Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has partnered with a bipartisan coalition of 28 state attorneys general to demand accountability from Meta Platforms, Inc. The coalition is raising alarms over disturbing reports that Meta AI, the company’s artificial intelligence assistant, could be exposing children to sexually explicit content and potentially enabling adults to simulate child grooming.
The group of attorneys general has sent a letter to Meta seeking urgent answers regarding the safeguards, or lack thereof, within its AI technology, which is integrated across popular platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.
Meta AI allows users to interact with synthetic personas through text, voice, and image exchanges. Some of these personas are created by Meta to mimic celebrities, while others are user-generated but approved and promoted by the company.
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“As AI approaches a historical inflection point, we must take every necessary step to ensure that our kids are protected from AI-driven sexual exploitation,” said Attorney General Skrmetti. “Meta needs to get this fixed immediately, and every other company deploying AI chatbots should take heed. And we all need to recognize that if Congress passes a reconciliation bill that suspends enforcement of state laws for AI products for the next ten years, this is just the first of many AI-based horrors.”
Recent investigative reports have highlighted instances where Meta AI personas allegedly engaged in graphic sexual conversations, even with users who identified themselves as minors.
One particularly concerning case involved a Meta-created persona, using the voice of celebrity John Cena, reportedly describing a sexual encounter with a user posing as a 14-year-old girl and acknowledging the illegality of such an act. Additionally, user-created underage personas have reportedly been implicated in facilitating pedophilic scenarios with users identifying as adults.
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The attorneys general have posed several critical questions to Meta, demanding a response by June 10, 2025. These include:
- Whether Meta intentionally removed safeguards that would prevent sexual role-play with minors.
- Whether any of these reported AI capabilities that allow for such interactions remain available on Meta’s social media platforms.
- Whether Meta plans to definitively halt access to sexual role-play for minors on its platforms.
The coalition is led by South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson.
Alongside Tennessee and South Carolina, the attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming have also joined the call for Meta to address these serious concerns.
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