Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge
Investigations into “child influencer” accounts on Facebook and Instagram have found that Meta is knowingly allowing parents who sexually exploit their children for financial gain on the platform — and in some cases, using Meta’s paid subscription tools to do so.
According to separate reports published by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Facebook and Instagram have become a potentially lucrative endeavor for parents who run social media accounts for children — mostly girls — who aren’t old enough to meet the platforms’ minimum 13-year-old age requirements. Several of the “parent-managed minor accounts” investigated sold materials to their large audiences of adult men, including photos of their children in…