Meta’s AI Playbook: When Profit Outweighs Protecting Our Children

Meta approved guidelines that let AI flirt with kids, spin racist essays, and fabricate lies with disclaimers. If this is called “safety,” what exactly counts as harm?

Some things should never be up for debate, yet Meta’s internal AI standards greenlit behavior that any parent, teacher, or leader should find indefensible. The leaked rulebook allowed “sensual” chats with children, racist essay prompts for user “engagement,” and violent imagery against women and the elderly, as long as gore was avoided.

It even sanctioned fabricating scandals about public figures, such as falsely alleging a British royal had an STI, provided a disclaimer tagged along. Outrageously, these weren’t edge cases, they were reviewed, circulated, and signed off at the highest levels.

It’s one thing for a platform to host harmful content, it’s another for it to manufacture it. In Now What? How to Ride the Tsunami of Change, I argue that emerging tech must be designed with guardrails rooted in dignity and responsibility. Children especially should be off-limits until they’re mature enough, 16 at least, to use these tools safely, and only after education equips them to navigate the risks.

• Block all child-directed AI interactions, no loopholes.
• End the use of “disclaimers” to excuse fabrications.
• Make safety an unbreakable condition of growth, and require The Zuck to take some ethics classes

Progress without principles is regression. Meta’s internal rules let AI cross boundaries no responsible guardian would ever tolerate. Protecting our children should demand the highest moral and ethical standards—not loopholes for engagement.

If this unsettles you as much as it does me, then let’s act. What lines must never be crossed when it comes to children and AI—and how do we ensure they are never redrawn by corporations chasing profit?

Read the full article on Reuters.

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