Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) executives and directors are being sued for failing to halt sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation on Facebook and Instagram.
Several pension and investment firms that own Meta stock filed a lawsuit late Monday alleging that Meta’s leadership and board ignored “systemic evidence” of illegal activities.
The lawsuit stated that “the only reasonable assumption is that the board has willfully opted to authorize Meta’s platforms to promote and support sex/human trafficking” due to the board’s inaction to address the issue.
Meta dismissed the Delaware Chancery Court complaint.
“We reject human exploitation and child sexual exploitation in no uncertain terms,” it stated on Tuesday. “This lawsuit misrepresents our fight against this behavior. We want to keep exploiters off our platform.”
Zuckerberg, Meta’s millionaire co-founder and CEO told Lawmakers in 2019 that child abuse was “one of the most significant dangers that we focus on.”
Meta, situated in Menlo Park, California, has long been accused of sexual impropriety on its platforms.
The Texas Supreme Court authorized three Facebook abuse victims to sue in June 2021, ruling that Facebook was not a “lawless no-man’s-land” immune from human trafficking responsibility.
Meta faces hundreds of lawsuits from families of teens and younger children who allege Facebook and Instagram addiction caused mental health issues. Other school districts have also sued.
In Monday’s derivative action, shareholders sued officials and directors for alleged misconduct.
Instead of shareholders, officers’ and directors’ insurers pay corporate damages.
Workers’ Retirement System of Rhode Island et al. v Zuckerberg et al., Delaware Chancery Court, No. 2023-0304.
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