‘Meta ignored that kids are being solicited for nude photos in VR’: Whistleblowers slam Zuckerberg-led company for blocking research

Jason and Cayce appeared before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, testifying that Meta ignored their research, blocked them from investigating bigger issues with newly rolled-out products, and even deleted evidence showing a child being sexually harassed.

Their testimony contributes to a years-long debate, ongoing since the pandemic, over CEO Mark Zuckerberg compromising minors’ safety on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, and now on VR headsets.

Lawmakers, attorneys general, and parents have already taken Meta to court over these issues, which also made headlines during the 47th presidential run, when Trump and Zuckerberg were seen exchanging icy stares.

Over the years, Meta has invested millions into developing VR headsets, but according to the two former employees, the company turned a blind eye to providing sufficient resources for online safety.

Cayce, who left Meta in 2023, said children in VR often face bullying, sexual assault, and disturbing requests from predators for nude photos or sex acts.

“That it is not uncommon for children in VR to experience bullying and sexual assault, to be solicited for nude photographs and sexual acts by pedophiles, and to be regularly exposed to mature content like gambling and violence, as well as to participate in adult experiences like strip clubs and watching pornography with strangers,” Cayce said, according to NBC.

According to Cayce, she wanted to conduct research on the percentage of children affected by such experiences, but Meta blocked her from doing so.

According to Jason, adults masturbating on VR platforms where kids could hear was harassment with serious consequences. He claimed Meta knew about the problem but chose to ignore it. He added that he was fired in 2023 after standing against restrictions on his research.

“The audio that’s transmitted isn’t just solicitation,” he said in Congress. “There will also be instances that we have seen, where you can hear people sexually pleasuring themselves, transmitted over audio in a spatial sense, as you are being surrounded and brigaded and being harassed.”

Meta, meanwhile, dismissed the allegations, claiming the ‘audio’ came from “selectively leaked” documents meant to present a false narrative. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told NBC, “The claims at the heart of this hearing are nonsense; they’re based on selectively leaked internal documents picked specifically to craft a false narrative.”

He also denied that employees were blocked from digging deeper into research, saying the company conducted “about three dozen studies on social issues related to young people and hundreds more on other youth-related matters.”

Meanwhile, the whistleblowers told Congress that Meta allows kids under 13 to use its platforms, even though US law bars companies from collecting their data, and that the company does little to stop it because it boosts engagement and revenue.

Jason and Cayce are not the first former employees to blow the whistle. Frances Haugen and Sarah Wynn-Williams had testified in past years about Facebook hiding internal research, including studies on teen mental health.

According to the whistleblowers, the company’s main focus is damage control, rewriting reports to limit legal risks and ordering researchers to delete troubling data, including cases in Germany where children were pressured into sexual acts.

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