The child safety practices of major technology companies are coming under intense legal scrutiny. This week, court proceedings in California, New Mexico, and West Virginia have placed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook at the center of debates surrounding user privacy, free speech, and platform safety—issues that technology firms weigh carefully when launching new features.
If courts rule against the companies in these cases, the outcomes could lead to significant product changes that affect billions of users worldwide.
During testimony in a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday, Zuckerberg defended his leadership decisions as attorneys questioned him about Instagram’s beauty filters and whether Meta’s push for growth overshadowed concerns about the mental health of younger users.
Documents disclosed in the New Mexico case reveal internal conversations among Meta employees about roughly 7.5 million annual reports related to child sexual abuse material that might no longer be reported after Zuckerberg’s 2019 decision to implement default end-to-end encryption in Facebook Messenger.
These messages were made public through a newly unsealed legal filing submitted by the state of New Mexico earlier this week.
“There goes our CSER [Community Standards Enforcement Report] numbers next year,” an employee wrote in a message dated Dec. 14, 2023, according to the filing. It was the same month that Meta said in a public blog post that it would begin “rolling out default end-to-end encryption for personal messages and calls on Messenger and Facebook.”
The employee added that it was as if the company “put a big rug down to cover the rocks” and said it was sending fewer child exploitation reports, the filing shows.
Addressing concerns during the Los Angeles hearing, Zuckerberg stated, “I care about the wellbeing of teens and kids who are using our services,” when asked about email exchanges he had with Cook.
Meanwhile, West Virginia filed a lawsuit on Thursday accusing Apple of failing to adequately address child sexual abuse material, commonly referred to as CSAM, on its platforms.
The New Mexico case, brought by Attorney General Raúl Torrez, began opening arguments on Feb. 9. Zuckerberg is not expected to take the stand during the trial.
Torrez alleges that Meta did not sufficiently protect platforms like Facebook and Instagram from online predators and misrepresented the overall safety of its services.
“Meta knew that E2EE would make its platforms less safe by preventing it from detecting and reporting child sexual exploitation and the solicitation and distribution of child exploitation images sent in encrypted messages,” lawyers said in the filing. “Meta further knew that its safety mitigations would be inadequate to address the risks.”
E2EE refers to end-to-end encryption.
In response to the unsealed documents, Meta said it continues to build safety features and tools designed to protect users. The company also noted that it can still review encrypted messages when they are reported for child safety issues.
Meta has earlier rejected the allegations from the New Mexico Attorney General, stating it remains “focused on demonstrating our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.”
Court filings from the New Mexico case also reveal internal warnings from company staff about how encryption might affect its ability to detect and report harmful content.
A senior member of Meta’s Global Affairs team wrote in a note dated Feb. 25, 2019, that “Without robust mitigations, E2EE on Messenger will mean we are significantly less able to prevent harm against children.”
Another internal document from June 2019 warned, “We will never find all of the potential harm we do today on Messenger when our security systems can see the messages themselves.”
While privacy advocates have supported encryption as a vital tool that protects private conversations from third-party surveillance, many law enforcement officials argue that it can hinder investigations into certain criminal activities.
After Meta completed its encryption rollout for Facebook Messenger, attorneys involved in the case argued in the filing that “the fears conveyed by law enforcement and even its employees were born out.”
Alphabet-owned YouTube is also named as a defendant in the Los Angeles case. However, TikTok and Snap are no longer part of the proceedings after reaching settlements with a plaintiff before the trial began in January.
Apple is now facing similar scrutiny over encryption and privacy protections.
In the lawsuit filed Thursday, West Virginia Attorney General John “JB” McCuskey accused Apple of not doing enough to stop the storage and sharing of CSAM through iOS devices and iCloud services.
Like the allegations against Meta, the complaint points to Apple’s encryption systems as a potential obstacle for investigators.
“Fundamentally, E2E encryption is a barrier to law enforcement, including the identification and prosecution of CSAM offenders and abusers,” lawyers wrote in the Apple legal filing.
Apple responded by emphasizing that user safety remains a core priority. In a statement, the company said that “protecting the safety and privacy of our users, especially children, is central to what we do.”
The ongoing lawsuits against both companies—and communication between Zuckerberg and Cook regarding child safety—are intensifying debate over the responsibilities that tech companies have toward users and society.
“I thought there were opportunities that our company and Apple could be doing, and I wanted to talk to Tim about that,” Zuckerberg said of his emails with Cook.
As these cases continue through the courts, they are expected to shed more light on decisions made by tech giants that influence billions of people around the world.