Meta tells parents it keeps adults from contacting teens they aren't connected to.

In 2023, as a former Meta safety investigator I decided to find out whether that held up. Going undercover on Facebook with a decoy profile of a 14-year-old girl, I set out to answer one question: how easily could a predator reach a child on Meta's platforms, and would anything stop them?

What I found became part of the evidence in a landmark New Mexico case against Meta, the first time a U.S. state took a major tech company to trial over child-safety failures and won.

In this episode I retrace the investigation step by step: the purchased accounts, the unguarded teen groups, and a recommendation engine that could match a jogger to a running club but couldn't tell a hobby group from a pipeline to child exploitation.

It's a firsthand account of where the safeguards were supposed to be, and what was there instead.

Content advisory: this series includes descriptions of predatory behavior toward children. Listener discretion is advised.

Disclaimer: Disclaimer: The views expressed here are my own and do not represent those of any organization, entity, or client.

If this work matters to you, please consider donating to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children: https://give.missingkids.org/campaign/732297/donate

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The views expressed here are my own and do not represent those of any organization, entity, or client.