Child Safety and Privacy: Meta and Apple Under Fire

Tech Giants Face Scrutiny Over Child Safety in Landmark Legal Battles

The digital realm is under intense scrutiny as major technology companies, including Meta and Apple, find themselves at the center of legal proceedings concerning child safety. Across California, New Mexico, and West Virginia, the CEOs of these tech titans, Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook, are being pressed on critical issues of user privacy, freedom of expression, and platform safety – considerations that are woven into the fabric of every product update these giants release. The outcomes of these cases could usher in significant and potentially unprecedented changes to products used by billions worldwide.

In a Los Angeles courtroom, Mark Zuckerberg recently addressed questions regarding his leadership at Meta. Lawyers zeroed in on decisions surrounding the implementation of beauty filters on Instagram and whether the company’s pursuit of business growth overshadowed concerns for the mental well-being of young users.

Meanwhile, revelations from Meta’s legal entanglement in New Mexico have brought to light internal discussions about child sexual abuse material (CSAM) reports. An unsealed legal filing from the state of New Mexico details internal communications from Meta employees discussing the implications of a 2019 decision to enable default end-to-end encryption for Facebook Messenger. One employee noted, “There goes our CSER [Community Standards Enforcement Report] numbers next year,” in a message dated December 14, 2023. This coincided with Meta’s public announcement that it was rolling out default end-to-end encryption for Messenger and Facebook messages and calls. The employee further likened the decision to the company “put[ting] a big rug down to cover the rocks,” suggesting a deliberate obfuscation of issues related to child exploitation reports.

Zuckerberg, when questioned about an email exchange with Apple CEO Tim Cook, stated, “I care about the wellbeing of teens and kids who are using our services.”

West Virginia has also joined the fray, filing a lawsuit against Apple on Thursday, focusing on the company’s handling of CSAM on its devices and platforms. The New Mexico case, initiated by Attorney General Raúl Torrez, began its opening arguments on February 9th. Torrez’s allegations assert that Meta failed to adequately protect users of applications like Instagram and Facebook from online predators and that the company made misleading statements regarding the safety of its platforms.

The New Mexico filing directly implicates Meta’s encryption strategy, stating, “Meta knew that E2EE would make its platforms less safe by preventing it from detecting and reporting child sexual exploitation and the solicitation and distribution of child exploitation images sent in encrypted messages. Meta further knew that its safety mitigations would be inadequate to address the risks.” End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a method that scrambles communications so only the sender and intended recipient can access them.

Meta, in response to the unsealed filing, has maintained its commitment to developing safety tools and features, asserting its capability to review and address private encrypted messages if reported for child safety concerns. The social media giant has previously contested the New Mexico Attorney General’s claims, emphasizing its “longstanding commitment to supporting young people.”

However, internal documents unearthed in the New Mexico proceedings highlight significant internal concerns about the encryption shift and its potential impact on the detection and reporting of CSAM and other harmful content. A memo from a senior staffer in Meta Global Affairs on February 25, 2019, cautioned, “Without robust mitigations, E2EE on Messenger will mean we are significantly less able to prevent harm against children.” Another internal document from June 2019 stated, “We will never find all of the potential harm we do today on Messenger when our security systems can see the messages themselves.”

While privacy advocates champion encryption for its ability to shield user conversations, law enforcement agencies have voiced concerns that such measures hinder investigations into criminal activities. The New Mexico filing argues that Meta’s fears, echoed by law enforcement and its own employees, were validated following the completion of its encryption efforts on Facebook Messenger.

In Los Angeles, Alphabet-owned YouTube is also a defendant in a separate trial concerning the impact of social media platforms on children’s mental health. TikTok and Snap were previously involved but have since settled with the plaintiff.

Apple, too, is confronting scrutiny regarding its encryption and privacy protocols. West Virginia Attorney General John “JB” McCuskey’s lawsuit alleges that Apple failed to prevent CSAM from being stored and shared on its iOS devices and iCloud services. Echoing the concerns raised in New Mexico, McCuskey’s filing argues that Apple’s encryption practices present a barrier to law enforcement efforts to identify and prosecute CSAM offenders.

Apple has responded by stating that “protecting the safety and privacy of our users, especially children, is central to what we do.”

These legal battles, alongside the documented communications between Zuckerberg and Cook concerning child safety, are intensifying the debate about the responsibilities tech companies hold towards their users and other stakeholders. Zuckerberg’s stated intention was to explore “opportunities that our company and Apple could be doing,” a sentiment that underscores the ongoing dialogue at the highest levels of the tech industry about child welfare in the digital age. As these cases progress, further insights into the decisions shaping the online experiences of billions are expected to emerge.