Facebook and Instagram content enabled child sexual abuse, trafficking: New Mexico lawsuit

Published

2 years ago

December 6, 2023

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Facebook co-founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sits in his seat inside a bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Insight Forum for all U.S. senators hosted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 13, 2023.

Leah Millis | Reuters

Facebook and Instagram created “prime locations” for sexual predators that enabled child sexual abuse, solicitation, and trafficking, New Mexico’s attorney general alleged in a civil suit filed Wednesday against Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

The suit was brought after an “undercover investigation” allegedly revealed myriad instances of sexually explicit content being served to minors, child sexual coercion, or the sale of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, New Mexico attorney general Raúl Torrez said in a press release.

The suit alleges that “certain child exploitative content” is ten times “more prevalent” on Facebook and Instagram as compared to pornography site PornHub and adult content platform OnlyFans, according to the release.

“Child exploitation is a horrific crime and online predators are determined criminals,” Meta said in a statement to CNBC. A spokesperson said that the company deploys “sophisticated technology, hire child safety experts, report content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and share information and tools with other companies and law enforcement, including state attorneys general, to help root out predators.”

The New Mexico suit follows coordinated legal actions against Meta by 42 other attorneys general in October. Those actions alleged that Facebook and Instagram directly targeted and were addictive to children and teens.

New Mexico’s suit, by contrast, alleges Meta and Zuckerberg violated the state’s Unfair Practice Act. The four-count suit alleges that the company and Zuckerberg engaged in “unfair trade practices” by facilitating the distribution of CSAM and the trafficking of minors, and undermined the health and safety of New Mexican children.

The lawsuit argues that Meta’s algorithms allegedly promote sex and exploitation content to users and that Facebook and Instagram lack “effective” age verification. The suit also alleges that the company failed to identify child sexual exploitation “networks” and to fully prevent users it had suspended for those violations from rejoining the platform using new accounts

“In one month alone, we disabled more than half a million accounts for violating our child safety policies,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

“Mr. Zuckerberg and other Meta executives are aware of the serious harm their products can pose to young users, and yet they have failed to make sufficient changes to their platforms that would prevent the sexual exploitation of children,” Torres said in the release.

New Mexico seeks civil penalties and for Meta to implement effective age verification, improve its detection and removal systems for CSAM, and address the alleged functionalities that “amplify” CSAM.

Technology

Circle shares fall after stablecoin issuer says it will offer 10 million shares

Published

11 hours ago

August 12, 2025

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Circle shares fall after stablecoin issuer says it will offer 10 million shares

Circle Internet Group Initial Public Offering at the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, U.S., June 5, 2025.

NYSE

Circle Internet Group stock tumbled more than 5% in extended trading Tuesday after it said it would offer 10 million Class A shares to the public.

Of the total stock being offered, 2 million shares will be offered by Circle. The remaining 8 million shares will be sold by stockholders.

The stablecoin issuer’s shares have soared more than 450% since it went public on June 5.

As part of the offering, Circle is offering its underwriters a 30-day option to buy an additional 1.5 million shares.

Circle shares closed Tuesday up 1.3% after the company reporting its first quarterly results as a publicly traded company. While charges tied to its IPO weighed on its second-quarter results and led to a loss of $4.48 per share, it saw revenue rise 53% on the back of strong stablecoin growth.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

Technology

CoreWeave shares drop even as revenue tops estimates

Published

12 hours ago

August 12, 2025

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CoreWeave shares drop even as revenue tops estimates

Mike Intrator, co-founder and CEO of CoreWeave, speaks at the Nasdaq headquarters in New York on March 28, 2025.

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images

CoreWeave shares fell about 6% in extended trading on Tuesday even as the provider of artificial intelligence infrastructure beat estimates for second-quarter revenue

Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:

Earnings per share: Loss of 21 cents
Revenue: $1.21 billion vs. $1.08 billion expected

Revenue more than tripled from $395.4 million a year earlier, CoreWeave said in a statement. The company registered a $290.5 million net loss, compared with a $323 million loss in second quarter of 2024. CoreWeave’s earnings per share figure wasn’t immediately comparable with estimates from LSEG.

CoreWeave’s operating margin shrank to 2% from 20% a year ago due primarily to $145 million in stock-based compensation costs. This is CoreWeave’s second quarter of full financial results as a public company following its IPO in March.

CoreWeave pointed to an expansion in business with OpenAI, a major client and investor. Also during the quarter, CoreWeave acquired Weights and Biases, a startup with software for monitoring AI models, for $1.4 billion.

In May, management touted 420% revenue growth, alongside widening losses and nearly $9 billion in debt. The stock still doubled anyway over the course of the next month.

CoreWeave shares became available on Nasdaq at the end of the first quarter, after the company sold 37.5 shares at $40 each, yielding $1.5 billion in proceeds. As of Tuesday’s close, the stock was trading at $148.75 for a market cap of over $72 billion.

A CoreWeave data center project with up to 250 megawatts of capacity is set to be delivered in 2026, the company said in the statement.

Executives will discuss the results and issue guidance on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

WATCH: Citi’s Tyler Radke’s bullish call on CoreWeave, upgraded to buy

Technology

White House says it’s working out legality of Nvidia and AMD China chip deals

Published

13 hours ago

August 12, 2025

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White House says it's working out legality of Nvidia and AMD China chip deals

U.S. President Donald Trump (L) invites Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to speak in the Cross Hall of the White House during an event on “Investing in America” on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Andrew Harnik | Getty Images

The Trump administration is still working out the details of its 15% export tax on Nvidia and AMD and could bring deals of this kind to more companies, the White House’s Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.

“Right now it stands with these two companies. Perhaps it could expand in the future to other companies,” said Leavitt, the White House’s spokesperson.

“The legality of it, the mechanics of it, is still being ironed out by the Department of Commerce, and I would defer you to them for any further details on how it will actually be implemented,” she continued.

President Donald Trump confirmed on Monday that he had negotiated a deal with Nvidia in which the U.S. government approves export licenses for the China-specific H20 AI chip in exchange for a 15% cut of revenue. Advanced Micro Devices also got licenses approved in exchange for a proportion of its China sales, the White House confirmed.

“I said, ‘If I’m going to do that, I want you to pay us as a country something, because I’m giving you a release,'” Trump said Monday.

“We follow rules the U.S. government sets for our participation in worldwide markets,” Nvidia said in a statement this week.

Trump said the export licenses for AMD and Nvidia were a done deal. But lawyers and experts who follow trade have warned that Trump’s deal may be complicated because of existing laws that regulate how the government can charge fees for export licenses.

The Commerce Department didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

The H20 is Nvidia’s Chinese-specific chip that is slowed down on purpose to comply with U.S. export relations. It’s related to the H100 and H200 chips that are used in the U.S., and was introduced after the Biden administration implemented export controls on artificial intelligence chips in 2023.

Earlier this year, Nvidia said that it was on track to sell more than $8 billion worth of H20 chips in a single quarter before the Trump administration in April said that it would require a license to export the chip.

Trump signaled in July that he was likely to approve export licenses for the chip after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited the White House.

The U.S. regulates AI chips like those made by Nvidia for national security reasons, saying that they could be used by the Chinese government to leapfrog U.S. capabilities in AI, or they could be used by the Chinese military or linked groups.

The Chinese government has been encouraging local companies in recent weeks to avoid using Nvidia’s H20 chips for any government or national security-related work, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

WATCH: Access to Nvidia’s H20 won’t hand China an AI advantage: Analyst