Design It For Us Statement on Meta’s Boosting of Deepfake App and Rollout of Curriculum

Design it For Us co-chair Arielle Geismar issued the following statement after Meta announced a new curriculum to teach minors about spotting predators on their apps and Sen. Durbin pressed the company in a letter about a “nudifiy” app that reportedly receives “90 percent of its traffic from Meta.”:

“Meta’s terrible track record of accountability continues as it offers bandaid measures to stop the deluge of problems stemming from its own products. Meta’s new curriculum entirely shifts the burden of safety onto children, shirking responsibility for the issues they’ve ignored. Meta has an opportunity to tackle exploitation head-on by restricting its design features that recommend young people’s accounts to adult predators, but has chosen to let kids take the fall for preventable harm. Simultaneously, the company’s products are promoting apps that allow users to deepfake nude images of people while failing to address harmful imagery and advertising already on their platforms. 

“By testing their products on us, Meta has continued to prove that they see our generation as guinea pigs. Their plan is clear: they aim to profit from our pain. If Meta truly wanted to address the problems on its apps, they’d implement the solutions we consistently advocate for.”

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