Tech's child safety record is under a microscope.
In legal proceedings spanning California, New Mexico and West Virginia this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook are facing questions about privacy, free expression and safety — issues that tech's biggest companies weigh in every feature release.
If the companies are found liable in their respective cases, the courts could force unprecedented product changes affecting billions of people.
Zuckerberg defended his decision-making in a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday as lawyers pressured him on why he allowed beauty filters on Instagram and if the company's efforts to grow its business trumped youth mental-health concerns.
Internal messages from Meta's case in New Mexico show employees discussing some 7.5 million child sexual abuse material reports annually that would no longer be disclosed after Zuckerberg's decision, announced in 2019, to make Facebook Messenger end-to-end encrypted by default.
The messages were revealed in a newly unsealed legal filing submitted by the state of New Mexico that was released this week.
"There goes our CSER [Community Standards Enforcement Report] numbers next year," an employee wrote in a message dated Dec. 14, 2023, according to the filing. It was the same month that Meta said in a public blog post that it would begin "rolling out default end-to-end encryption for personal messages and calls on Messenger and Facebook."
The employee added that it was as if the company "put a big rug down to cover the rocks" and said it was sending fewer child exploitation reports, the filing shows.
"I care about the wellbeing of teens and kids who are using our services," Zuckerberg said Wednesday in LA, when he was asked about an email exchange with Cook.
West Virginia filed a lawsuit against the iPhone maker on Thursday about its handling of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM.