Whistleblowers allege Meta has suppressed research on risks for young children involving virtual reality devices and apps, including information about child predators, according to a new report from the Washington Post.
The newspaper reports that Congress has received thousands of pages of documents related to Meta’s virtual reality programs, with four researchers coming forward to discuss their experiences with the company. Two of the researchers currently work for Meta, and two are former employees.
In one of the most shocking claims, a researcher at Meta was allegedly told to delete information gathered from an interview with a family in Germany. A child in the family “frequently encountered strangers,” and a teenage boy reportedly told researchers that “adults had sexually propositioned his little brother.” His little brother was under the age of 10, according to the Post.
The Washington Post reports that an internal Meta report on the research noted that German parents and teens were worried about grooming via VR in Horizon Worlds, but the report didn’t include anything about the teen who said that his young brother had actually been targeted. But Meta denies the characterization that anything improper happened while it conducted research.
“These few examples are being stitched together to fit a predetermined and false narrative; in reality since the start of 2022, Meta has approved nearly 180 Reality Labs-related studies on social issues, including youth safety and...
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