A significant new court filing claims Facebook and Instagram owner Meta had a “17x” policy allowing sex traffickers to post content related to sexual solicitation or prostitution 16 times before their accounts were suspended on the 17th “strike.” The allegation is one of many in the filing claiming Meta chose profit and user engagement over the safety and well-being of children.

The description of the purported sexual content policy at Instagram is contained in a new court filing by plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit against Meta, Google’s YouTube, Snapchat owner Snap and TikTok brought by children and parents, school districts and states — including California. They accuse the companies of intentionally addicting children to products they knew were harming them.

The filing makes the same

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