"Horwitz exposed how Meta's internal guidelines explicitly allowed its AI chatbots to conduct 'sensual' conversations with children. A related story detailed how a cognitively disabled New Jersey man died of injuries he sustained in a fall after running away from home for what he believed would be a romantic rendezvous with a young woman following a series of conversations with a Meta chatbot."
"In one story, Horwitz showed the tech giant was knowingly flooding users with billions of ads for scams every day and earning an estimated 10% of its annual revenue from them, or about $16 billion."
"Horwitz employed creative techniques to establish some of the key findings. In one instance, he created an account registered to a fictitious 14-year-old to show the impact of Meta's decision to give bots the capacity for romantic role-play with minors."
"Another story revealed Meta's 'global playbook' for defeating effective anti-scam regulations around the world."
Reuters received the Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting due to a series of investigations revealing Meta's exposure of users, including children, to harmful AI chatbots. The reporting, led by Jeff Horwitz and Engen Tham, utilized internal documents and innovative testing techniques. Findings included Meta's internal guidelines permitting AI chatbots to engage in inappropriate conversations with minors and the company's significant profits from fraudulent advertising, estimated at $16 billion annually. The investigations also highlighted the involvement of Chinese companies in Meta's operations.
Read at Miami Herald
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