Two former parole security researchers told the U.S. Senate committee on Tuesday that social media giants masked the potential harm of children stemming from their virtual reality (VR) products.
“Meta chose to ignore the problems they created and buried evidence of negative experiences from users,” said Jason Sattizahn.
The hearing took place the day after The Washington Post reported the whistleblower’s allegations, a day after the Washington Post intervened to shape internal research that could mark risks.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, denied the allegations and in a statement called the “core” of the hearing “beast.”
Mr Sattizahn and Mr Cayce Savage, who once conducted research on the youth user experience of Meta VR platforms, told the senators that the company asked researchers to remove evidence of the risk of sexual abuse against these products.
They also claimed that the company told internal researchers to avoid work that could cause harm to children.
Before the hearing, Meta knocked back the charges.
The company said the claims “based on selective leaks of internal documents that were selected specifically for false narratives.”
There are also no bans or restrictions on conducting the research – the company has approved “nearly 180 studies on issues related to real-life laboratories related to youth safety and well-being”, a spokesperson added.
Mr. Sattizahn, who worked at the company from 2018 to 2024, testified to the committee, saying Meta’s response to the Washington Post reported “avoiding lies.”
“This points to some rote numbers,” he said, insisting that Mehta’s research is being “trimmed and manipulated.”
During a conversation with Republican Senator John Hawley from Missouri, Ms. Savage claimed that in her study, she determined that in online gaming platforms, the popular roblox among children is being used by a coordinated pedophile ring.
“They set up strip clubs and paid the kids to undress with Robux, the currency of the app,” Ms. Savage said.
“I marked it to Meta and said that under no circumstances should we host the app on its headset,” Ms. Savage said. She noted that Roblox is still available in the Meta VR App Store.
Roblox told the BBC it disagrees with Tuesday’s allegations, saying they were “based on unwise and outdated information.”
“At Roblox, security is a priority,” a spokesperson for a company said. “We are working tirelessly to remove illegal content and bad actors from the platform through our 24/7 audit system and quickly respond to abuse reports, including banning accounts and reporting to law enforcement.”
Meta provides parents’ supervision tools on its mission headsets as well as on the VR game Horizon Worlds. These enable parents and guardians to see and adjust security features and track their children’s follow and other players afterwards.
But at the hearing, Florida Republican Senator Ashley Moody said she was unable to drive her parents’ control despite being the first attorney in the country to file a lawsuit in court for allegedly hurting children online.
She asked the former researcher.
“Not at all,” they both replied.
Mr Sattizahn and Ms Savage are just the latest Meta employees, making explosive charges about the company.
In 2021, Frances Haugen, who served as product manager for the company’s Citizen Integrity Team explain Instagram has impacted the mental health of teenagers but has not shared its findings, suggesting that the platform is a “toxic” place for many young people.
Ms. Hogan had copied a series of internal memos and documents before leaving the company.
Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg said she claimed the time she claimed the Meta priority profit was “just incorrect”.
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