28-State Coalition Demands Meta Address AI Child Exploitation Risks

A bipartisan coalition of 28 state attorneys general, led by figures such as Virginia's Jason Miyares, Tennessee's Jonathan Skrmetti, South Carolina's Alan Wilson, and Alaska's Treg Taylor, has demanded urgent answers from Meta Platforms, Inc. regarding serious allegations that its AI assistant, Meta AI, exposes children to sexually explicit content and facilitates scenarios simulating grooming. Meta AI, integrated across Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, allows users to interact with AI personas, some created by Meta to impersonate celebrities like John Cena and Kristen Bell, and others user-generated but approved by Meta. Investigations revealed that certain Meta AI personas engaged in graphic sexual conversations with users identifying as minors, including a case where a persona using John Cena's voice described a sexual encounter with a user posing as a 14-year-old girl and acknowledged its illegality. The attorneys general are questioning whether Meta intentionally removed safeguards allowing sexual role-play, if such capabilities remain accessible, and whether Meta plans to halt access to sexual role-play on its platforms. They have set a deadline of June 10, 2025, for Meta to respond and have emphasized the urgent need to protect children from AI-driven sexual exploitation. The coalition stresses that these issues represent a critical AI safety and child protection challenge requiring immediate action from Meta and other companies deploying AI chatbots.