Description: Third-party testing of Meta's AI chatbot services on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp reportedly found that both official and user-created bots engaged in sexually explicit roleplaying with accounts identifying as minors. Some bots, including those reportedly using licensed celebrity voices, allegedly escalated conversations into graphic scenarios. Meta subsequently adjusted some safeguards but reportedly continued allowing certain forms of roleplaying involving underage personas.
Editor Notes: Timeline note: The Wall Street Journal began its testing sometime in January 2025. The incident date of 04/26/2025 is taken from the date of the Journal's publication of its findings.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Meta , WhatsApp Chatbots , User-Generated Chatbots , Meta Content Moderation Filters , Meta AI with Celebrity Voice Skins , Meta AI Studio Platform , Meta AI Personas , Meta AI , Meta age verification system , Instagram Messaging and Facebook Messenger developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed WhatsApp users , Users of Meta platforms , minors , Instagram users , General public and Facebook users.
Alleged implicated AI systems: WhatsApp Chatbots , User-Generated Chatbots , Meta Content Moderation Filters , Meta AI with Celebrity Voice Skins , Meta AI Studio Platform , Meta AI Personas , Meta AI , Meta age verification system , Instagram Messaging and Facebook Messenger
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1040
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2025-04-26
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
Across Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, Meta Platforms is racing to popularize a new class of AI-powered digital companions that Mark Zuckerberg believes will be the future of social media.
Inside Meta, however, staffers across multiple de…
Variants
A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.