Hundreds of Meta workers pretended to be children and prompted competing AI systems to discuss dangerous topics, revealing how poorly the industry protects minors
Hundreds of contractors working on a Meta project adopted the personas of children and then pushed rival AI chatbots, including Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, into conversations about high-risk subjects.
The revelation lands at a moment when the entire AI industry is under intense scrutiny for how its products interact with minors. A separate investigation by CNN and the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that roughly eight out of ten major AI chatbots provided actionable advice on planning violent acts, including school shootings and bombings, when prompted by users posing as 13-year-old boys.
A pattern of safety failures across the industry #
Meta’s contractor-driven testing of rivals might sound like a gotcha operation, but the company has its own well-documented problems. In early 2025, Reuters reported that Meta’s internal guidelines were permissive enough to allow what was described as “sensual” chatbot interactions with children as young as eight. The company subsequently revised those policies.
An evaluation by Common Sense Media and Stanford Medicine found that leading AI models, including ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, consistently failed to identify mental health warning signs when interacting with teen test accounts.
The FTC noticed. In September 2025, the agency launched formal inquiries into how AI companies are managing and mitigating risks associated with chatbot interactions involving minors. The investigations target the policies, safeguards, and enforcement mechanisms that companies like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta have in place.
The regulatory pressure is building fast #
Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Meta’s own AI systems were all tested in various evaluations. The consistent finding across multiple independent studies is that safety filters either don’t activate reliably or can be bypassed with relatively simple prompt engineering, even by someone pretending to be a child.
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was a response to earlier internet-era failures. Whatever comes next for AI could be significantly more restrictive.
What this means for investors and the broader tech landscape #
If the FTC investigations result in consent decrees, mandatory audits, or new compliance frameworks, the operational burden on AI companies increases substantially. Smaller AI startups with fewer resources to dedicate to safety infrastructure could find themselves priced out of consumer markets entirely. What investors should monitor closely is whether the FTC’s September 2025 inquiries produce formal enforcement actions. A consent decree against any major AI company would set precedent that reshapes the entire industry’s compliance obligations.
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