Skip to main content

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Sued For Failing To Address Sex Trafficking

A new lawsuit accuses Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta Platforms Inc executives and directors of failing to do enough to stop sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation on Facebook and Instagram.

The complaint made public late Monday by several pension and investment funds that own Meta stock said Meta's leadership and board have failed to protect the company's and shareholders' interests by turning a blind eye to "systemic evidence" of criminal activity.

Given the board's failure to explain how it tries to root out the problem, "the only logical inference is that the board has consciously decided to permit Meta's platforms to promote and facilitate sex/human trafficking," the complaint said.

Meta rejected the basis for the lawsuit, which was filed in Delaware Chancery Court.

"We prohibit human exploitation and child sexual exploitation in no uncertain terms," it said in a statement on Tuesday. "The claims in this lawsuit mischaracterize our efforts to combat this type of activity. Our goal is to prevent people who seek to exploit others from using our platform."

Zuckerberg, Meta's billionaire co-founder and chief executive, told Congress in 2019 that child exploitation was "one of the most serious threats that we focus on."

Meta, based in Menlo Park, California, has long faced accusations that its platforms are a haven for sexual misconduct.

In June 2021, the Texas Supreme Court allowed three people who became entangled with their abusers through Facebook to sue, saying Facebook was not a "lawless no-man's-land" immune from liability for human trafficking.

Meta separately faces hundreds of lawsuits from families of teenagers and younger children who claimed to suffer mental health problems by becoming addicted to Facebook and Instagram. Some school districts have also filed lawsuits over the problem.

Monday's lawsuit is a derivative case, where shareholders sue officers and directors who allegedly breached their duties.

Damages are paid to the company, often by the officers' and directors' insurers, instead of to shareholders.

The case is Employees' Retirement System of the State of Rhode Island et al v Zuckerberg et al, Delaware Chancery Court, No. 2023-0304.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/ExcJa8g
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

US Power Firm Admits It May Have Sparked Texas' Largest Wildfire Ever

A US power company admitted Thursday that its equipment may have sparked the largest wildfire in Texas' history. Xcel -- the parent of Southwest Public Service Company, which provides electricity to part of the state -- said it was working with officials investigating the cause of the blaze that charred more than a million acres (over 400,000 hectares). "Based on currently available information, Xcel Energy acknowledges that its facilities appear to have been involved in an ignition of the Smokehouse Creek fire," the company said. Hundreds of homes are thought to have been destroyed in the fire, which is known to have killed at least two people and over 3,000 farm animals. Xcel, which is facing at least one lawsuit, denied its equipment was improperly maintained. "However, we encourage people who had property destroyed by, or livestock lost in, the Smokehouse Creek fire to submit a claim to Xcel Energy through our claims process," the statement said. The W
Post a Comment
Read more

It's Official, Kamala Harris Is Democratic Candidate For US Election

US Vice President Kamala Harris effectively secured the Democratic party's presidential nomination Friday, confirming her remarkable rise to party standard bearer in November's showdown against Republican Donald Trump. Kamala Harris was the sole candidate on the ballot for a five-day electronic vote of nearly 4,000 party convention delegates. She will be officially crowned at a Chicago convention later this month. "I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States," Kamala Harris, 59, said on a phone-in to a party celebration after securing enough votes by the second day of the marathon vote. In the two weeks since President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, Kamala Harris has gained full control of the party. No other Democrats stepped forward to challenge her elevation to the top of the ticket, making her confirmation as the first Black and South Asian woman ever to secure a major party's nomination a formality. The a
Post a Comment
Read more

All You Need To Know About Donald Trump's 1st Criminal Trial

Donald Trump goes on trial Monday for allegedly covering up hush money payments to hide affairs ahead of the 2016 presidential election which propelled him into the White House. He will become the first former US president to go on criminal trial when jury selection begins next week. Here are the key questions ahead of the landmark trial: What is Trump accused of? As Trump closed in on victory in the 2016 presidential election, adult film star Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged 2006 sexual tryst with Trump. The payments, made by Trump's lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, were revealed by The Wall Street Journal in January 2018. Prosecutors have seized on the concealment of the payments as "legal fees" in the Trump Organization's accounts when Cohen was reimbursed as the heart of their case. Prosecutors say Trump "concealed the reason for these payments... which clearly were paid in order to influence voters," former prosec
Post a Comment
Read more