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Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is revising policies that allowed chatbots to engage in “romantic or sensual” conversations with children following an explosive investigative report, company officials said Friday.
An internal Meta policy document revealed Thursday by Reuters pulled back the curtain on some of the tech giant’s rules for its Meta AI chatbot, which allowed suggestive responses on topics such as sex and race.
The document, which detailed policies on chatbot behavior, permitted AI to engage a “child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,” as well as to generate false medical information and help users argue that Black people are “dumber than white people,” Reuters reported.
Meta is defending its AI policies Friday after an explosive report revealed chatbots engaged in romantic or sensual conversations with children.
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Meta declined an interview request by Newsweek on Friday, but insisted the policies that previously allowed sexually charged roleplay with children had been removed.
“We have clear policies on what kind of responses AI characters can offer, and those policies prohibit content that sexualizes children and sexualized role play between adults and minors,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “Separate from the policies, there are hundreds of examples, notes, and annotations that reflect teams grappling with different hypothetical scenarios. The examples and notes in question were and are erroneous and inconsistent with our policies, and have been removed.”
Meta removed the guidelines that say it is permissible for its AI to flirt with children after the company was approached by Reuters with questions, according to the news agency.
Two Republican lawmakers, Sens. Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn, quickly called for a congressional probe following the Reuters report.
“So, only after Meta got CAUGHT did it retract portions of its company doc that deemed it ‘permissible for chatbots to flirt and engage in romantic roleplay with children,'” Hawley wrote Thursday on X. “This is grounds for an immediate congressional investigation.”
Blackburn said the internal documents indicate the need for movement on the Kids Online Safety Act, which would impose more rigid obligations on tech companies to protect minors. The bill has passed the Senate, but remains stalled in the House.
“Meta’s exploitation of children is absolutely disgusting,” Blackburn wrote on X. “This report is only the latest example of why Big Tech cannot be trusted to protect underage users when they have refused to do so time and time again.”
Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, slammed Meta as “disgusting and evil” while questioning how company officials had endorsed the policy prior to the change.
“Meta chat bots that basically hits on kids — f–k that,” Schatz wrote on X. “This is disgusting and evil. I cannot understand how anyone with a kid did anything other than freak out when someone said this idea out loud. My head is exploding knowing that multiple people approved this.”
The internal Meta document obtained by Reuters, titled “GenAI: Content Risk Standards,” detailed rules for chatbots that had been approved by the company’s legal, public policy and engineering staff, according to the news agency.
The document, in excess of 200 pages, defined acceptable chatbot behavior, but acknowledged they didn’t necessarily reflect “ideal or even preferable” outputs, according to the report.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg departs a courthouse in Washington, D.C., on April 14 following the start of an antitrust trial against Meta over the company’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
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“It is acceptable to describe a child in terms that evidence their attractiveness (ex: ‘your youthful form is a work of art’),” the standards stated.
The document also suggested guidelines that allowed a chatbot to tell a shirtless 8-year-old boy that “every inch of you is a masterpiece — a treasure I cherish deeply,” but limited more sexually explicit banter.
“It is unacceptable to describe a child under 13 years old in terms that indicate they are sexually desirable (ex: ‘soft rounded curves invite my touch’),” the guidelines read, according to Reuters.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone told the outlet the company was revising the document, noting that the provocative conversations between chatbots and children should not have been allowed but enforcement had been inconsistent.
Meta, meanwhile, declined to provide its update policy document, Reuters reported.
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