A recent lawsuit accuses Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta Platforms executives and directors of not doing enough to stop sex trafficking and child sexual abuse on Facebook and Instagram.
A grievance made public late Monday by several pension and investment funds that own Meta stock said Meta’s management and board of directors did not protect the interests of the corporate and shareholders by turning a blind eye to “systemic evidence” of criminal activity.
Given that management has not explained how they are attempting to handle the difficulty, “the one logical conclusion is that management has knowingly chosen to permit Meta platforms to advertise and facilitate human and sex trafficking,” the grievance reads.
Meta rejected the premise of the lawsuit, which was filed in Delaware Chancery Court.
“We prohibit the exploitation of human beings and the sexual exploitation of youngsters without query,” reads Tuesday’s statement. “The claims on this lawsuit misrepresent our efforts to combat this sort of activity. Our goal is to stop individuals who wish to benefit from others from using our platform.”
Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of billionaire Meta, told Congress in 2019 that child abuse is “one of the vital serious threats we’re specializing in.”
Meta, based in Menlo Park, California, has long faced accusations that its platforms are havens for sexual abuse.
In June 2021 Texas Supreme Court allowed three individuals who became implicated of their abusers through Facebook to sue, claiming that Facebook is just not “an illegal no man’s land” freed from liability for human trafficking.
Meta individually faces a whole bunch of lawsuits from the families of teens and younger children who claimed they suffered from mental health issues as they became hooked on Facebook and Instagram. Some school districts have also filed lawsuits over the difficulty.
Monday’s lawsuit is a derivative case, with shareholders suing officers and directors who allegedly breached their duties.
Claims are paid to the corporate, often by the insurers of the administrators and directors, not the shareholders.
The case concerns the occupational pension scheme of the State of Rhode Island et al. v. Zuckerberg et al., Delaware Chancery Court, No. 2023-0304.
