual predators to target
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: children on a massive scale, and that under state law,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Meta should be legally responsible for it. Even though it
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: was a long-shot case, Torres says in one sense he
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: was confident.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: I said very clearly, very early on, look, this company
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: had better be very concerned if we actually get to
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: stand in front of a jury in a community I
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: know very well, I've practiced law in that courthouse. I
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: prosecuted cases in that courthouse. I ran for office in
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: that county. I know those jurors. If they get a
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: chance to hear everything, they're going to do the right thing.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I don't have a worry about that. Where I was
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: nervous about the case is, am I going to get
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: my day in court in front of the jury? I
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: had uncertainty about Section 230 defense, right?
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Section 230. is the federal law that has protected social
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: media companies and other internet service providers from being held
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: liable for what other people do on their platforms, even
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: if it was really bad, like if someone harassed or
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: sexually exploited your kid. For 30 years, internet companies from
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: AOL to Facebook to Grindr have been using Section 230
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: to block people from taking them to trial. That's what
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Attorney General Torres was nervous about.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Because the track record was you never get to see
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: a jury. You never have your day in court. Is
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: this going to be one of those things where a
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: judge says, no, Section 230, Section 230, you don't get
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: to do this. You will just be one more case
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: in the dustbin of history, in the wastebasket of Section 230.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: But this case in New Mexico, this one did not
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: get tossed in the wastebasket. Torres and his team were
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: able to do what hadn't been done before. They convinced
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: a judge that Section 230 should not apply in this case.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: They got their suit in front of a jury. And
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: as Torres suspected, the jurors ruled in the state's favor.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: They held Mehta responsible for endangering kids in New Mexico.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: It was a.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Groundbreaking trial and a groundbreaking verdict. We've reported on some
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: of the other recent social media cases here on the show.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: But this one in New Mexico was the first. And
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: it's quite a story. how Attorney General Torres and his
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: colleagues pulled it off. The attorney general leads a team
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: of investigators who've spent years going after sexual predators. And together,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: they came up with a shrewd series of sting operations,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: which ended up catching meta in the crosshairs. I wanted
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: to hear the story of this sting. So we sent
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: our executive producer, Robin Simeon, and producer Zach St. Louis
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: to New Mexico. They attended parts of the trial this spring,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: and they also talked to the people who cracked this
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: case open. to get the story from investigators and from
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: the attorney general, all of whom have a chillingly up-close
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: and personal view of how kids are being treated on
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: social media.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: There are literally predators everywhere looking for children. We put
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: all the kids in the same big digital playground with
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: no supervision.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: From Placement Theory and KCRW, I'm Brian Reed. This is
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Question Everything. We investigate how the truth gets buried, distorted,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: and denied, and the ways people are fighting to make
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: it matter again. Stick around. Here's Robin Simeon reporting from
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: her time in New Mexico.
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: The investigation that resulted in New Mexico's monumental legal win
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: against META requires a descent into an extremely challenging topic,
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: sex crimes against children. The investigation itself is fascinating, creative, original,
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: with stealth officers' nail-biting stings. But to understand how this
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: victory came about, you gotta go down into the guts
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: of the topic. Child sexual exploitation and assault. I promise,
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: no graphic descriptions of the images that accompany this work. Still,
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: for the topic alone, this is a warning. This is
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: all happening in the New Mexico Department of Justice in Albuquerque.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: To get from the Attorney General's Office of New Mexico
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: to the ICAC Office of New Mexico, that's Internet Crimes
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: Against Children Office, where the special unit of investigators do
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: their stuff, you get on an elevator going down. My
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: producer Zach and I did this in May.
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: Thank you very much.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: We exit and go past a bunch of the state
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: DOJ's cubicles on our left that are lined with a
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: wall of mugshots, a trophy wall of convicted felons.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lauren.
• 5:20
  Speaker 6: Nice to meet you.
• 5:22
  Speaker 7: I am Zach.
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: Nice to meet you.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: Chief of Staff for the New Mexico Department of Justice,
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: Lauren Rodriguez, guides us.
• 5:27
  Speaker 8: Take you into the ICAD room. This is where we
• 5:29
  Speaker 8: have all of the servers. We call them dirty computers
• 5:33
  Speaker 8: because they obviously have child sexual abuse material on them
• 5:37
  Speaker 8: that these guys go through and pinpoint and then charge
• 5:41
  Speaker 8: and do all that.
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: So I'm going to take you in there.
• 5:44
  Speaker 8: It's kind of loud.
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: We go into a dark, windowless room, maybe 250 square feet,
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: in the center of the offices. No one's working in
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: here right now. The room is noisy with the hum
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: of computer servers. The small group of investigators who work
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: in this room process tens of thousands of illegal, unforgettably
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: disturbing images of children, sometimes babies, each year. Evidence found
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: on hard drives and phones. used to convict people. The
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: head of the Internet Crimes Against Children unit, Jonathan Talley,
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: meets my producer Zach and me.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: So how many people work in here on a daily basis?
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: Two to three in here.
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: He points out some of the equipment, three yellow servers
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: and some extra large computer monitors, hard drives, a whiteboard,
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: and some real detective-y stuff.
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: What is this black box?
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: So that black box is, it's like a, I don't
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: know if you guys have ever heard of a Faraday bag.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: So this is a Faraday box. What it does is
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: it blocks radio signal from somebody being able to remotely
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: wipe their devices. So the agents can put their hands
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: in those holes, their gloves in there. They can look
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: through that screen and actually work on a live phone
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: without fear of it being remote wiped.
• 6:54
  Speaker 6: Oh, there's a phone in there.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's one in there right now.
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: Jonathan is a witness in the case against Metta. He
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: put on a suit for court, but he much prefers
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: his black military hoodie and jeans. He testified because the
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: work that he and his ICAC investigators do, the way
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: that they do it, played a crucial role in New
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: Mexico winning its case against META. This is the process
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: ICAC investigators use to catch individual child sex predators on
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: the Internet. ICAC gets tips from the National Center for
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: Missing and Exploited Children, which is a hotline used to
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: collect suspicious, potentially illegal online activity from around the country.
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: The center sorts through those leads, then sends the most
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: serious ones to ICAC agencies in their respective states. Those
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: tips are where John and his ICAC investigators start.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: We'll jump on those platforms, especially ones that we're seeing
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: a lot of cyber tips coming in from, you know,
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: the most current trends.
• 7:53
  Speaker 6: Next, the team will set a trap.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Create the profile.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: The photos that we use are typically of ourselves or
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: somebody within the office. And then we use AI to
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: generate their photo into either a female child, a male child, or.
• 8:11
  Speaker 9: You've made profiles of yourself as both?
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: I have, yes.
• 8:14
  Speaker 9: How old?
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: The youngest I've done is 11 years old, as an
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: 11-year-old boy and 11-year-old girl.
• 8:20
  Speaker 10: Are you literally taking a photo of yourself, putting it
• 8:22
  Speaker 10: into an AI and saying.
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: Turn this image into a 16-year-old girl.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: That's exactly what you're doing.
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: Wow. Yeah.
• 8:28
  Speaker 7: Wow.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: It has to be somebody that works for a law
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: enforcement agency. They have to sign a waiver and all
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: that good stuff.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: When I asked why they use selfies at all instead
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: of having AI just do it, they wouldn't say. Top secret.
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: There are very strict rules about doing this particular kind
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: of work, making fake profiles online.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: We don't entice. We don't... post any sort of sexualized
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: image or not even in revealing clothing. Today, in a
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: hoodie and jeans, my photo would be in hoodie and jeans. Obviously,
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: if we create a profile of a little girl, we
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: may add some little flower patches to the pants, make
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: it look like something an 11-year-old girl would wear, but
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: nothing in bikinis or you're posing on a bed. I mean,
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: absolutely nothing like that. You may get somebody that says, well,
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: send me a picture of you and your brother so
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: I know that it's real. And so we'll generate an AI,
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: you know, quote unquote, brother to stand there with them.
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  Speaker 3: And so that way it looks like what these predators
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: are asking for.
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: These kinds of benign looking photos and fake accounts can
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: garner leads. Suspected pedophiles who follow, comment, like or DM
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: the accounts almost immediately. John told me when he was
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: training to do this work three years ago, he and
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: another officer took a week long class. where everyone practiced
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: making an account. He said his friend's fake profile got
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: hits right away. John's account took a little longer, but
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: sitting in class, he soon found himself chatting with some
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: guy in the state of Georgia who thought John was
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: a child.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: It's one of the most memorable classes I've ever taken.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: It's memorable just because it's amazing how quickly some of
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: these predators and bad actors reach out to what they
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: believe are our minor children.
• 10:18
  Speaker 9: Memorable because it changed how you see the world, basically.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's absolutely eye-opening.
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: Having traced the IP address of the guy in his
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: undercover chat, John sent his very first potential suspect's information
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: to an ICAC unit in Georgia so they could investigate further.
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: Would you please introduce yourself to the jury?
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: My name is Ricky Kitsch.
• 10:46
  Speaker 11: I'm an investigator at criminal intelligence analyst with the New
• 10:50
  Speaker 11: Mexico Department of Justice.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: Ricky Kitsch is another investigator who works in the windowless room.
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: This is him testifying in the trial against Meta back
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: in February. Kitsch built the undercover profile that ended up
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: being at the center of New Mexico's case against Meta.
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: What name did you use for that account?
• 11:08
  Speaker 11: I used a persona name of Carolina Burney, also known,
• 11:17
  Speaker 11: so her Username on the platforms would be Issa B.
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: In this case, Hitch created his fake account with the
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: goal of catching a known child predator that he, John,
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: and other investigators were circling, a man who, at the time,
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: had an outstanding warrant for allegedly abusing his young son.
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: They needed more information from him to make an arrest,
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: so they made this fake account, Issa B., that was
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: targeted to track him down.
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: How did you select the name Issa B.
• 11:47
  Speaker 11: The name Issa came from a rapper's album. 21 Savage,
• 11:54
  Speaker 11: back in about 2017, came out with an album called
• 11:56
  Speaker 11: the Issa Album. It's basically short for It's A. The
• 12:02
  Speaker 11: B part of it was basically because it was a
• 12:05
  Speaker 11: sting operation.
• 12:06
  Speaker 6: Police humor. B as in bee sting.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: How old was Issa B, the Issa B persona that
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: you created?
• 12:14
  Speaker 11: She was 13.
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: But Kitsch registered her on Facebook as an adult, because
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: registering her as 13 would have restricted the account. He
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: wanted her profile visible to everyone. To set her birthday,
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: all he had to do was type in a date.
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: On Facebook, there's no formal age verification. Age verification is
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: one of the main things New Mexico wants Meta to change,
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: since right now it's just the honor system, and kids
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: can easily get around it.
• 12:41
  Speaker 6: Then Kitsch posted, Azizabi.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: A photo of a young girl in a sports jersey
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: at what looks like a softball field, holding a certificate
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: with a medal around her neck. The post read, travel
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: ball tryouts soon. Another post, first real day of seventh grade.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: In this photo, she has a slight smile with bangs
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: and long hair, a white shirt buttoned all the way up.
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: She sits in front of an Olin Mills-type backdrop of
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: orange autumn leaves. In another post, an image of a small,
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: outstretched hand. with a tiny tooth in its palm. She
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: says she just lost a baby tooth. Remember, the investigators
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: were just intending to solicit contact from this one suspect.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: But Kitsch's fake profile got inundated.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: Was that ISSA-B profile receiving friend requests?
• 13:33
  Speaker 10: Yes.
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: How many?
• 13:35
  Speaker 11: I would say possibly hundreds a day.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: From whom?
• 13:41
  Speaker 11: Various strangers on the internet all over the world. She
• 13:48
  Speaker 11: quickly within, I would say within a month's period of time,
• 13:52
  Speaker 11: had the maximum amount allowable of friends on Facebook. She
• 13:58
  Speaker 11: had reached 5,000 friends and she had approximately 7,000 followers.
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: ICAC investigators had to do something. What was initially a
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: profile to try to catch a single known predator turned
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: into a chillingly popular profile by the thousands in a
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: matter of weeks. Kitsch ran this information up the chain
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: of command, out of the windowless room and up to
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: the large sun-filled office on the fourth floor of the building,
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: where New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torres sat at the
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: head of a conference table. Looking at Isabe's account, the
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: AG was wrapped.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: This is the moment where I was like, Oh, wow.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Her growth was so rapid in terms of followers and
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: friend requests and things like that. There's a flood of
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: inbound friend requests, mostly from men. Unknown men.
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: Most of Isabe's followers were men around the world, between
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: 18 and 40. Some commenting on her posts, saying they
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: love her and that she's sexy, gorgeous. She gets invited
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: to what's called a lowly chat group, short for Lolita,
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: that has naked photos of kids and porn. She gets
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: DM dick pics. Some guy DMs her, saying, quote, his
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: interest has been piqued, before offering to, quote, unquote, spoil
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: her with five grand a week to be his sugar baby.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: The detectives running the Isabee account, to see what would happen,
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: they took one user who sent Isabee a porn video
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: and reported it to Facebook. And the company responded in
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: a message on Facebook, which is also in the court records,
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: saying they reviewed the account that had sent her pornography
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: and didn't find anything against their standards. What's more, Meta
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: started recommending Reels to Isabe of explicit content of teen girls.
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: And then, apparently because Isabe's account was growing so fast,
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: Eiji Torres explained, Facebook starts sending her information.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: About how she could continue to grow her following and
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: monetize the account.
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: The attorney general couldn't believe it. He was both enlightened
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: and incensed. By the men, yes, but doubly so by
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: Mehta for facilitating, seemingly even encouraging, these connections.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: There wasn't a safety person that got on there and said, wow, huh,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: why does this account of this young person have that
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: kind of explosive growth? What appears to be 12-year-old girl
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: having an explosive trajectory in the number of followers on
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: the platform.
• 16:37
  Speaker 9: There's no red flag.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Not only is there no red flag, it is how
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: do you amplify? How can we help you amplify what this.
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: Is, right?
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: That's when you know that something structurally is badly broken
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: inside of that company. Because a normal human being would
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: have looked at those pictures and thought, huh, why would
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: a 12-year-old girl showing images of losing a baby tooth
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: and being on a travel volleyball team suddenly have a
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: massive increase in the number of followers? What is going.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: On, right?
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Like that was the first moment for me when it
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: crossed from I think there might be an issue here to– oh,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: there is a very, very serious problem inside of this
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: company and on these platforms.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: So the attorney general decided, I'm going to go after
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: Meta and the person who runs it.
• 17:43
  Speaker 7: Would you agree that you were aware that you had
• 17:46
  Speaker 7: a problem with child sexual abuse material on your platforms
• 17:49
  Speaker 7: at least as far back as 2007?
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: Are you asking about me personally? I don't remember.
• 17:56
  Speaker 6: That's after a quick break.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torres grew up around fights
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: in court. His dad was a prosecutor. Torres tried his
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: first case in federal court with his dad as co-counsel. Today,
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: his dad teaches his daughter's mock trial team. Going after
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: Meta was the culmination of a career spent convicting child
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: predators and the result of many years ingesting images from
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: the windowless room.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: When I started off this work, you really had to
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: go into these boutique or unknown corners of the Internet
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: to try and find this. I remember some of the
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: early cases I worked on where there would just be
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of images. We would
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: pull out hard drives filled with images. And my job
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: when I was a prosecutor, what I would do is
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: I would have my agent review it, and I would say,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: find the worst 150 images. And then I would look
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: at the worst 150 images three or four times a
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: week and pick and narrow that down to 25 or 30.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Because in terms of prosecution, you're trying to identify the
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: most impactful evidence. You know, I did that work before
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: I had kids.
• 19:28
  Speaker 9: This seems like a very, very personal fight for you.
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: I take it personally because most of my life and
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: my professional work has been trying to help victims of
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: crime and particularly kids and others who are harmed by
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: people who are doing terrible things. And at every stage
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: of my career, I have always felt limited in my
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: ability to help the next victim because I'm only doing
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: this one at a time. I'm finally in a position
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: to highlight a company who has.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Abandon any kind of ethical or moral decision framework in
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: choosing how to conduct itself and as a consequence are
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: harming vulnerable people and they knowingly are doing it.
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: In December of 2023, the attorney general filed a complaint
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: alleging that Meta's apps were not just passive platforms, you know,
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: spaces for dialogue, but harmful products that connect would-be child
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: sex abusers with kids. In his words, functioning as a, quote,
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: marketplace for predators in search of children upon whom to prey.
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: The AG sought to get around the Section 230 shield
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: that protects companies from being held liable by making a
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: product liability argument, saying they were holding Meta liable for
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: the dangerous design of its products, not for the speech
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: of its users. This argument is similar to an argument
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: used in California against Meta. But because of Section 230,
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: it was a very long shot. When the AG made
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: this argument, It hadn't yet been successful in California, so
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: he really wasn't sure it would work.
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: But it did.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: I remember getting a call from the chief deputy, and
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: he says, yep, we're still alive. They denied their Section
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: 230 motion to dismiss. We're going to court.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: In January of this year, the state of New Mexico
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: learned they'd done it. They'd head to court in February.
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: By then, the AG and his team had amassed a
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: bunch of important evidence about Mehta, including documents and testimony
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: from inside the company. Along the way, learning some horrendous stats,
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: like the fact that Meta acknowledged internally that dating back
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: to 2019, the Instagram algorithm was funneling the accounts of
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: minors to suspected groomers at four times the rate that
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: they were being shared with everyday adults.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: At this point, I have seen so many stats. The
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: one that jumped out at me was that by its
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: own estimates, the company had come up with a number
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: that half a million kids a day were being subjected
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: to sexually explicit material, sexual harassment, grooming, or exploitation.
• 22:14
  Speaker 8: Oh, wow.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, half a million every day.
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: Meta disputes these numbers, saying by their current metrics, the
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: number is significantly lower. Via internal documents obtained by New
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: Mexico for its case, In 2019, Meta's own employees warned
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: that something CEO Mark Zuckerberg wanted to do would make
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: it harder to catch child predators. He wanted to make
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: end-to-end encryption the default setting on Facebook Messenger. End-to-end encryption
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: makes direct messages, texts, private, to everyone else, including Meta.
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: While changing a default setting may sound small, inside Meta,
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: some employees said this move... Enacting end-to-end encryption as a
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: default setting would block them from being able to see
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: and report about 7.5 million instances a year of child
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: sex abuse materials. Meta's head of content policy wrote in
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: a chat message back then that were they to go
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: through with this default setting, quote, we are about to
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: do a bad thing as a company. This is so irresponsible,
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: end quote. But Zuckerberg did it anyway. In 2023, Facebook
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: made end-to-end encryption the default. New Mexico used all this
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: to build its case, arguing Meta has created a monster.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: Issaby was key to the initial legal complaint. That undercover
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: account makes up 14 pages of the 228-page document. But
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: Issaby did more than help demonstrate the volume of child
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: predators on Facebook to the court. Head of ICAC John
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: Talley had been following a known predator on other platforms.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: When he actually made contact with one of our undercover
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: profiles yes he made contact with this to be and.
• 24:03
  Speaker 9: You're already following this person.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: I was um from a completely unrelated tip.
• 24:09
  Speaker 9: Did that lead to an arrest it did.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: It led to two arrests him that are suspects from
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: the original cyber tip and his brother they both ended
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: up contacting yes it'd be And it was actually the
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: ISAB profile that helped us track these guys down. They
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: lived in an RV, and they would move from state
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: park to state park kind of sporadically. So we were
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: having a hard time tracking them down, and it was
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: because of the ISAB profile. They told her where they
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: were at, and so we were able to head out
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: to Truth or Consequences, Elephant Butte Lake, and arrest these guys.
• 24:42
  Speaker 9: So appropriate.
• 24:43
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 24:44
  Speaker 9: Truth or Consequences.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: Truth or Consequences. Yep, exactly.
• 24:46
  Speaker 7: Exactly.
• 24:47
  Speaker 9: Do you remember the name of the profile of the
• 24:49
  Speaker 9: person that you arrested?
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: It was his actual name.
• 24:53
  Speaker 12: Oh.
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 24:54
  Speaker 9: He wasn't trying to hide?
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: No, he and his brother both were absolutely hiding in
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: plain sight.
• 24:59
  Speaker 9: I don't even know how to make sense out of that.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: You're saying these two child predators, they're using their legal
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: names and soliciting children?
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: Yes. Wow. Yeah.
• 25:12
  Speaker 9: Boy, how surprised were they when you showed up?
• 25:15
  Speaker 7: Very.
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: Very.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: When we knocked on their door at 6 in the morning,
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: they were shocked.
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: John Talley says Meta had never flagged either of these
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: men for their conduct on Facebook. That said, when Meta
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: found out about the fake Issa B profile, which the
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: cops were using to stop child predators, the company did
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: shut down that account. Cops making fake accounts on Meta
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: isn't against the law, but it does break Meta's rules.
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: Attorney General Torres told me that Meta shutting down the
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: Isabee account effectively blocked them from all of the leads
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: of suspected pedophiles associated with that account. He doesn't know
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: what Facebook did with those.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: To this day, I don't know what they did. But
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: the point is, they are not actively supporting law enforcement
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: and saying, hey, come into these spaces and help us
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: police these spaces. And the reason they wouldn't do that is...
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: If you have a bunch of undercover cops on their
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: platforms finding predators every other day, how long do you
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: think it's going to take before mom and dad start
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: waking up and saying, wait a minute, this digital playground
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem safe. The experience that we have as middle-aged
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: people scrolling through Instagram, somebody's trying to sell us an
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: insurance product or a shoe or Or somebody I went
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: to college with is, oh, look who's having a.
• 26:47
  Speaker 9: Yeah, you're saying it's night and day.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: And night and day. And so what happens is understanding
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: that there is a world out there where there are
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: literally predators everywhere looking for children. And they don't have
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: to linger outside of a playground like they would in
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: the 70s or 80s to try and lure a kid over.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: We put all the kids... in the same big digital
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: playground and the design choices are entirely built around adding
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: more kids to the playground and keeping them in the
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: playground as long as possible and knowing that in that
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: corner there is some group of creeps that are just there.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Parents and adults do not have a clear picture They've
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: never been in the windowless room.
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: Meta says that New Mexico pulled selective quotes from Meta
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: employees and internal documents to build their case.
• 27:53
  Speaker 6: They've made the same argument in other cases as well.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Meta's response was, oh, well, this is not representative of
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: people's experience on the platform. This is a distortion. This
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: is cherry-picked information.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: During the trial, Meta objected to the accounts the investigators
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: had set up to catch predators, saying they aren't representative
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: of real teenagers. For instance, in response to the porn
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: video message to Issa B's account, the one she flags
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: to Facebook for violating standards, she also messages a playful
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: response to that video post and its sender, commenting on
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: the video, quote, So sexy.
• 28:33
  Speaker 6: I love it.
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: Here is Meta lawyer Kevin Huff questioning Ricky Kitchigan.
• 28:39
  Speaker 12: You would agree with me that the typical teenager in
• 28:42
  Speaker 12: New Mexico doesn't set up a public account on Facebook,
• 28:46
  Speaker 12: amass almost 5,000 friends and 7,000 followers, many of whom
• 28:50
  Speaker 12: are adult men, post sexually provocative posts to lure pedophiles,
• 28:55
  Speaker 12: reach out to suspected pedophiles, and have sexual conversations with
• 28:58
  Speaker 12: known pedophiles, right?
• 29:01
  Speaker 11: Again, I would take exception to the term typical teen
• 29:05
  Speaker 11: in New Mexico.
• 29:07
  Speaker 12: So you think a typical teen does all those things
• 29:09
  Speaker 12: I just listed?
• 29:10
  Speaker 11: I would say, based on my experience, I say teens
• 29:15
  Speaker 11: know and are involved in a lot more than you
• 29:19
  Speaker 11: think they are.
• 29:20
  Speaker 12: Can you answer my question? Do you think a typical
• 29:22
  Speaker 12: teen in New Mexico does all those things I just listed?
• 29:25
  Speaker 11: I don't think they reach out to pedophiles to attempt
• 29:28
  Speaker 11: to locate them, no.
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: There's debate in court about some of the photos Kitsch
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: posted to the Issa Bee account. Meta says they're sexually suggestive.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: Kitsch disagrees. We can't see the specific photo in question
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: to consider it for ourselves because it's redacted from the
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: court video. This was a big part of Meta's defense.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: In a nutshell, typical kids don't attract predators, let alone
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: chat with them. On the stand, Kitsch confirms he engaged
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: in sexual conversations with his target as part of the
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: undercover operation because, he says, he was trying to locate
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: him and arrest him. Meta didn't respond to our questions.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: But in a statement about New Mexico's lawsuit, a Meta
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: spokesperson said, quote, We strongly disagree with these allegations and
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: supporting young people. For over a decade, we've listened to parents,
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: worked with experts in law enforcement and and conducted in-depth
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: research to understand the issues that matter most, end quote.
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: Meta points to rolling out teen accounts in 2024, which
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: require parent permission to change certain settings, and which make
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: it more difficult for strangers.
• 30:39
  Speaker 6: To contact kids.
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: Back when the complaint was still chugging through the courts,
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: the AG decided to build another undercover Facebook account, and
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: it revealed new, damning evidence against the company. The new
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: profile was named Daisy Roanhorse. Daisy was a 13-year-old girl
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: living in New Mexico. To make the account look more real,
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: fake account Daisy had a fake mother who had her
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: own account.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: And within, I think, a couple of months, we had
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: enough information and enough communication from potentially hands-on offenders that
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: we set up a sting operation in Gallup, New Mexico
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: at a motel there. We had three individuals show up
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: thinking that they were going to have sex with an
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: underage girl, and they were arrested and taken into custody.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: But what we then figured out, and this was the
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: really shocking part, two of the three people that we
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: took into custody had already been flagged inside of Meta
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: as having previously inappropriate contact with kids, and they were
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: still on the platforms.
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: One of these men had been flagged 22 times by
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: Meta's own tool for detecting bullying and harassment and, in
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: addition to trying to have sex with Daisy Roanhorse, a
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: supposed minor, had made a death threat to her. But
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: at the time of his arrest, his account was still live.
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: One of the other men convicted in connection with Daisy
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: Roanhorse was a twice-convicted sex offender who'd been banned by
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: Meta back in 2021.
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: But he was back online.
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: Again, detected and flagged by Meta as a threat His
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: account also was still active at the time of his arrest.
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: In court filings from a different case, Meta's former head
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: of safety and well-being for Instagram said in 2020, the
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: company had a strike policy. 17 strikes, meaning 17 strikes
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: and you're out, kicked off the platform for accounts that
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: engaged in sex trafficking, which seems wildly lax. As of
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: November 2025, Meta, Meta has a one-strike policy for exploitation
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: and sex trafficking. The AG called the Daisy Roanhorse sting
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: Operation Metafile. File spelled with a P-H, like pedophile, and
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: did a press conference about it.
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: Good morning.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Yesterday afternoon at approximately 2.35 p.m.
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: Where he makes an appeal to all those parents scrolling
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: innocently through Instagram.
• 33:09
  Speaker 11: Wake up.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: The danger presented by Meta and its social media platforms
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: doesn't just exist in the virtual world. It actually endangers
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: children in the real world.
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: And he laid the blame for this danger at the
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: feet of one parent in particular.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: This is Mark Zuckerberg's fault.
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: Zuckerberg has three daughters aged 3 to 10. Attorney General
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: Torres named Zuckerberg in the suit personally as a defendant
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: and dedicated an entire section of the complaint, 14 pages,
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: against him, making the case that the decisions that put
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: kids at risk came right from him. Torres' team got
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: to question Zuckerberg under oath, not on the stand, but
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: in a taped deposition that was played in the trial.
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: On CVN.com, I watched all two hours and 16 minutes
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: of it for a cool $ 99. Watching him, I really
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: wanted to know, how does Mark Zuckerberg think about kids' safety?
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: Here's what I learned by watching Mark Zuckerberg's direct examination
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: from the state of New Mexico. Mark Zuckerberg has known,
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: for at least 14 years, that kids under 13 use
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: Meta's platforms by lying about their ages to make accounts.
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: In a chat exchange with Peter Dang, Facebook's then product
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: management director for the company, they discuss how it would
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: be a problem for Meta if kids under 13 didn't
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: lie about their ages and went elsewhere to other social
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: media platforms. In the chat exchange, Zuckerberg isn't concerned. On
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: the stand, a lawyer for New Mexico reads Zuckerberg's own
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: words to him.
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: From that chat.
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: And then you respond, you think that's a big deal?
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: I was under the assumption that lots of kids just
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: lied today. Did I read that correctly? I think so.
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: And that's sort of in line with what we just
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: talked about a few minutes ago. Right. Just to be clear,
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: you meant lied about their age, right? I assume so.
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: New Mexico brings up child sex abuse material, which has
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: been documented inside the company since the early years.
• 35:11
  Speaker 6: In his deposition.
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: Zuckerberg is asked about the problem of child sex abuse
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: material on his platforms, but he won't call it that,
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: a problem. Going back to 2007, an email showed he
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: knew about pornographic material displaying child sex abuse on the
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: platform back then. It was brought to his attention.
• 35:31
  Speaker 7: Would you agree that you were aware that you had
• 35:33
  Speaker 7: a problem with child sexual abuse material on your platforms
• 35:37
  Speaker 7: at least as far back as 2007?
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: Are you asking about me personally? I don't remember.
• 35:43
  Speaker 10: I mean, assuming that I got this email and went
• 35:47
  Speaker 10: through it, then I suppose I would have been aware,
• 35:50
  Speaker 10: but I don't remember. This was almost 20 years ago.
• 35:54
  Speaker 7: Okay, and would you agree that as of 2021, you
• 35:58
  Speaker 7: had an even larger problem with child sexual abuse material
• 36:03
  Speaker 7: or CEI, child exploitative imagery, on your platforms?
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I disagree with the characterization around this, but.
• 36:12
  Speaker 10: If what you're asking is, are there a set of
• 36:18
  Speaker 10: people out of our very large community who try to
• 36:22
  Speaker 10: do this reprehensible behavior, and do we try to stop
• 36:26
  Speaker 10: them and turn them into authorities, the answer is yes.
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: A hot topic and the best example I found of
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: Zuckerberg seeming genuinely unsure what to do was when it
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: came to end-to-end encryption. Because private messages, it's in the name,
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: are private. And people like privacy. Public messages are okay too,
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: but they can be, sometimes are, monitored by the company,
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: which opens the door to governments or police to spy.
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: What's good for adults, privacy, and secured private messages, may
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: not be good for kids. In his deposition, Zuckerberg spoke
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: about that.
• 37:05
  Speaker 10: Safety is obviously extremely important. People also care a lot
• 37:08
  Speaker 10: about privacy and security, too. And sometimes these things come
• 37:11
  Speaker 10: into tension. And that is a difficult thing that we
• 37:15
  Speaker 10: have to deal with in running the company. And we
• 37:18
  Speaker 10: try to take that very seriously and do the best
• 37:20
  Speaker 10: that we can at balancing these different equities.
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: But on balance, I mean, people do not.
• 37:27
  Speaker 10: and I'm talking about good people, not criminals, do not
• 37:30
  Speaker 10: necessarily want their messages to be able to be read
• 37:32
  Speaker 10: by Meta. So we designed the system in a way
• 37:35
  Speaker 10: that most people in the world are going to want.
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: It to behave.
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: Most people, including pedophiles. One last observation about Mark Zuckerberg's deposition.
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: Remember when the AG compared Meta's platforms to unsupervised playgrounds
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: for creeps who want to harm kids?
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: We put all the kids... in the same big digital playground,
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: knowing that in that corner, there is some group of creeps.
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: I wondered when he said it, if that was a
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: bit of hyperbole. A playground is a real place, IRL,
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: as the kids say, in real life. Maybe that analogy
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: wasn't precise enough, and in that way, unfair. But on
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: the stand, Mark Zuckerberg made a very similar analogy to
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: his benefit. Answering questions about Meta's responsibility in assisting the
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: spread of child sex abuse material, Zuckerberg compared Meta's platforms
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: to a city as a defense.
• 38:37
  Speaker 10: I don't think people would expect that every crime in
• 38:40
  Speaker 10: a city is going to be stopped or prevented.
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: This kind of comparison is dangerous. The rules of a
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: city are governed by us. Meta isn't. We decide things
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: all the time and should about how to keep kids safe. Rules, liabilities,
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: common sense for being out here in real life. Lots
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: of companies, all of them except social media, would have
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: hell to pay if the person in charge had a
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: hard time remembering a kid porn situation being brought to
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: their attention 20 years ago. Mark Zuckerberg isn't holding on
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: to the gravity of that. On February 2nd of this year,
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: the state of New Mexico went to court against Mehta.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: The trial lasted seven weeks. Ricky Kitsch gave his testimony
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: and was cross-examined, as did Mark Zuckerberg through that recorded deposition.
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: The fictitious Issa B. Facebook account was a central figure.
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: And the state of New Mexico won. A $ 375 million judgment,
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: a judgment that Meta is currently appealing, money that will
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: go directly to the state. But that's the tip of
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: the spear. Winning against Meta unlocked a second trial, where
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: New Mexico got to suggest a bucket of changes and
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: request more money from Meta, $ 953 million to be exact,
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: to remedy harm to New Mexico's kids. And right now,
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: a judge is deliberating on all of that, New Mexico
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: Judge Brian Biedscheid is somewhere trying to decide which of
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: the suggested changes to META's platforms would improve child safety
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: in New Mexico. And there are a lot of suggested
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: changes by the state. Seven itemized pages of them. Things
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: like mandatory age verification, preventing adults who are not directly
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: connected to a minor from contacting a minor. Even a
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: state-appointed monitor, someone to be a check on META when
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: it falls short of the new rules. We're going to
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: get into those in future reporting. Some seem straightforward, others
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: less so. A big one for Torres is making Meta
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: add parental warnings when opening one of its apps. Kind
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: of like the warnings that were put on cigarettes. He's
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: just spitballing, but something like.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: You understand that your child is likely to see graphic
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: images of not only pornography, but be contacted by unknown
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: adults and targeted and potentially exploited for... the sexual gratification
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: of a predator who is in this space and the
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: company knows are present in this space. Do you agree
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: to do that? Click yes.
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: The multi-billion dollar tech giant that is Meta is not
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: taking favorably to being bossed and, in response to the
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: suggested changes from the state, has shot them all down,
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: saying their requests are some combination of impractical, technically impossible,
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: burdensome to the user, and prohibitively expensive.
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: And ultimately saying, if you think you can.
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: Make us change our products, we'll just pull our apps
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: from New Mexico entirely. No Instagram in the state.
• 41:57
  Speaker 6: No WhatsApp. No Facebook.
• 42:00
  Speaker 9: Is that a solution for you?
• 42:03
  Speaker 7: No.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: My solution is to get this company to follow the
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: law and build a safer product. That's my goal. Just
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: because New Mexico is a small place, which means it's
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: a place that Meta feels like they can intimidate or
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: bully with a threat to withdraw from the marketplace doesn't
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: mean I'm going to accept as a price of their
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: continued presence here a certain amount of kids being targeted, exploited,
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: or ending up killing themselves because their product continues to
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: be dangerous. And it's totally disingenuous too, right? Like Australia
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: just passed a ban for kids under 16. Has Meta
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: withdrawn from Australia?
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: No.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Australia is too big a market to threaten to leave,
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: unlike New Mexico.
• 42:51
  Speaker 9: So you don't think they're being sincere when they say that?
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: I think they're making the same decisions they always make.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: This is about money, right? They're making this threat because
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: this is a small state, and it's better financially for
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: them to go dark in New Mexico than it is
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: to build a product for New Mexico. Because think about this.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: This is the real fight behind it all.
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: If we get the judge to order them to do
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: what we've asked and build a safer product, and they
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: build a safer product in New Mexico and they turn
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: that on, what are they going to say in the
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: other 49 states? What are they going to say to
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: every other country in the world? If they can build
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: it here, there will be enormous pressure for them to
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: turn on the New Mexico solution globally. So we're always
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: back with them. This is not an ethical decision. It
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: is not a moral decision. They don't want to build
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: it because it will cost them money.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: New Mexico's ability to go to court at all against META,
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: just like California's ability to get META into court, hindsight
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: being what it is, demonstrates something kind of simple. People
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: can say what they want in an arena, but it
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: has to be safe to go inside the buildings. The
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: lawsuits are about the arena, not what people are saying
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: in the arena, not Section 230.
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: E.G.
• 44:16
  Speaker 6: Torres actually told.
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: Me if he could have Congress change one thing, it
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: would be to repeal Section 230, which surprised me because
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: he just found a way around it.
• 44:27
  Speaker 6: But he's adamant.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: I think that there were no Section 230. You and
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't be having this conversation. You'd have had the L.A.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: decision 15 years ago. In other words, had they been
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: on the hook from the beginning, how many kids would
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: we have saved? What if there is no Section 230?
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: And Mark Zuckerberg, when he comes up with the idea
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: of Facebook at inception, knows, I am going to be
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: responsible from day one for the choices that I make
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: that endanger kids in this country. This is about kids
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: killing themselves and harming themselves or falling prey to predators.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Mark Zuckerberg. He's not on your side. He's gathering every
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: bit of data that you have ever given him from
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: every interaction, every click to do one thing and one
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: thing only. And it's not to make sure that you
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: have free expression rights. It's to sell you stuff. That's
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: what it exists to do. That's why it exists. And
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: if I could do one thing, it would be to
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: take those executives and put them in that room and watch.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: You look at the images. You look at what they do.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: You look at what these guys engage in. This is
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: so brutal and so extreme. And it makes me so angry.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: that someone would contribute to that in any way.
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: The decision from Judge Biedscheid about what meta will need
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: to change is expected any day now. Producer Zach St.
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: Louis and I will be back with what happened in
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: that courtroom when the judge reaches his verdict.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: That's Robin Simeon, our show's executive producer. Please go check
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: out our new Instagram account, questioneverything.podcast, where we've been putting
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: up some of this tough reporting about Instagram on the
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: platform itself. Today's episode was produced by Robin Simeon and
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Zach St.
• 46:38
  Speaker 10: Louis.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: It was edited by Kevin Sullivan with help from Emanuel
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Berry and me. Our team also includes contributing producers Sam Egan,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: contributing editors Neil Drumming and Jen Kinney, and associate producer
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Kevin Shepard. This episode was fact-checked by Marisa Robertson-Textor. Mixing
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: and sound design by Brendan Baker. Our music is by
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Matt McGinley. Abby Kwong produces our social media. Special thanks
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: to John Blair at the New Mexico Department of Justice
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: and Courtroom View Network for the trial audio. Our partners
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: at KCRW include Arnie Seifel, Tejal Ajmera, Natalie Hill, and
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Jennifer Farrow. Thank you for listening.