March 5, 2024
(Anchorage, AK) – Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor is joining Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin and a coalition of 25 other state attorneys general in a letter to Meta demanding that Instagram stop monetizing child exploitation content.
“The protection of our children from those who would prey on them is one of our most sacred responsibilities,” said Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy “as is dismantling systems that support those predators. Meta has promised us that it will be a part of the solution to protecting children, and instead has created loopholes that make the exploitation of children profitable. As social media becomes an ever-increasing part of daily life, Alaska will continue to fight this fight.”
According to The Wall Street Journal in an article on February 22, Meta’s own staff raised alarms after Instagram enabled those running ‘parent-managed minor accounts’ to profit by providing ‘pin-up style photos of children’ to male subscribers who were ‘often overt about sexual interest’ in children. Worse, Meta actively promoted child-modeling subscriptions to ‘likely pedophiles.’ On the same day, The New York Times similarly reported that men in online chatrooms frequently praised ‘the advent of Instagram as a golden age for child exploitation.’ In response to these reports, the letter declares that “monetizing images of minors for sexual gratification is categorically unacceptable. This is not a matter on which reasonable minds differ.”
“This letter should be unnecessary,” said Attorney General Taylor. “26 Attorneys General shouldn’t need to tell Meta that child exploitation on their platform is wrong. Meta knows this, and that’s why they tout the safety measures they’ve taken to protect children. Meta told us this while incentivizing loopholes that exploited children for the gratification of a predatory audience. Not only must this practice stop, but measures must be put into place to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
Arkansas Attorney General Griffin sent the letter to Meta. In addition to Attorney General Taylor, the attorneys general of the following states also signed onto the letter: Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
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Department Media Contacts: Communications Director Patty Sullivan at patty.sullivan@alaska.gov or (907) 269-6368. Information Officer Sam Curtis at sam.curtis@alaska.gov or (907) 269-6269.
